Safety Division Courses and Workshops
Law Enforcement

Comprehensive School Site Safety Plans (CSSP) are designed to plan and develop strategies aimed at addressing various aspects of school safety on K-12 campuses. These plans vary state by state and mandates regarding their content and enforcement of their compliance may vary as well. In addition, these plans can be subject to annual review and changes to content required. CSSPs are created to include topics such as physical and social climate, child abuse and neglect reporting procedures, disaster procedures, routine and emergency plans for various incidents, required safety drills, school building disaster plans, discrimination and harassment policies, anti-bullying policies and procedures, risk assessment, safe routes to schools, reunification procedures, and more.

Your experienced presenter will walk you through the development of a sound plan, a plan that meets and exceeds state mandated requirements, and will provide examples of how building your plan in collaboration with internal and external stakeholders will be essential to the success of the implementation and acceptance of the CSSP. Your presenter will also discuss legal considerations of the CSSP and how your plan can potentially mitigate risk when an incident occurs on a campus.

Law enforcement professionals, in collaboration with community partners such as school counselors and administrators, are tasked with the job of keeping our schools, colleges, and workplaces free of violence and acts of targeted aggression, commonly known as mass shootings. This course offers a practical approach in the recognition and prevention of violence in schools, colleges, workplaces, and communities. This course is designed to provide the terminology, assessment, and intervention skills needed to identify a threat and develop a community-based collaborative mitigation plan.

Designed for law enforcement professionals, but inclusive of all community partners, participants will learn how to develop a violence risk mitigation plan tied to a multi-disciplinary team assessment. They will review concepts related to targeted vs. affective violence, transient and substantive threats, risk and protective/anchor factors for targeted violence, and how BIT/CARE and threat teams operate in law enforcement agencies, schools, colleges workplaces and communities.

D-Prep Safety brings together a team of diverse experienced faculty to tackle this course from the perspectives of counseling, law enforcement, conduct, DEI, Title IX, and human resources. We provide an intersectional perspective that draws from the best research and practice in each of these fields. The multi-disciplinary approach to threat assessment is a best practice supported by the leading governmental organizations and subject matter experts in the field.

More details on our Preparedness Page.

School resource officers (SROs), campus safety officers, and law enforcement often find themselves in the position of responding to both complaints and concerns that have criminal implications and those limited to school or college conduct and discipline policy violations (non-criminal). SROs and campus police should have a clear understanding and accompanying procedure of how to respond to both criminal and non-criminal matters as they impact the school climate. Successful SRO and campus safety programs adopt a continuous education process for the school community, so they can reduce conflict and avoid surprises. This understanding and education within the school then becomes essential in the development of formal and informal memorandums of understanding (MOUs) and agreements with outside agencies and departments.

Law enforcement professionals working outside of the school environment need to develop a detailed understanding of conflicts and miscommunications that occur when interacting with K-12 schools, colleges, and universities. The program provides law enforcement professionals the opportunity to improve their understanding and communication with schools and colleges within their area of responsibilities.

More details on our Preparedness Page.

Worried your child is being bullied or teased at school? Unsure of how to help? This discussion offered some practical advice with useful handouts and checklists to help to keep your child safe at home, at school, and online. This program addressed the challenges of talking to your children about bullying and teasing behavior that occurs in school, with friends, and online. We will share the warning signs to look for, how to talk about these issues with their children, and the importance of understanding how a variety of factors such as race, poverty, religious background, language skills, cognitive ability, gender, sexual orientation, appearance, and weight may make children targets for teasing and bullying. 

Participants will be able to:

• Learn signs and symptoms of bullying and teasing common at school and how these may also occur in the online environment.

• Receive practical advice on how to build culturally competent resiliency and protective factors to help protect your children from the impact of bullying and teasing.

• Review what to look for and how to respond when bullying and teasing occurs and increases the risk of self-harm or suicidal behaviors.

• Receive handouts, checklists, and online resources to respond to problems you may encounter that will help them move more quickly to find a solution.

Gathering information from another party is an important skill set that crosses over a number of fields including threat assessment, Title IX, case management, conduct/discipline, and law enforcement/campus safety. This course is meant as an advanced track, moving the conversation beyond the interviewing and intake skills outlined in our BIT/CARE trainings. Our team teaches from decades of experience with an intersectional focus on counseling, law enforcement, campus safety, student conduct and legal techniques.

