Trainers Blog

Do You Invest In Your Employees?

After completing the law enforcement academy in 1995, I rode with veteran officers so I could learn how to do the job.  The department did not have a Field Training Program. I only learned from veteran officers who were supposed to “teach” new officers. 

Out of the three “veteran” officers I was learning from (rode with), only one actually taught me how to be a police officer; not to mention he was a very different teacher from the other two.  

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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…)

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Trainers Blog

Lateral FTO Program Question

A recent question came to NAFTO in regards about lateral hires and the length of the FTO Period.  The question was should the lateral hires complete the full FTO program for your agency or can their FTO training be abbreviated? (more…)

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Trainers Blog

What Shape Is Your FTO Program In?

 What Shape Is Your FTO Program In, and Does It Reflect Where You Want To Be?

It has been a long time since most agencies have done any significant hiring so what will it take to be ready for the new officers when they enter your FTO training?  Most agencies will just dust off the field training program they have been using for years and be excited to get the new bodies in the field as quickly as possible.  Although this will work for the most part, and your agency will be happy to get the officers on the street with the same training as your field training officers received when they started out, but is that good enough for today’s policing? (more…)

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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…)

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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…)

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Trainers Blog

Creativity – Key for Developing Student Officer

I have observed that student officers tend to get easily frazzled with tasks that most field training officers would consider to be routine.  As field training officers we should try to recognize these tasks and develop training to assist the student officers. (more…)

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Trainers Blog

My First Day with a Student Officer

Without a doubt the concepts and principals of a field training program have evolved over the last 25 years. The value of a standardized program, offering the necessary guidelines and documentation, has more than proven its worth.

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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…)

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Trainers Blog

FTO Burnout – Article

Being a Field Training Officer is one of the most important assignments in each and every agency. Field Training Officers volunteer their services to their departments in order to share their knowledge and skills with the youth of law enforcement.

The Field Training Officer has first crack at developing the culture, attitude and work ethic of a young police officer.  A role that must not be taken lightly!  And most FTOs do not take it lightly.  In fact, most FTOs take their responsibilities very seriously.  In the year 2000 the National Institute of Ethics completed what was at the time the nation’s largest study of ethical standards inside law enforcement.  They found that the Field Training Officer was the most frustrated officer in the department. (more…)

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