Training Police
Training for Police Officers & Departments
SFY, with experts from the Children & Adolescent Psychiatry Department of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) provides officer training to translate cutting edge psychiatric practice and neurological research into practical skills for officers to improve, facilitate and help de-escalate interactions with children and youth. These trainings are targeted for patrol officers as well as officers on specialized units.
Police Training Courses
Each Training Includes:
- Command/Management Staff briefing (2-4 hours)
- Lectures, scenario-based examples, and interactive discussions, use of films and skits involving community youth
- Baseline and post-training evaluations of officers’ attitudes and knowledge of core competencies for each training.
- For more information on core training components, click here.
Training Prices
Prices vary according to the number of officers to be trained and location. SFY provides trainings on site as well as at MGH in Boston, MA. A minimum of 30 officers are required to conduct a training.
Courses and Descriptions
Policing the Teen Brain
Targeted to: Patrol Officers & Command Staff
Duration: 14 hours
This training provides officers with an intensive overview of how neurological changes occurring in teens' brains explain many of their hard-to-police behaviors. Through interactive discussions with adolescent development experts and psychiatrists, using films and community youth as "teaching assistants" officers learn how to assert authority using alternative techniques and "tricks" to increase compliance from teens and de-escalate and defuse volatile situations. Officers receive training to recognize prevalent mental health issues among teens, and learn ice breakers for developing relationships with them. In addition, the training provides an overview of juvenile law for law enforcement, with a special emphasis on Miranda, interrogation practices, and use of detention.
Core Competencies:
- Key Issues in Normative Child & Adolescent Development
- Key Issues in Mental Health Issues for Youth
- Key Issues in Juvenile Delinquency Law
- Strategies for Mitigating Demographic & Cultural Influences on Teens
- Strategies for Asserting Authority Effectively with Juveniles
- Strategies for Responding to Challenges to Authority & Allegations of Racial Bias
Policing the Teen Brain in Schools
Targeted to: School Resource Officers
Duration: 14 hours
More and more police work in the nation’s public schools. But the patrol car beat and the school hallway require different frames of mind and skill sets. The SFY training teaches officers working in schools various methods of positive intervention, without recourse to arrest or use of restraints, and how to work with youth in special education classes. Through interactive lectures, scenario-based examples, and discussions with child and adolescent psychiatrists who are expert in learning disabilities, officers will learn how to identify the behavioral components of such disabilities, intervene successfully with such youth, and promote relationship development between law enforcement, students, and school administration.
Core Competencies:
- Key Issues in Normative Child and Adolescent Development
- Key Issues in Special Education
- Key Issues in SpEd and School Law for Law Enforcement
- Strategies for School Discipline & School-Based Juvenile Offending
- Strategies for Developing & Maintaining Relationships with Youth in Schools
Policing Youth on Public Transit
Targeted to: Transit Police Officers
Duration: 14 hours
Transit systems are increasingly used to transport youth to and from schools. Large groups of youth with unstructured time on their hands, anonymous stations, and understaffed transit police agencies can spell trouble. SFY provides officer training and tactics for deployment approaches that reduce the anonymity of transit locations. SFY also helps departments do more with less through replication of programs like StopWatch and building partnerships with youth-serving community agencies.
Core Competencies:
- Key Issues in Normative Child & Adolescent Development
- Strategies for Addressing Anonymity & Relationship Building with Youth
- Strategies for Asserting Authority Effectively & Building relationships with Youth
- Strategies for Responding to Challenges to Authority & Allegations of Racial Bias
- Strategies for “Ownership” Deployment and Community Policing with Youth-Serving Community Based Organizations
Policing Youth Chronically Exposed to Trauma & Violence
Targeted to: Patrol Officers/School Resource Officers/Family Unit Officers
Duration: 14-21 hours
Research among youth chronically exposed to domestic and community violence suggests that such exposure has traumatic impacts on youth that leads them to respond to with heightened levels of violence. This often leads to higher rates of offending and vicious cycles of violence that police are deployed to stop often leading to use of force to prevent escalation of the interaction. Understanding how the teen brain perceives such threats and responds to them is critical information for officers addressing and interacting with youth living in such environments. This training provides an understanding of trauma and its consequences on individual and youth group behavior as well as individual and collective strategies to reduce the recurrence of violent confrontations and reduce departmental liabilities.
Core Competencies:
- Key Issues in Normative Child & Adolescent Development
- Key Issues in Trauma’s Impact on Child & Adolescent Development & Behavior
- Strategies for Working with Traumatized Youth
- Strategies for Intervening & Preventing Violence in areas of High Community Violence
Policing Girls
Targeted to: Patrol officers
Duration: 7 hours
Increasingly policing girls has become a source of concern, frustration for officers who perceive troubling changes in levels of girls aggression. The gender difference between the majority of police officers and girls may exacerbate concern and escalate interactions. This training helps officers place girls’ conduct in perspective, provides insights into the cultural issues that seem to inflame girls’ interactions with each other, connects the dots between victimization and victimizing behaviors, and provides practical strategies for intervening and working with girls in schools, on the street, and in cases of domestic violence.
Core Competencies:
- Key Issues in Adolescent Girls Normative Development
- Key Issues in Mental Health Issues for Girls with a special focus on
- Trauma, Depression, Anxiety and Bipolar Disorder
- Key Issues in Cultural Triggers in Disputes Among Girls
- Key Legal Issues in Treatment of Girls in the Juvenile Justice System
- Strategies for Asserting Authority Effectively with Girls
- Strategies for Responding to Challenges to Authority & Allegations of Racial Bias & Sexual Harassment
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