More details at Threat Page. 

This course is designed for those who have completed previous threat assessment courses and have a working knowledge of the modes of violence, types of threats and have a rubric or system they are able to use when assessing risk and threat. We will share advanced concepts related to social media threat assessments, involuntarily celibates (incel), the growing risk of white supremacist violence, report writing, and threat mitigation planning. 

More details at Threat Page. 

Large-scale emergency incidents and disasters can occur anywhere. When they do, being prepared ahead of time is one of the most important factors in a successful response. This workshop will provide the tools to enable administrators, students, faculty, and staff to manage a wide variety of emergency situations.

Using the D-Prep Safety C.A.S.E. model, this training helps participants understand how a case moves through the process of the initial report, analysis, assignment of a risk level to intervention. We focus on reducing bias, development of an efficacious and efficient meeting flow, encouraging critical debate, and contextual analysis.

Team certification involves completing a series of trainings to move beyond competence to proficiency. The course itself is based on the practical application of team foundational skills, triaging at-risk behaviors, applying threat and risk assessment, and developing and managing a threat/risk mitigation plan through the application of effective interventions.

More details on our BIT/CARE Page.

When starting with a new community partner, whether they are just forming their BIT/CARE or threat team or have been in existence for years, we like to start with a needs assessment of the team. This process allows team members and key community partners to talk with our consultants via zoom, complete a quantitative survey and receive unique feedback on how the system is working and where there are opportunities for growth. When performing an assessment, D-Prep Safety looks at team functionality, processes and community needs from a variety of perspectives. This includes online surveys, one-to-one conversations, observing team meetings and reviewing advertising/marketing materials, reporting forms and policy and procedure documents. Our observations are brought together to create a report and suggestions for training and/or team improvements.

More details on our BIT/CARE Page. 

D-Prep offers a Community Advocacy and Support Team (CAST) training program to help support the needs of housing professionals as they address a range of issues including frustrations around housing shortages, tenant/landlord disputes, violence and threats, and the mental illness needs of residents living in public housing. This course should be attended by housing authority staff in contact with tenants and those in supervisory relationships with property management.

The CAST model focuses on the collaborative, multi-disciplinary process of identifying and mitigating risk in a culturally competent, timely and effective manner. Building from direct feedback from housing authority directors and staff, this course offers a way to consistently manage and document a clear process to address the needs in the community. The training provides access to Pathways and DarkFox (D-Prep’s behavioral intervention expert systems) to analyze risk and mitigate bias in decision-making through a lens of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Drawing on Dr. Brian Van Brunt’s work in his books A Faculty Guide to Disruptive and Dangerous Behavior and A Staff Guide to addressing Disruptive and Dangerous Behavior on Campus, this training will explore the difference between disruptive and dangerous behavior in and outside the classroom. The training will cover how to de-escalate a crisis when it occurs and the importance of sharing this information forward with your BIT/CARE team.

We offer a blended model of training with Dr. Brian Van Brunt to train your residential life staff in key crisis de-escalation and working with residents with mental illness.

The training series includes:

• An on-site training day that would address the topics listed below in 75-minute segments throughout the day.

• Access for all RA/RDs to five of the RA/RD courses listed on the Training Outpost website to be completed during the fall semester. Completion updates and a final report would be provided to the administrator.

• One 75-minute zoom training from the D-Prep team (topic TBD based on your institution’s needs).

More details on our Residential Life Page. 

This training includes aspects of critical incident response from the initial response, managing the scene, and working with the media. This course is designed to give all responding personnel the ability to work together during large-scale emergency events. Drawing from principals of incident command system, crisis communication and coordinated response, this training  brings together critical concepts from law enforcement, emergency response, psychology, and an all-hazard approach to critical incident response.

The central outcome of BIT/CARE and threat work is mitigating the risk through interventions, referrals, and connection to community-based support services. These interventions are the responsibility of everyone on the team, although some members may work more directly with students and/or community members. There also have been increasing numbers of schools, college/universities, housing agencies, and workplaces investing in case management and social workers to coordinate the intervention services being offered.

