Officer In Training

November 22, 2017• Trainers Blog

Intelligence Based Training

Intelligence-Based Training has a place in training Student Officers. Do you use Intelligence-Based Training in your agency?

Field Training Officers are integral to the future and success of not only each individual student officer they mentor but to the overall success and legitimacy of the agency as a whole. We know the face of any agency is the patrol officer. How these patrol officers present that face to the public falls squarely on the shoulders of the Field Training Program collectively, and each FTO individually. (more…)

March 30, 2015• Trainers Blog

Texting vs Talking

After attending the NAFTO Conference in Washington State and attending the class “Generational Differences” I not only found out how old I was, but there was a significant generational gap between me and my trainee’s. In an effort to close the gap, not in age, but in knowledge I found myself looking up Twitter, Facebook and Instagram just to see how they worked. In my futile effort to understand it all, I found a lot of people freely expressing themselves. I thought if they were willing to be that expressive on a computer then they would have no problem talking with other human beings; boy was I wrong. (more…)

December 16, 2014• Trainers Blog

Leadership FTO vs Sgt.

About seven years ago I wrote an “FTO Manual” for newly appointed Sergeants & Acting Sergeants for my department. The entire manual was based off the principals and concepts I have been teaching for about 20 years as a Washington State FTO Academy instructor.

I wrote this article as an introduction to the manual. It outlines some concepts and principals about leadership I felt were basic, but important to a new sergeant. While writing the article I realized that any point you could substitute the word sergeant for FTO and it would all still hold true. I think if you read it from the perspective of being an FTO you’ll agree. (more…)

November 18, 2014• Trainers Blog

Probationary Release: It’s Not Easy!

Over the course of the last seven years managing our Field Training Unit, I’ve been forced to make a multitude of difficult decisions. Luckily, it’s what I have trained myself to do. I cross my fingers most every day and hope that training and experience has helped me make the right decision. I recently made yet another difficult decision. That decision was to recommend a Probationary Release for one of our new Officers in Training. This was the fifth time in my tenure as the unit leader that I had to make such a recommendation, and I took note that the training and experience I’ve had on this topic did not make it any easier to handle such a bleak decision. (more…)

National Association of Field Training Officers