EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS TRAININGS

A fire hose and extinguisher in a hallway

DPrep Safety is committed to offering well-researched training, education and consultation that stresses the importance of preparedness prior to responding to disasters, emergencies, and crisis events. DPrep Safety also has a deep bench of law enforcement and safety experts that make the team one that can address your unique safety concerns.

The DPrep Safety team offers a variety of courses that will help improve threat assessment, situational awareness, response to an active assailant, and bomb threat awareness and response. DPrep Safety can assess building security and safety, and present protective actions suggested through the crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) model. Whether it be walking through your space for a threat, vulnerability, and risk assessment (TVRA), or talking with school administrators or parents about fencing, bullet resistant windows or reunification plans, we are committed to offering uniquely tailored programs designed to keep your school, workplace, house of worship or college/university safe and secure and to reduce your exposure to liability.

DPrep Safety has a commitment to training law enforcement professionals, school resource officers (SROs), and crisis and emergency first responders to enhance their skills and enable them to be more productive and effective in their role to protect and serve. DPrep Safety has your six. We also have the experience and instructional design capacity to offer training in virtual, in-person, and hybrid formats to meet the needs of your department or organization

For more information or to schedule any of these courses, please contact bethany@dprep.com. Click "More" below for details on each of the courses.

AWARENESS

Attending to potential safety concerns in the community and schools is the best way to get out ahead in front of violence, crime, assault, threat, and danger. We offer trainings on situational awareness that can help you spot danger before it strikes.

RESPONSE

We offer trauma informed trainings for law enforcement, campus safety, and student resource officers in threat assessment, crisis de-escalation, managing mental illness, developing interventions, and diversity, equity & inclusion.

CRISIS

Our critical incident and all-hazard response trainings will prepare your organization to prepare for and respond to both manmade and natural disasters. We offer crisis media training for working with the press and public both during and after the event.

SAFETY

DPrep Safety offers safety audits using crime prevention through environmental design concepts to review your site for vulnerabilities and offer mitigation suggestions to keep your location safe. We can also help you develop site safety and violence prevention plans.

MINDSET

Mindset active assailant prevention and response 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.

WORKPLACE

Are you and your employees equipped to respond to violence in your workplace? DPrep Safety can help you develop and implement a workplace violence prevention plan and train your employees in violence prevention and response.

Situational Awareness

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

All Hazard Emergency Response

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 course will provide the tools to enable administrators, students, faculty, and staff to manage a wide variety of emergency situations.

All Hazard Emergency Response offers detailed and practical advice to better prepare you to prepare for and know how to respond to a wide variety of emergency situations. By emphasizing critical thinking skills and learning what to do before an emergency, the course provides the life skills needed to safely navigate a range of emergencies you may encounter.

Critical Incident Response

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.

Crisis De-Escalation

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.

Effective Crisis Communication

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.

This course will help participants learn to better navigate communication around crisis events and initiate a response from multiple jurisdictions and agencies. Our instructors will demonstrate the importance of understanding who releases information, when the information should be released, and how the information flows through a system. Emphasis will be placed on how to avoid confusing, conflicting, or inaccurate information being shared.

By developing and deploying a sound crisis communication strategy prior to a crisis incident, organizations put themselves in an advanced position to effectively manage communications with internal and external stakeholders. This, in turn, aids in defining how they can navigate an actual crisis.

Participants will be able to:

Know what to say and not to say to the media.
Demonstrate effective techniques and tactics during a news conference.
Know how to communicate effectively during high stakes conversations such as:
- Development and management of a performance improvement plan (PIP).
- Hiring and firing decisions and implementations.
- Talking with upset community members.
Build a strategy to communicate effectively and clearly.
Become aware of and avoid common blunders and missteps.
Navigate foreseeable hotspots in media communications.

Mindset Active Assailant Training

DPrep Safety’s Mindset active assailant prevention and response 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. Mindset helps participants choose the best course of action, leading to a better chance of survival.

There are many approaches to violent assailants and active shooters. Some prioritize fighting and defending against active assailants, others focus on early readiness and live drills to form habits and ensure students and employees know what to do before the incident. Mindset teaches proactive situational awareness connected to practical application. We build the habits and muscle memory to respond quickly to the level of threat and danger. We do this in a trauma-informed practice, which means we consider the past experiences of those we train and design our material to remove obstacles to their understanding and retention of the material.

The training educates and empowers communities and educational institutions by providing best-in-class research and practical techniques to keep students, staff, faculty, and employees safe. Those attending the program walk away empowered and prepared, ready to act.

This training teaches the importance of situational awareness and preparation before an active assailant steps foot onto your campus grounds. Every individual at your school, college, or workplace has the responsibility to be aware of their surroundings and to activate a community wide response when warranted. The response will always be more effective when there is both system-wide and individual preparedness. The system-wide response involves clear communication (rather than code words), lockdown procedures that improve survivability, and target hardening that makes it more difficult for an attacker to carry out their mission. Community members are provided the knowledge needed to improve their critical decision making and improve their chances of survival.