The skills needed to carry out this work include conducting an intake meeting, creating timely documentation,  and developing a risk mitigation plan that considers the individual’s race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, mental illness, physical disability, and religious and political beliefs. While many staff and team members offer these support services informally based on their history of positive interactions with individuals, having a formalized structure with defensible documentation is important for all of the interventions offered. By coordinating these services through the BIT/CARE team, we are able to better ensure the support being offered is tied to the level of risk, is equitable and inclusive, is able to bring about change, and is based on research and literature.

This course is ideal for BIT/CARE team members, law enforcement, resident directors, academic and career counselors, case managers, and orientation leaders to review the key factors in developing effective interventions.

More details on our BIT/CARE Page.

Being ready before a flood, hurricane, wildfire, mass shooting, power outage, hazmat spill, or medical emergency is critical to responding effectively. Given that there are many types of disasters and hazards/emergencies, it is important to identify what vulnerabilities and risks are present prior to the crisis occurring. One of the concerns DPrep has identified is ensuring staff and families have adequate personal emergency plans at their homes to ensure they are focused on effectively working as part of the implementation of the overall school, college, or university plan, knowing that they’re loved ones are safe and prepared.

More details on our Preparedness Page.

We all have bias. Bias impacts the way we see the world and make choices about how we interact with others. The goal of this workshop is to better understand and mitigate bias in our processes, not the removal of bias. This training provides an opportunity to explore how each of us sees the world and widens the aperture of awareness when working with others through assessment, crisis de-escalation and interventions. This workshop teaches the importance of improving the accuracy and validity of our processes as it applies to the three critical areas of gathering information, making decisions, and developing interventions.

More details on our Preparedness Page.

This training provides an overview of how to create quality documentation and ensure that your team members are contributing in an on-going fashion to your database. From avoiding short or emotional notes to being timely and non-technical in your descriptions, this training provides an excellent introduction and/or refresher to the importance of quality documentation.

Knowing how to successfully navigate and manage high stakes communication at a news conference, during emotional conversations with community members, during hiring and firing meetings, when discussing performance improvement plans, and within the departmental chain of command are essential skills for those asked to speak for the department to third parties. It is essential to have a strategy to communicate effectively, avoid blunders, and manage ‘hot spots’ in a way that addresses the third-party concerns while maintaining the integrity and goals of the department.

This course lays the groundwork necessary for organizations to respond effectively in a crisis or significant event. While communications delivered in daily situations are important, it is critical to understand the difference between daily communication practices and a crisis communication strategy. When done well, those communicating can build and sustain trust and effectively exhibit transparency and authenticity in their communications.

More details on our Preparedness Page. 

There are many ways teams receive and share information within the team structure and to other key community partners. This training provides an overview of these three categories of information sharing and the limitations within each of these areas.

This course training helps the participants navigate the challenges presented by faculty and other community members and how talk with faculty, staff, parents, students, and the general community about threats (while staying in the limits of information privacy).

This workshop is about learning the terminology that relates to gender identity and learning about other perspectives and world views relating to gender. Whether you are new to these ideas or simply want to learn more, we have a place for you in our classes. This training is not about shame, blame, forced change, demanded acceptance, or agreement. Our workshops have been designed to foster engagement for the purpose of connection, belonging, and safety for all groups of people.

Learm more at genderexpression.info

This workshop will review a wide range of challenging topics that are being addressed in our society including political divides, mask and vaccine mandates, social justice movements, defund the police, abortion, anti-Semitism, and LGBTQI+ rights.

We will offer a structured approach to engage in these topics with an eye towards civility, respect and principled debate. The conversational approach identifies hot-spots for escalations, prioritized interactive exercises and learning activities and the avoidance of name calling and other objectifications.

There is a very long path between identifying a suicidal risk with an individual and making sure they become connected to counseling services. This workshop will review the importance of looking for signs and symptoms of suicidal behavior and understanding how best to help them access services. Particular attention will be given to treatment resistant individuals (e.g., those who do not wish to attend counseling) and groups that historically have underutilized services (e.g., LGBTQ+, African Americans). The use of practical case examples and role playing will be incorporated.

