This week I completed the ALICE Training Institute’s Active Shooter Response Instructor certification course.
Why ALICE instead of the other programs out there? Here’s why: The ALICE format is recognized in many states as the benchmark training course for preparing staff and building occupants for the best response plan possible during a VCI or Violent Critical Incident.
Here’s what it stands for: Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate. This approach is much better than the traditional but ineffective ‘Lockdown, Staydown’ methodology that is currently being used in a lot of school systems. The problem is that the Lockdown method has been proven to result in more deaths than any other option available.
I won’t go too deep into the program but the good thing is that this will augment the other active shooter programs I already offer. One is from Homeland Security, the other is from the USCCA. This adds the actual scenario based concept that the others do not have.
The first day was an overview of the program, the history, and the nuts, washers, and gears behind the ALICE program. We talked about the implementation, the training process for groups, and then put it into practice.
We ran a number of scenarios designed to empower and direct the participants into formulating a response based on the situation. I was grouped with a wide variety of people: One was a High School Principal, another worked for a major local corporation, two were employees of the host college, while the rest were evaluating the course for another college interested in hosting. The interesting part is that once they found out what I did, they were more interested in that than the scenario.
After the scenarios, we debriefed and headed back into the common room to discuss the varied responses that differed between each of the 5 groups. Interestingly enough, the variables we discussed were all available to us if we chose them. It all comes down to what you feel you need to do at any given time.
Day two was the meat of the program. We worked on building different presentations and then assembling all of that information into a powerpoint show. We all had to describe the setting and the options. Afterwards, the other groups got to ask questions and provide feedback.
Once complete, we covered the other safety and instructional policies so that we all could head off and be ready to start training our people and organizations.
All in all, this course gave me a good sense of format. The resources I already had were on track with this new format and I have already worked out how this will fit perfectly into our planning and course procedures.
The ALICE program is a solid platform to work on. Any school, church, business, etc can benefit from the training that ALICE offers.
If you are interested in hosting one of the ALICE Active Shooter Response courses, contact me and we can set it up.