Protect Your House of Worship was a two-hour classroom training, mostly slides and lecture (but also great Q&A). I feel that it was an excellent introduction to church (synagogue, mosque, etc.) safety concepts for team members who are looking for ways to improve the security of their house of worship.
We focused on:
- What to look for
The instructors touched on risk factors to look for and indicators that someone might be looking to cause some trouble. We watched (repeatedly) a short video of the West Freeway Church of Christ shooting and made observations with an aim to improving our own awareness and response. - Emergency Operations Plan
We looked at four parts of a proposed EOP (Deterrence, Protection, Response, Mitigation) and covered some specifics that might be relevant to our own situations. - Developing that plan
We walked through seven steps to develop an EOP. I believe this might have been the most important section for me. It provided realistic, actionable "things to do", including table-top exercises (once the collaborative plan is developed), live walk-through exercises (and review) and a full-scale exercise with everyone involved. And it didn't end by telling us to put the plan on the shelf and let it collect dust. There was an emphasis on regular review, revising, maintaining and training against the plan. This periodic revisiting of the plan is extremely important, whether it's an EOP or usher training, first-aid responder training or even how you expect your church greeters to operate. - A Security Checklist
We touched on outer doors, inner doors, safe rooms, not-safe rooms, lock-down procedures and active counter measures. This was another important topic -- having a response team trained in defensive skills and first aid. If there have been injuries, an on-the-scene first aid response might make the difference between going home or staying.
There was plenty of time for Q&A and many good questions were asked and many good answers provided. As usual during a USCCA-sponsored event, there was a recruitment/sales effort. And USCCA does has a good collection of other training and helpful resources related to this topic.
I don't know that everyone on your safety team needs to attend this class, but it wouldn't hurt. I can see a benefit to having 3-4 people on your team attend together and then meeting again soon thereafter to compare notes, highlights, specific items for review and action items.
I plan on using the EOP development steps to improve our own plan, and the materials and topics covered during this two-hour session will very likely improve that plan and our team.
All the subsequent ones I bought from from that source passed all the tests also, because I wanted to make sure it wasn't a fluke. So the bottom line is, if you can and don't want to take a chance pay a little more and get a well known name brand tourniquet.