First Responder Crisis Response Training

Client Need: A state emergency services and homeland security department needed training courses for first responders that met Federal requirements.

Challenges: The Federal curriculum was very generic; the courses required by the state were also being given to different training groups - university staff members, local Federal agency spokespeople, first responders in major metropolitan areas, and first responders in rural areas.

Vox Optima Says Yes: Vox Optima researched local headlines either directly relevant to or appropriate for each participant to build scenarios that would give participants training that reflected their job, and not a generic “one-size fits all” approach. During the training courses, we divided the participants into groups based on their backgrounds and gave them scenarios that fit their roles. This customization added only a few hours to the effort and made a tremendous difference in relevance and buy-in with our training audience. We went from a staid mandatory state and Federal requirement to high-value, engaging training using real-world techniques they had seen work in previous crises.