When most officers go to officer safety or defensive tactics training they feel great when they leave. Their head is full of new knowledge and pumped up with visions of them using the new techniques they just learned. They may even tell their friends how cool the training was and encourage them to also go.
But when you look at most officers a month or two later, they haven’t changed anything. They still do the same things they did before the school.
Good training can be judged from what you change about yourself or from the change you implement in the department. If that change was never made then the training was probably just a waste of money.
Here are some simple steps to keep that from happening:
- List the best things you learned: Use this step to summarize the main points from the training you want to implement in your department or change about yourself.
- List the actions you need to take: Write out the actions you will actually do in order to change your department or yourself.
- List the goals you want to reach: Make some quantifiable goals for motivation. Set a time limit to reach them such as one month, six months, or one year.
- Evaluate your results: See if you reached your results in the time specified. If you haven’t, make a follow up plan and goal.
Below are some examples of this process for officers, trainers, or administrators. Skip to the one that applies to you.
Example for a patrol officer:
You go to a defensive tactics school and learn several new techniques for joint locks. You decide three of them are improvements that you want to use.
Your action list includes:
- Practice the techniques to keep them fresh in my mind.
- Use the new techniques during a situation that needs them.
Your goals are:
- One month: Practice the techniques for 10 minutes once a week and use each technique in a real situation at least once.
- Six months: Practice the techniques for 10 minutes once a month and use each technique five times in a real situation.
Evaluation at one year:
Do I automatic use the technique when necessary or do I have to consciously think about doing it first? If not then increase practice to once a week again and continue to use in real situations. Reevaluate again in six months.
Example for a trainer:
You go to a shooting school and learn a new technique for shooting one handed and two new drills useful for training new or problem shooters.
Your action list includes:
- Teach the new one handed shooting technique during the six month qualification to make sure everyone learns it.
- Update the lesson plans to use the drills while training new or problem shooters.
Your goals are:
Six months:
- Expose everyone in the department to the new one handed shooting technique.
- Offer a shooting school to the 10 worst shooters in the department and use the new drills.
Evaluation at one year:
When everyone qualified this last time were they using the new one handed shooting technique? If not offer personal instruction to those who were not using it and reevaluate again in six months.
Example of administrator:
You go to a seminar at an IACP conference and decide your department’s K9 unit needs to certify their dogs otherwise the public will assume that they are out of control killers.
Your action list includes:
- Research the different K9 associations that certify dogs.
- Pick a certification process that will reassure the public.
- Send the dogs to get certified.
Your goals are:
- One month: Have a certification process picked out.
- Six months: Attempt to certify each dog in the K9 unit.
Evaluation at one year:
Is every dog in the K9 unit certified? If not then decide if the remaining dogs need to be washed or retrained and attempt to certify again. If dogs haven’t certified within six more months then wash them out of the unit.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I always use my new DT techniques on the kids. They love it. At least that’s what they tell me while they’re on their tippie-toes from the transport wrist-lock.
Roll call/briefing training, from what I understand, can be very effective at helping officers maintain competence through the kind of short-term goals you mention. Good post – I think often we all start with the best of intentions, but lack the ability to bridge the gap between them and the end result of mastery.
Thanks for your comments Christa and JumpOut.
Christa, I think roll call training works well for bite size chunks of training. My experience is that the best topics are ones you can discuss like watching a dashcam video of an incident and asking everyone what went wrong and what went right. For trainers and administrators they can highlight a point with a video and officers have a better chance of retaining it with the interaction of discussion instead of the one way communication of a lecture.
For us, demonstrating a new technique that requires individual, hands on instruction like a joint lock doesn’t work well because the room isn’t large enough and they take more time. Others might have a different experience. Does anyone do that at their departments and have success?
JumpOut, you alway crack me up but you actually hit on something. Practicing on your kids is better than not practicing at all. Kids usually enjoy helping even if it is practicing joint locks because they learn more about your interesting job. One problem about joint locks is they learn the technique and start using it on their friends.
Practicing joint locks on kids or ‘significant other’ are a great way to practice. I have been in Martial Arts for several years and have 3 kids. The only way to practice besides the dojo is within family. They love it and are learning something important in the process. The kids know these locks are only for emergencies, and that is re-inforced each time its practiced.
As far as Police training, being an instructor (of something entirely different) for many years, I know that the only way to make things automatic reaction, is to practice it until its completely ingrained in memory, without hesitation. If someone chokes you from behind, automatic response…no timing delays. That takes day after day…even if its only minutes a day.
I’m all for Training clinics and upgrades, it will save your life one day, or your partners.
Excellent points Equinex. Thanks for commenting.