The "HOW" of Training Strategies and Implementation

In today's complex world, business and school leaders often find themselves overwhelmed by the need for better and more frequent incident response training. While they understand their duty of care to protect employees and customers, simply being told to "do better" or "do more training" isn't enough. This challenge is further complicated by instructors using training methods designed for military or first responders, which may not be suitable for civilian organizations.

While this may seem daunting, remember that it's a roadmap, not a sprint. Each step builds on the last, creating a comprehensive and effective training strategy tailored to your organization's needs.

1. Start by examining your organization's mission and how safety and security impact it. This foundational step ensures that your training aligns with your core purpose.

2. Identify your critical assets - the people, places, and property you need to protect. This helps focus your efforts where they matter most.

3. Assess the most likely and most dangerous threats to these assets. Understanding your risks is crucial for effective preparation.

4. Prioritize your assets and threats to determine what needs immediate attention. This step is similar to the CARVER Threat Vulnerability Assessment.

5. Develop a draft Emergency Action Plan (EAP). This living document will guide your response efforts.

6. Create an overarching Skills List based on the major responsibilities outlined in your EAP.

7. Break down this Skills List into Leader, Team, and Individual Tasks. Remember, most tasks ultimately come down to individual actions.

8. Determine the Proficiency Level required for each task - Trained, Partially Trained, or Untrained. Some tasks need consistent high performance, while others may require less frequent training.

9. Establish Frequency Requirements for each task to maintain the desired Proficiency Level.

10. Review and refine your draft EAP and Skills List to ensure they match your organization's capabilities.

11. Develop a long-term training strategy that addresses your EAP and Skills List needs. Start with a CRAWL phase to introduce critical skills, progress to a WALK phase that increases complexity while reinforcing basics, and finally implement RUN phase training to test capabilities against your EAP.

While this may seem daunting, remember that it's a roadmap, not a sprint. Each step builds on the last, creating a comprehensive and effective training strategy tailored to your organization's needs.

At CRLT, we're here to help you navigate this process. We understand that every organization is unique, and we're ready to assist you in developing and implementing a training strategy that works for you. Don't let the complexity of incident response training overwhelm you - reach out to us for an initial discussion, and let's explore how we can help make your community safer together.