We recently completed a POST-mandated CPT (Continuing Professional Training) cycle at our department. Part of the class was dedicated to Critical Incident Stress preparation (if you are thinking Grossman/Bulletproof Mind, sort of, but not exactly).
Disclaimer: I have not been in a shooting/Critical Incident in my career (I was sworn in 2010), so I have no first hand experience in what it's like to survive a critical incident and live with the aftermath (media scrutiny, investigation, administrative leave, more scrutiny, lawyers, lawsuits, etc.).
That said, our class was divided on whether this was a productive use of our extremely limited training time. Some people thought the class was great and allowed them to share about their own CIS issues which was productive and served as good therapy for them. Others in the class felt that the time could have been spent more effectively by honing the skills we need to survive a critical incident because the emotional training is less useful to us if we don't survive.
Since I've only been on a few years and there is so much great knowledge and experience here, I was hoping to get some additional perspectives on this from
other LEO's around the country. Is this valuable training or should we be working on DTAC, marksmanship, EVOC, etc?
Thank you so much in advance. This could be a topic of greater conversational importance in our department, so all input/feedback is most appreciated.
Disclaimer: I have not been in a shooting/Critical Incident in my career (I was sworn in 2010), so I have no first hand experience in what it's like to survive a critical incident and live with the aftermath (media scrutiny, investigation, administrative leave, more scrutiny, lawyers, lawsuits, etc.).
That said, our class was divided on whether this was a productive use of our extremely limited training time. Some people thought the class was great and allowed them to share about their own CIS issues which was productive and served as good therapy for them. Others in the class felt that the time could have been spent more effectively by honing the skills we need to survive a critical incident because the emotional training is less useful to us if we don't survive.
Since I've only been on a few years and there is so much great knowledge and experience here, I was hoping to get some additional perspectives on this from
other LEO's around the country. Is this valuable training or should we be working on DTAC, marksmanship, EVOC, etc?
Thank you so much in advance. This could be a topic of greater conversational importance in our department, so all input/feedback is most appreciated.
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