Drawing from his book, An Educators Guide to Assessing Threats in Student Writing, Dr. Brian Van Brunt will teach participant what to look for when viewing written and video content that may occur on social media, over email or in creative writing assignments.

This workshop will provide an opportunity to better understand will define microaggressions, the unconscious manifestations of privilege that contain the potential to impact marginalized groups further negatively, using examples related to gender, culture, race/ethnicity, mental health, generational differences, physical disability, and sexual orientation. We will provide a process for addressing microaggressions, along with a discussion of good/bad apologies, how to avoid the perfection problem, intent vs. impact, bias, and cultural humility.

This course is ideal for both new teams and teams looking to formalize and improve their operation. Through open and interactive discussion, the presenters will engage participants in a discussion on the standards and strategies for deploying best practices for their team.

Topics covered include:

• History and philosophy of BITs

• Defining BITs – Three phases of a BIT: gathering information, assessment, intervention 

• Prevention vs. Threat Assessment

• FERPA and the BIT

• Team name and establishing the team

• Team leadership, membership and meeting frequency

• Role of the counselor on the BIT

• Team mission and scope 

• Team policy and procedural manual

• Developing a budget for the team

• Overview of objective risk rubric usage

• Overview of violence risk factors

• Data related to gun violence

• Understanding threat

• Case study application of assessing threat

• Defining core qualities of a threat assessment

• Differentiating threat assessment from psychological assessment

• When to conduct the assessment and who is best suited to do it

• Utilizing a range of interventions to respond to case by risk level 

• Discussion of ADA and the direct threat test

• Defining case management and who it serves

• Case management as an intervention and support technique

• Nurturing the referral source and utilizing anonymous reporting

• Record-keeping

• Team training

This workshop will offer practical guidance on the topics of managing mental illness concerns related to suicide and trauma in the community and/or schools. We will address common challenges when working with students and community members who experience severe, pervasive, and persistent mental illness and understanding the range of referral and treatment from outpatient therapy to inpatient treatment.

This discussion is based on the importance of educating your community about how to share concerns with your team. We will discuss creating brochures and handouts and look at examples of PSA awareness videos and BIT/CARE websites.

DPrep Safety’s Mindset Active Assailant Training blends the leading research in psychology, law enforcement, and military theory with our instructor’s practice and experience to emphasize early preparation prior to an attack. Through a trauma-informed approach to instructional design, we educate teachers, administrators, and other employees to increases awareness of their surroundings. This awareness improves reaction time and empowers community members to act rather than becoming frozen by fear or indecision. The Mindset program helps participants choose the best course of action, leading to a better chance of survival.

More details on our Preparedness Page.

We all have bias. Bias impacts the way we see the world and make choices about how we interact with others. The goal of this workshop is to better understand and mitigate bias in our processes, not the removal of bias. This training provides an opportunity to explore how each of us sees the world and widens the aperture of awareness when working with others through assessment, crisis de-escalation and interventions. This workshop teaches the importance of improving the accuracy and validity of our processes as it applies to the three critical areas of gathering information, making decisions, and developing interventions.

More details on our Preparedness Page.

Let’s face it, things haven’t been easy during the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of us have experienced financial hardships, fear and worry about an uncertain future and struggles to keep up with the pace of school and work during a time of intense pressure and uncertainty. This workshop will address the stress, challenges and difficulties faced by parents and students during the pandemic and offer some practical advice and solutions. We will address the challenges facing us all, with a specific attention to the unique challenges of raising a child in today’s pandemic landscape.

• An awareness of how elementary, middle, and high school children react to chronic stress, financial tensions, and academic and career uncertainty

• Clear and practical advice on what helps (and what doesn’t)

• Guidance on what to look for in terms of more serious concerns such as acting out, aggressive behavior and suicide

• A review of how people have experienced the pandemic differently when it comes to issues of culture, privilege, and access to services (such as transportation, food, shelter, and medical care)

What’s Involved. D-Prep is excited to offer a three-part series on the topic of Practical Leadership Skills in Residential Life. Each 90-minute course is aimed at residential life hall directors, training, and orientation staff to ensure they have quality access to the latest research, guidance, and advice from our subject matter experts.

