Local governments aren’t sure what do to either.  Spending money just isn’t allowed, because the fiscal future is so murky.  Agencies must provide basic services, so whatever money is available is being held to ensure that there is enough money for these purposes.  Everything else is extra.

Training suffers during hard fiscal times.  Training has to take care of the mandatory things like firearms qualification and mandatory retraining.  There is little money to do much more.  Sending officers away to training is also a thing of the past now.  Instead, in-house training or no training at all is what takes place.

In Florida, agencies get a dollar for training from each traffic citation paid.  However, officers are less likely to write citations when economic times are bad – that is the trend for the last thirty of forty years.  So those revenues go down.

Is there an answer?  Of course, I would like to promote the online environment as a money-saver, which it is.  But, it still costs money.  There is no trust fund or other financing that is available, so when there is no money, even the online environment isn’t a viable option.

So, it’s time to get innovative.  Trainers have always been asked to do what they do with little resources…now we have no resources.  So let’s get creative.  Go to the commercial side, search websites and blogs, and see what others are doing with little or no money.

It’s up to you.

There are a couple of things that are happening now at the same time.  First, agencies are seeing retirements from long-term employees as they reach the end of their careers.  Especially in Central Florida, agencies expanded to handle the growth related to Disney and Epcot and other theme parks in the 70′s and early 80′s.  These officers are now reaching twenty-five to thirty years of service, and are planning for their retirements.  Agencies are also experiencing intense budgetary issues, meaning that they either cannot hire or are reluctant to hire new officers to replace retirements and resignations.

New recruits in academy programs are hopeful of finding a job as soon as they graduate and pass the state exam.  Unfortunately, they may not be able to find employment as quickly as they want.  The “old” way of finding a job after the academy was to apply to agencies a couple of months before graduation.  This won’t be as effective any more, and recruits need to figure out new strategies for their employment search.

Many agencies have part-time programs where they utilize fully-certified officers in part-time slots.  Many agencies do not pay their part-time officers, and the work is not what we would call “steady.”  However, part-time officers have the ability to “try out” the agency, and the agency gets a look at the officer in preparation for offering full-time employment at a later date.  So using the part-time path to full-time employment could be the way of the future.

Agencies also need to think about how they utilize their part-time officers.  More later…

“Get a good idea, and stay with it.  Dog it, work at it until its done, and done right.”

“I believe in being an innovator.”

“When we go into that new project, we believe in it all the way.  We have the confidence in our ability to do it right.”

All these quotes are from Walt Disney, found on signs posted around barricades hiding improvements to Florida’s Walt Disney World Magic Kingdom.  All I can say is, “he’s right.”

Another of my favorite quotes – it’s on the door to my office – is “Change is easy.  Improvement is far more difficult.”  That one came from the father of the sports car company that bears his name, Dr. Ferdinand Porsche.

Being the best is a habit, not a goal.  Walt said so.

We are no longer the experts with a briefcase from out of town; we are the ones who determine exactly what needs to be known for a certain job or task, package it, and deliver it.  The skill set of being a great presenter is no longer enough; we also need to be able to design and develop killer training that targets the topic and hits the bullseye every time.

So where do we get these new skills?  What technology skills have to go with it?

Computers.  Multimedia.  More than just PowerPoint, we need to be able to design and develop media presentations in video, flash or other moving picture format.  We need to be able to work through Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and other social media.  We need to understand the new paradigm of communication, and leverage it to get our message across to the student.

Most of all, we need to teach critical thinking and decision-making skills.  I am not so interested in whether my students can parrot back information as I am having my students apply what they have learned in various situations and solve a problem quickly and accurately.  If they know where to find the information, and then how to apply the information, that is better than memorizing a bunch of facts and figures.

Think about what you are teaching and how you are teaching it.  Force students to apply what they are learning, both in your class and in other learning experiences.

Thinking specifically about games like Grand Theft Auto and Halo, we know that we can get into the game, interact with buildings, characters and events, and create interactions that the game isn’t necessarily driving.  So, why not do the same thing with training for criminal justice?

