For registration and details see: https://ttpoa.org/advanced-training/specialty/courses/196

Here’s the course description from the TTPOA website: In this two-day training seminar, attendees will review advanced intervention strategies used during potential high risk incidents that may aid in stabilizing life threatening situations. This training course is designed to assist hostage/crisis negotiators, mental health officers and mobile crisis intervention team members and frontline responders, who will respond to incidents involving barricade or hostage situations, individuals experiencing mental illness, are in a state of crisis or who may be actively suicidal. This course will also assist first responders communicate with individuals who are agitated or in crisis with a goal towards decreasing the intensity of the situation by behavioral change. Verbal de-escalation techniques will be studied that may reduce the immediacy of the threat so that more time, options, and resources can be called upon to resolve the situation. Attendees will review advanced techniques used by mental health professionals to de-escalate persons in crisis, build rapport, and bring the person of concern towards behavioral change that will impact the safety of everyone involved. This course will review the concepts and techniques of crisis de-escalation and negotiation, suicide intervention and communicating with subjects suffering from mental illness, trauma reactions and/or in crisis. Training will also review the neurobiology and impact of trauma and how it affects behavior.

Training will include the signs and symptoms of common mental illnesses and the techniques, strategies and challenges of communicating with those experiencing various mental health issues. Attendees will also review active listening skills, communication barriers and overcoming them in a way that better contextualizes their experiences to aid in creating communication strategies. Attendees will learn to better communicate with empathy while employing crisis de-escalation methods.