Why It is Needed. After listening to several of our community partners, we confirmed that many schools across the country are facing experienced staff shortages in resident director positions. This means hiring staff with less experience, often with bachelor’s rather than master’s degrees, and placing an increasing demand on their leadership skills in management, supervision, crisis counseling, mental illness awareness and administrative and educational programming abilities.

Part I: Building the Toolkit

Our presenters review the importance of the residential life program and how it is vital, now more than ever, in student retention, academic progress, social growth, mental and physical disability support, crisis de-escalation, student conduct, BIT/CARE referrals, supervision, RA development, documentation, and community building. Few positions on campus have such a wide and deep set of job duties and this session offers practical advice and guidance on how to balance these responsibilities, grow a team and ensure your own mental and physical health stays on track.

• An overview of the full range of responsibilities residential life leadership staff must undertake

• The importance of being prepared before the skills are needed (referrals, forms, documentation)

• Keeping your cool: A practical guide to crisis de-escalation skills

• Working with community partners

• Understanding stress reactions and burnout prevention from the start

Part II: Building Community and Supervising the Staff

Building a community is no easy task. We will discuss how building a community for your resident advisors becomes a parallel process for helping them build their own community. Drawing from Fitch and Van Brunt’s book Leading Across Generations, the presenters share with you some practice advice about building a community and how to set up supervision with your staff in a way that works.

• Importance of community building

• Themed housing, counselor-in-residence

• From throwing FISH! and moving cheese

• Myers Briggs and Gallup Strength Finder

• Choosing your approach to supervision

Part III: Building Readiness to Respond to Supervision Challenges

There is a saying: every ship at the bottom of the ocean had a map. Sometimes, the best laid plans don’t go as planned. We will review how to approach seven difficult scenarios that come up for resident directors and residential life leadership staff. The presenters draw from concepts introduced in previous courses and discuss the importance of addressing problems early and often, what is required for good documentation, and review ten common RA challenges.

• Early addressing of behavior and consistent meetings

• Identifying common RA problems: overachieving/committed, need for constant praise, checked out of the job, home problems impacting work performance, argumentative and contrary, lacking inertia and initiative, strong start/bad follow through, boundary problems, and overzealous rule enforcement.

• Developing performance improvement plans

• Having hard conversations and termination

• Clear documentation

More details on our Residential Life Page. 

This course provides with you a layered security approach to keeping congregants safe. Houses of worship present a target to those planning violence against certain ideologies and communities and we have a duty to prepare to respond to these dangers. Our seasoned presenters will share with you the importance of developing a safety and security plan that includes both an assessment of physical security measures (cameras, fences, bollards, doors, refuge points) and behavioral threat assessment concepts (risk factors for targeted violence, behavioral indicators for violence potential).

The training is useful for greeters, ushers, leadership team members, volunteers, members of your safety and security team, and any community members with past medical, law enforcement or psychological training. Drawing from core concepts in law enforcement, psychology and threat assessment, this training offers a wide range of content useful for new and seasoned teams alike. From crisis de-escalation skills to developing policy and procedures to responding in the event of an active threat, this program will offer clear, well-researched and practical advice proven to reduce the risk of violence and save lives.

This one-day course spends the two morning sessions introducing and reviewing key concepts related to emergency preparedness planning and the importance of adopting a prevention, intervention, post-vention approach. Core concepts in physical security as well as behavioral assessment of threat indicators will be discussed. In the afternoon sessions, our team will share three programs developed by the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency offered in a “train-the-trainer” capacity, leaving the group with the ability to teach core concepts related to the Power of Hello, Crisis De-escalation, and Behavioral Threat Indicators. The course will end with a review of important response training related to an active shooter.

More details on our Preparedness Page. 

Attending to potential safety and security concerns in the community and schools is the best way to get out ahead in front of violence, crime, assault, threat, and danger. This practical and engaging workshop brings the principles of situational awareness into the hands of student leadership and residential life staff. This program teaches life skills that are applicable to college and beyond. 

Some practical examples include:

• Staying safe online and with cash apps

• Being aware at parties and knowing the risks

• Understanding the signs of threat and dangerousness

• Safety concerns at gas stations, in the residence halls, rural settings, parking lots, and at night

In this workshop, we will address the specific challenges faced by underserved populations related to mental health treatment and suicide prevention. Our speakers will address challenges faced by underserved populations such as Latino, Black, Asian, and non-traditional students, with special attention to the LGBTQI+ community. The speakers will offer an engaging and lively discussion on the topics with clear advice moving forward to better address the problem.