The short answer is – just wait a while.  It will come.  Companies that build these games operate on a large scale, needing millions of users to make the game economically viable.  But technology has a nasty habit of getting better and cheaper at the same time.  So here is a challenge to the game manufacturers out there.

Create a game in the same likeness as Grand Theft Auto, but make it from the cop’s point of view.  Let the user become the patrol officer or the crime scene specialist, and the user can then go out and solve crimes.  Now, here is the challenge…

Once this game is on the market, tweek it to the law enforcement training market – much smaller, but supported by the larger civilian audience.  Let the agency set up scenarios, and then turn the officer loose in the game to solve the problems.

It could be some great training.  Now, who’s up for the challenge?

The media has gone crazy speculating what this means to the world.  Terrorism over?  9-11 justice?  Al Queda gone forever?  But does this mean that scans, pat-downs, shoes and belts in the xray machine will end?

I contemplate this as I get ready to fly from Minneapolis back to Orlando tomorrow.  Of course, there will be no changes immediately, but the airline/air transport industry is continually trying to balance security measures vs comfort for the traveler.  The security situation has driven passengers away from air travel to be sure.  Others have just put up with it, hoping that it won’t be that bad.  Still others make a big deal out of the whole idea of being searched.

So what does this have to do with training and policing?  To stretch it a bit, our screeners need to be trained, monitored and retrained to find the bad guys and keep them off our planes.  As with any job, we all get a little lax after doing the same task over and over with no consequence.  Keeping your eye on the ball is difficult when the ball isn’t moving, collecting dust.

I just have to remember tomorrow when I go through airport security that I am one of a million jillion people that they see every day.  I have to remember to smile, say “thank you” while looking them in the eye, and know that although I don’t like it, our rules are there to help keep us safe.  They are doing a nasty job dealing with some people who are not real nice.  We need to thank them for it.

I am always surprised – and shouldn’t be – at how wherever I go, cops are cops are cops.  We met at a sports bar and grill in St Paul, down the street from the office.  Ed and his DT instructor, Josh, were great hosts, and I felt like I had known them for years.  After all, they are cops, so by default I do know them.

Cops – especially trainers and training types – are always focused on three things:

• How can we provide the best training to everyone?
• How can we get the most training done for the least amount of money?
• How can we find the best places for lunch?

Ed and Josh were no exceptions to these rules.  Good food, good discussions, and “gee, look at the time – we need to get back to class.”

It made me think about how trainers work and how they think.  Anything that costs any significant money may be on the “dream sheet”, but they do with what they have to pull off the best quality training that they can.  They pull it off by getting the best quality trainers that they can find and getting them the space, time and equipment to do the job.  They use innovation to adapt the conditions to the mission.

I am continuously amazed at the trainers who I meet from all over the world.  They want to provide the best, and are most concerned with the safety and competency of their students.

Keep it going.

Step one is getting them interested, even in classes that are required.  MANDATORY TRAINING are two words that strike terror to the heart.  So we need to make the training relevant to the students, so at the very least they understand why it is important to them.

Step two is delivering the training in a manner that they can understand, then helping them apply the topic to what they do – helping them decide how to use it.  We have to remember that APPLICATION of topics is a voluntary thing – we cannot force it.  We can force memorization, and we can force them to repeat what they have been presented on a test.  The real test, though, happens later…are they changing their performance and behavior as a result of the training?  That is the question…

Step three is followup.  This is where technology can help.  Email is a simple thing to use…you can email reminders, references to current events that illustrate points in the training, or subtle pushes to get the former students to think about applying what they have learned.  Subscribing to feeds such as Officer.com and PoliceOne.com can provide you with a lot of current information about what is happening, and you get it in close to real time.  So you can put out information as you get it, making it relevant to your topic.  Let’s say that you teach officer safety.  A story comes in that an officer in another state is injured when a person he was arresting broke free during handcuffing and beat the officer.  This can illustrate – in real terms – the importance of proper procedure during handcuffing.  So, using Twitter, Facebook, email, or other means, you can disseminate this information and remind officers what to do.  It doesn’t take much – a simple story, reminder, and a link to the complete story.

