We just wrapped up two workshops with UMASS Memorial Hospital Police and security, at their Worcester location. The workshop was the Boyd Cycle Threat Assessment and Management. In the two sessions about 37 participated in the training. The involvement of all present was outstanding and due to that interaction many lessons were learned.

The Scenarios Enabling Adaptability also known as tactical decision games is where most of the learning took place and we did several scenarios during both day long training sessions. In the end all present felt as though they learned a lot more about conflict, violence and how to develop and nurture their awareness and decision making capabilities in pressure situations.

It’s important to keep in mind that hospital staff, nurses, doctors and especially the security and law enforcement members’ deal with much more violence than is seen on most of the streets throughout this country. Emotions are high in the hospital environment due to illnesses, stress and anxiety that accompany those that frequent the hospital environment creating a less tolerant climate.

According to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), assaults on hospital workers occurred at a rate of 8.3 assaults per10, 000 workers. This rate is much higher than the rate of nonfatal assaults for all private-sector industries, which are 2 per 10,000 workers. So there is a definite need for threat assessment, decision making and conflict management training in this area.

Those that participated in the workshop spoke of several serious incidents that involved violence that could have easily leaded to serious injuries or death. We took advantage of the opportunity and critiqued these incidents using the after action review. Lessons learned of the value of the AAR as a preparedness and training tool were plainly seen by all who participated. Learning through your own experiences is very powerful.

This years workshop on the Boyd Cycle Threat Assessment and Management was presented to further enhance last years training, The Strategy and Tactics of Handling Dynamic Encounters which is a workshop designed to develop a strategic and tactical mindset where positioning, communication, recognizing the signs and signals of crime and danger via pattern recognition and non-verbal communication are utilized to help officer reshape the circumstances so they respond effectively using all options available in an attempt to resolve conflict through de-escalation.

The two workshops gives those who participated the tools necessary to continue in developing their abilities in situational awareness and understanding via the Boyd Cycle and utilizing the strategic a tactical mind over emotional responses. They learned how to apply their knowledge, through operational art to effectively implement strategy utilizing the methods and tactics they know.

The programs of instruction unify the approaches above in accomplishing the learning objectives, which include: Improving one’s ability to make decisions quickly and effectively; Making sense of new situations, seeing patterns, and spotting opportunities and options that were not visible before; Becoming more comfortable in a variety of situations; Developing more advanced and ambitious tactics; and becoming more familiar with weapons capabilities, employment techniques, and other technical details. Making full spectrum officers capable of handling the complex problems they face.

I have presented these workshops more than 100 times to various types of organization hospitals, colleges, universities, department of homeland security contract security, law enforcement, safety and security, hotels security including professional associations such as the international association of law enforcement firearms instructors, the Massachusetts Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors & Armorers Association etc. The material in these workshops is constantly evolving through the lessons learned via feedback from those who participated.

UMASS Memorial law enforcement leadership and staff should be commended on their initiative driven and adaptive approach leading the way, training and preparedness, preparedness that will help them in their mission of protecting and serving the employees, staff, patients and visitors to their facilities.

Sgt. Edward M. Gilfoy UMass Memorial Police Department sent these testimonials from his officers who participated:

“The class was great and informational. I would like to see more role playing. I would like to see more video's on police incidents and then discuss the issues of what went wrong and what was right. The tactical decisions was a great idea. This was one of the best classes we had so far.”

“As far as the class is concerned, I thought it was a great class and one of the best we had yet. The instructor was very knowledgeable and kept everyone involved throughout the whole class.”

“It was a great class and it informed me a lot about different ways to handle a situation. Although I knew some of the things he was teaching us, I still learned a lot. He also kept the class very interesting, and his idea of having tactical decision games was great.”

I thought the class was useful for my every day duties as an officer. I thought the class was also informational .I would have like to have seen more video on patrol incidents and discuss the issues of what went wrong or what was done right. All in all good class.