Bullying and teasing behavior effects people of all ages. The impact of teasing and bullying leads to negative self-esteem, increased feelings of hopelessness and a problem in both work and academic performance. This workshop will explore signs and symptoms of bullying and offer an approach to address this behavior through bystander intervention and empowerment. 

Participants will learn:

• Addressing teasing and bullying in the wake of pandemic stress

• Review of suicide warning signs and how to refer for help

• Clear and practical guidance on addressing teasing and bullying behavior through bystander empowerment

What should you say to your child following a school shooting? How do you talk to them following the death of a friend or when they experience trauma? 

Join us for some practical advice and a discussion with parents on this important issue. This program will address how to talk to kids after large critical incidents like school shootings, suicide or other traumas occur. This practical and interactive workshop will help participants better prepare for these conversations with expert advice. Drawing from best practices in trauma response and culturally informed interventions, the workshop will offer practical advice and guidance to help primary and secondary students right after the trauma and in the days and months that follow.

Learn the importance of preparing to have these conversations beforehand and the importance of genuineness and authenticity in your response.

• Discuss how to talk about your children’s concerns from a culturally informed perspective which is tailored to developmental stages.

• Receive handouts, practical lists, online resources, and examples scripts to use when talking to your children.

• Have the opportunity to share with other parents who have experience in walking through these experiences with their children.

D-Prep Safety works with schools, workplaces, colleges, and universities who desire to put their team through a tailored experience of working through a number of cases to receive a certification in threat assessment for their team. Cases are developed within general topic (e.g., mental illness, low level threat, outsider threat, relationship violence) and are tailored for the specific team working the case. For example, if the community a workplace, the threat will demonstrate a workplace scenario. If the location is middle school or a community, non-residential college, then that will be included in the case details.

Certification is offered through a process wherein the team is given a case with two weeks lead time to create a triage assessment of risk, score the case with a VRA process (e.g., HCR-20, Darkfox, SIVRA-35, WAVR-21, MOSAIC, etc.) and generate a final threat report including mitigation planning that will be submitted to our subject matter experts. The case will be scored on a rubric and discussed during the 90-minute zoom discussion.

More details at Threat Page. 

Learning to complete a threat and violence risk assessment is like learning to play chess. The foundational concepts are fairly easy to teach and understand, but obtaining mastery comes with on-going study, guidance, and experience. This course is designed to provide BIT/CARE team members working in a K-12 school, college/university or workplace setting the skills they need to understand the terminology and process of violence risk and threat assessment, practical guidance regarding interviewing skills to obtain information from the person being assessed and direction on how to write a report in a way that provides useful and accessible guidance to the referral source.

D-Prep Safety brings together a team of diverse faculty to tackle this course from the perspectives of counseling, law enforcement, conduct, DEI, title IX and human resources to provide an intersectional perspective that draws from the best research and practice in each of these fields. The multi-disciplinary approach to threat assessment is a best practice supported by the leading governmental organizations and subject matter experts in the field.

More details on our BIT/CARE Page.

This training includes an overview of key terms and definitions related to bias, unconscious preconceptions, microaggressions, and the trauma-informed perspective. 

We will review the challenges facing those working in the community and schools and will demonstrate how to mitigate bias and help bring our unconscious preconceptions into the open. 

Instructors will stress the importance of moving forward in a positive direction while avoiding the pitfalls of perfectionism and political correctness. We will define implicit and explicit bias and explore how our beliefs are derived from based on our experience, upbringing, school, geography, religion, and peers. 

Brief scenarios will be used to encourage discussion and reflection describing negative experiences related to poverty, learning disabilities, mental illness, physical disability, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, race, and ethnicity.

Required by California’s SB553 and recommended for all workplaces, these plans identify and mitigate potential risk factors for violence and include procedures for responding to violence and potential violence. DPrep Safety offers templates and can work with you to tailor them to your site’s needs. We also offer comprehensive site walkthroughs and can train your staff on how to prepare for and respond to potential violence.