When you train, think about what has to happen to get your message applied to real life.  Then put a plan in action.

The courses are presented in Adobe Presenter, which is a program that allows you to take your PowerPoint slides and set narrations to them.  You start the class, and slides go by as a faceless voice reads them to you.  Occasionally, there is a quiz or survey-type question that is meant to see if you are keeping up.  Answer it right, move on.  Answer wrong, and it tells you why you are wrong, and you move on.

At Daytona State and other places, we do online training differently.  We use Instructor-led Online Learning, in a model that is similar to a college course online.  There are modules, quizzes, discussions, readings, web field trips, and most importantly, interaction with other students and the instructor.  Kinda like the regular classroom, but online instead.

In creating our training courses at Daytona State College, we created the Center for Online Public Safety Training attached to the School of Emergency Services.  Our courses range from sixteen hours to forty hours, with tuition prices from $69 to $239.  Our biggest problem has been with the perception that our friends at FDLE have created – online learning is sitting and watching slides go by.

Well, online training can be dynamic, informative, and exciting.  There is a place for FDLE’s brand of online learning, but for our more complex topics, we need to communicate.  Dancing slideshows won’t do it.

Do don’t think that we cannot do effective training in an online environment.  As our course offerings expand, more and more officers and public safety employees are taking advantage of what we have to offer.  And they are finding out that online learning is a good thing.

The program stressed the point that making the decision to get a kitten to add to the family was a big one, and that proper preparation was needed to ensure that the transition from kitten to family member was a smooth one.  They also said that the first few weeks of life away from Mommy were critical.  And training the new addition in a pre-programmed manner helped the kitty assimilate successfully into the new family.

Our new cops – rookies – are like kittens.  Yea, they’re cute when their young…

Making the decision on what kind of cat to get for your home – kitten or adult cat?  Rookie with no experience or an experienced officer?  Private person, shelter, pet store or breeder?  Qualifications are important, and where you look for your new hires is as critical as whether you find your new cat at the breeder or the shelter.  Advertise in the paper for new officers, go to the local academy to recruit new officers, or put the word out on the street that you are looking for experienced officers to jump to your agency – all effective, and all looking for a different person.  Some agencies pay signing bonuses for highly qualified and experienced applicants, and some agencies pay a “bounty” to current employees who bring highly qualified applicants to the table.

Once you decide where to look for the new kitty, you have to figure out what kind of cat you are looking for.  Aggressive, full of it, ready to go?  Lap cat, to sit with you on those quite evenings and purr?  The same is true for officers – aggressive, go-get-’em types, or more cerebral, community-0riented type?  That decision made, you need to look over the cages and find the kitten that is perfect for your family.  Going beyond qualifications, will the kitty and his or her personality fit in your family?  Your agency?  Is this going to be a good match?

Bringing the new kitty home is also a big day.  The program said that you should introduce the kitten into the home with a restricted area, letting the little ball of fluff get used to the new surroundings a little at a time.  We should do the same for the newbies – don’t just throw them into the fire, but allow them to slowly get used to the new surroundings.  Introduce the new kitten to the other cats in the house gradually, allowing them to get used to the new scent of the new kitten.  Slowing bringing in the new officer means that he or she can get used to the surroundings and the other officers and employees gradually.  This method helps new employees more smoothly get started.

Training the kitten is part instinct and part training.  The kitten will do things like sharpen claws, use the litter box, and play from instinct.  Help them understand HOW to do these things in the new environment instead of trying to train them to do something that is not natural.  In other words, take the time to help the new officer take what they already know and make the appropriate adjustments instead of trying to force a whole new set of rules.  If the kitten misses the litter box, gentle adjustment is better than harsh punishment.

Finally, spend enough time with the new kitty to help him or her get comfortable and start living life.  Don’t expect the kitty to be just like the last one you got, and expect that every cat will develop his or her own personality.  Of course, environment, caring, time and comfort level all help to develop the personality that works with everyone.

So, kittens and rookies…