Foundations

Situational awareness
Preparedness: system-wide and personal
Run, hide, defend/fight: taking wise action quickly
Practice and habit development
Law enforcement interaction during and after the incident

Situational Awareness

Understanding approach and attack behaviors
Early identification of suspicious and out of ordinary behaviors
Learning the survival arc to reduce time debating the best course of action

Preparation

System-wide
- Common terminology, safer corners, locked doors
- Visitor controls, limited entrance, CPTED (crime prevention through environmental design)
- Covered windows, bullet resistant glass or film, school maps
- Keys for police/fire, vertical emergency management
- Crisis communication plan
- Collaboration with all first responders
Personal
- Situational awareness leading to a faster response
- Developing the survival mindset
- Body and stress, changes in gross and fine motor skills
- O.O.D.A. loop

Critical Decision Making

Cover and concealment
Elevated position
Rate of fire
Safer corners and fatal funnel
Understanding the fatal funnel
Lockdown versus movement
Lessons from past attacks
- Fire alarms
- Locked doors
- Bomb and fire threat

Active Response

What they need to know
Choosing run, hide, defend/fight
Identify items that may be used as weapons
Interacting with law enforcement

A Team Approach to Assessing, Managing,

and Mitigating Threat

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.

Addressing Criminal

and Student Conduct Complaints

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.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for Law Enforcement

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.

Site Safety Walkthrough

We will complete a physical walk-through assessment your facility and prepare and deliver a detailed report which will identify potential risks and analyze how to best mitigate those risks utilizing Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) concepts and safety best practices

A Review of Comprehensive

School Site Safety Plans

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.

Workplace Violence Prevention Plans

DPrep Safety partners with the Workplace Violence Prevention Association (WVPA) to help businesses develop, maintain, and train their employees on all aspects of a workplace violence prevention plan tailored to their workplace. This includes all types of businesses, including large and small businesses, retail and service industries, and schools, colleges, and universities. WVPA will help keep you in compliance with state and national regulations, including California SB 553.

Our Team

Brian Van Brunt, EdD

Director of Behavior & Threat Management

brian@dprep.com

Brian Van Brunt, EdD, is the Director of Behavior and Threat Management for D-Prep Safety. Author of over a dozen books, Brian has spent time as a child and family therapist, university professor, assistant deputy director of training at Secure Community Network, partner at TNG, and president of the National Association for Behavioral Intervention and Threat Assessment (NABITA). He is an internationally recognized expert in behavioral intervention, threat assessment, mental illness, crisis preparedness and response, and instructional design. Brian has provided consulting services to schools, colleges, and universities across the country and abroad on a wide variety of topics related to student mental health, counseling, campus violence, and behavioral intervention.

David Denino, LPC, NCC

Southern CT State University

david@daviddenino.com

David Denino, LPC, NCC, worked in higher education and college counseling over the past several decades and is director emeritus of counseling services at Southern Connecticut State University. David is a master trainer of Question Persuade Refer (QPR) and was the key person in bringing the QPR model to the state university system in Connecticut. A certified clinical trauma professional, David is also a Red Cross mental health first responder and is the mental health lead for the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island. As such, he has assisted with relief efforts for hurricanes Katrina, Sandy, and Harvey as well as provided mental health support at the Sandy Hook and Las Vegas shootings.

Tammy Hodo, PhD

All Things Diverse

tammy@allthingsdiverse.com

Tammy L. Hodo, PhD, has been working in the diversity, equity, and inclusion field for most of her professional career. Being biracial and reared in the Midwest, Tammy learned early on that race, although a social construct, impacts life chances and experiences. She has the lived experience of being both European American and African American. Coming from a middle-class family and being reared in a predominantly white space provided her opportunities she would later learn were not available to everyone that presented/looked like her. She has written peer-review articles about the experiences of minorities in academia.

Lisa Pescara-Kovach, PhD

University of Toledo

lisa.kovach@utoledo.edu

Lisa Pescara-Kovach, PhD, is a professor of educational psychology at The University of Toledo where she also serves as the Director of the Center for Education in Mass Violence and Suicide and Chair of the Mass Violence Collaborative. Lisa’s international and national level peer-reviewed and invited presentations include, but are not limited to, the topics of suicides and homicides related to bullying victimization, behavioral threat assessment, and school, campus, and workplace shootings. Lisa co-authored White Supremacist Violence: Understanding the Resurgence and Stopping the Spread. Her most recent publications address media contagion in connection to suicides and targeted shootings as well as the mental health and mass shooting myth.

Chris Taylor, PhD

Executive Director, InterACTT

chris@interactt.org

Chris Taylor, PhD, a 30-year veteran of higher education, serves as the executive director of the International Association for Care and Threat Teams (InterACTT). He recently left his position as the dean of students and chief student affairs officer at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio where he had responsibility for counseling and wellness, student advocacy, student union and programs, recreational sports, residence life, and student conduct. He also chaired the university CARE and threat team. He has served on the leadership team for the Association of Student Conduct Administrators, and has been a member of NASPA, ACPA, ACUHO-I, and the American Men's Studies Association. He is a trained Title IX adjudicator and has also worked with D Stafford and Associates as a national Clery Act consultant.

