Advanced Crisis Negotiations Course

Professional communications and crisis negotiations are one of the most important elements when dealing with members of the public and persons in crisis. CCII has revised this course to reflect the recent changes to the Ontario Use of Force Model, with an emphasises on conflict resolution and de-escalation strategies and techniques, considering the subjects mental/emotional state. Having confident and skilled communicators can quickly de-escalate tense and difficult situations while building trust and enhancing the overall image of your organization and your personal safety. These skills are more important now than ever before especially for any front-line responder.

The Advanced Crisis Negotiations course for the Front-Line Responder provides students to the concepts and philosophies of crisis communications / negotiations and de-escalation techniques and strategies. It has been built on sound and proven principles from the law enforcement, academic, mental health communities and instructed by qualified, experienced and accomplished police crisis negotiators. This training course will equip your team with the proper tools to deal with challenging, demanding, and volatile interactions through non-violent crisis negotiations and intervention.

Learning Objectives Students will learn advanced skills Crisis Negotiators use to de-escalate, build rapport, and move subjects who are agitated or in crisis, towards a positive behavioural change. They will gain further knowledge, concepts and techniques of crisis de-escalation, negotiation, suicide intervention and communicating with subjects suffering from mental illness, addictions and in crisis.

Attendees will review the use of active listening skills in a way that contextualizes their experiences. The Advanced Crisis Negotiations for the Front-Line Responder will make students better service providers and overall better communicators and negotiators. The training aids in the reduction of high-risk situations and incidents escalating towards violent outcomes. Students will learn to communicate using empathy and a trauma informed approach, where applicable, all while employing crisis de-escalation techniques. This will include scripted job specific scenarios for all students to participate and apply crisis negotiations techniques and strategies, as well as personal safety tips, when responding to high-risk calls such as overdose and a psychosis induced crisis.

Upon completion participants will be able to:

Understand what happens physiologically and psychologically when subjects are agitated or in crisis

Employ active listening skills to de-escalate the subject and work towards lowering the intensity of the situation

A review of the terminology and the signs and symptoms of common mental illnesses and specific crisis negotiations and crisis communication strategies and techniques

Review common psychological disorders – Psychosis (schizophrenia) Mood disorders (depression) Personality disorders (antisocial, borderline, anxiety, PTSD)

An understanding and using crisis communication skills, crisis negotiation techniques and strategies when managing a person suffer from a psychological disorder and in crisis

• Review in detail communicating with those struggling with addictions and in crisis

Use various techniques that are effective in getting the subject to think and act more rationally while building a rapport

Review the impact of trauma how it affects behaviour in a critical incident

Move beyond basic verbal commands to actual problem-solving dialogue with persons in crisis

Review the steps needed to effect behavioural change

Review the benefits of active listening and empathetic response techniques

Review and apply advanced Crisis Negotiation techniques to communicate with a person who is threatening to harm themselves or others

Understand the potential benefits of slowing things down and using time to de-escalate

Review and understand the elements of a high-risk incident and the dynamics

Review personal safety tips and situational awareness.

Crisis Negotiation case studies use the power of example and experiences to teach negotiation strategies and critical incident response and examine the reality of high-risk incidents. Looking to past incidents where students can review what approaches the responders took, and how effective they were, will allow attendees to gain new insights into call dynamics.

CCII’s Advanced Crisis Negotiations for the Front-Line Responder is a 3-day training opportunity designed to provide continuing education, skills improvement, and increasing proficiency for the Front-Line Responder, which includes Police, Mobile Crisis Response Team members, Health Care / Social workers, support staff and Security professionals.