Chris Usher

Westgate Resorts

chrisu@dprepsafety.com

Chris Usher serves as the Director of Audits and Investigations for Westgate Resorts and has over twenty years of experience in law enforcement, government, non-profit, and security management in private security sectors. He has worked with the United State Marine Corp, U.S. Department of State, Department of Labor, as well as Fortune 500 companies. His experience includes creating, implementing, and directing holistic security programs focused on safety, protection, physical security, counterintelligence, crisis management, disaster recovery, and training.

Baron K. Brown, EdD, MPA, MBA

CPS HR Consulting

Dr. Baron Brown is a deeply experienced professional in the areas of leadership, law enforcement, public policy, national security and equity-related workplace issues. As a former diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) officer for a southern CA city, he brings both his civil rights and investigative experience from the challenging fields of law enforcement, military operations and higher education at the community college and university levels. Baron has supervised and managed in a large law enforcement agency, and served as an advocate and investigator in discrimination cases. This municipal experience in the areas of diversity, equity and policy were complemented by 12+ years of experience in the U.S. military as a civil rights officer and 3 years as a personnel officer. He is a well-established orator and has served as a public speaker for several non-profit organizations. Baron is impassioned about equity, humanity, and opportunity in higher education, having retired from a Hispanic serving institution (HSI) and visited 31 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in his doctoral work covering equity and opportunity and the sense of belonging for historically underserved minority students matriculating through higher education institutions.

Joseph Dooley

Southern Connecticut State

jmdool@att.net

Joseph Dooley has been Chief of Police/Director of Public Safety at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven, Conn, since 2006. In this position, he leads 28 sworn officers, seven full-time civilian personnel and 24 part-time University Assistants, all of whom are responsible for the safety and security of the university’s 12,000 students, faculty and staff. Prior to joining Southern, Chief Dooley served for 25 years with the Orange, Conn., Police Department. In 2002, he was elevated to Chief of Police, where he oversaw a department of 42 sworn and 12 civilian personnel for the next four years.

Amy Murphy, PhD

Angelo State University

amy.murphy@angelo.edu

Amy Murphy, PhD, serves as an associate professor of student development and higher education leadership at Angelo State University. She is also the program coordinator for the M.Ed. in student development and leadership in higher education as well as the graduate certificate in academic advising, both fully online programs. Amy has more than 20 years of experience in higher education and student affairs. She is formerly the dean of students and managing director of the Center for Campus Life at Texas Tech University. Her experiences include chair of the school’s behavioral intervention team, oversight of prevention and response activities for gender-based violence and discrimination as the deputy Title IX coordinator for students, as well as administrative involvement in student conduct, disability services, counseling, and enrollment management.

Robert Scholz, MA, LMFT, LPCC

The Change Place

robert@roberttherapy.com

Robert Scholz, MA, LMFT, LPCC, is a licensed psychotherapist in California and Arizona, as well as a consultant and trainer throughout the United States. He has served in many clinical and leadership roles over the past 25 years, working in university, community mental health, forensic and private practice settings. Robert is well-known for his work as a trainer and consultant in assisting schools/universities and communities respond to major crisis events like wildfires, mass shootings, deaths of students/employees and responding to sexual and other types of interpersonal violence. He serves as the clinical supervisor for the Route 91 So Cal Heals project, which provides case management, peer support and support group care for survivors and family members impacted by the Las Vegas and Borderline Nightclub mass shootings.

Charlie Taylor

Affiliated Consultant

charlie@dprepsafety.com

Charlie Taylor is certified in Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) and is a suicide prevention gatekeeper instructor through the Question, Persuade and Refer (QPR) program. Charlie has a long career history in personal management, interviewing, conflict resolution, hiring practices, performance improvement planning and employee termination. He has certification in Basic Incident Command System for Initial Response (100, 200), National Incident Management System (700, 800) and is a firearm instructor and competitive shooter with the National Rifle Association. Working in tandem with our DPrep Safety team members with expertise in psychology, law enforcement and threat assessment, Charlie supports DPrep Safety with interviews, physical security data gathering, and assessments as well training in situational awareness and all-hazard response during natural and manmade disasters.

Jacques Whitfield, JD

Sterling Consulting Group Ltd

jacquessterling24@outlook.com

Jacques Whitfield, JD, is a seasoned human resources executive with over 25 years of experience in human resources management. Jacques recently completed a six year tenure as the chief human resources officer for the Yuba Community College District. Jacques was responsible for the management and oversight of the human resources operations for the district and is credited with revitalizing and streamlining the human resource operations for the Yuba Community College District. Jacques is a subject matter expert in performance management, employee engagement and state and federal EEO compliance matters. He is highly accomplished in successfully working with others to develop professional skills and improve employee effectiveness through training and development. Jacques is a frequent speaker, trainer and presenter.