TCC Events

2023 TCOLE Conference - Breakout Sessions

 

Performance Analysis and Training Needs Assessment- Cullen Grissom

To present the participant with effective tools and strategies for assessing work performance and defining training needs. This presentation has been designed to familiarize participants with the terminology and methods of needs assessment. Participants will learn how and when to use needs assessments in support of training programs.

 

Building Media and Community Relations - The PIO and Beyond – Josh Smith

Effective relationships with your community and the media are key to developing the positive image you deserve.  ProResponder offers both basic and advanced Public Information Officer training to help prepare you for today’s media-driven world.  We teach the techniques and skills you need to be a professional responder.

 

Working with Multiple-Choice Academic Exams and their Questions – Joel Miller

This course will discuss the development, validity, cognitive functions, and the proper use of multiple-choice exams and the questions, or items, that act as their building blocks. The students will learn the vocabulary and anatomy of exam items, item analysis, effective item form, source references, and feedback processes.

 

Forensic Macrophotography – Tom Kimbriel

Combining chemical processes and Macrophotography to obtain extremely fast and extremely inexpensive postmortem Identifications via fingerprints in late stage decomposition cases.

 

Social Media and Law Enforcement – Brian Casanova

Social Media presents a unique challenge for law enforcement. This class will discuss how officers can use social media and open source techniques to advance their investigations, how to gain intelligence and how they can mitigate some of the pitfalls from having a personal social media account

 

Workplace Wellness – Alberto Valbuena

Working in Public Safety is accompanied by a variety of work-related stressors. More
specifically, telecommunicators encounter an array of issues that are detrimental to their
overall health. Telecommunicators are subjected to experiencing mental health issues like
depression, and anxiety, among others. It is imperative that telecommunicators work to preserve
their overall wellness both at the workplace and at home. By targeting different dimensions of
wellness, telecommunicators can begin to take control of their own well-being.

 

Employing Excellence – Recruiting and Keeping Your Best People - Richard D. Bryan

Explore new ways to recruit and retain your best people.  Hiring based on professional skills is good, but is this person a good cultural fit for the organization? Employing someone is a relationship commitment.  “Intentional Selection” is paramount to ensure the best fit for your organization’s culture. 

 

Tech-Less to Tech-Wow: Improve your Classes! – Lee Duren

This class will cover several topics to include instructor preparations before the class, as well as introduction of technology into the presentation. Instructor Presentations have been to long stuck in the past of a teacher standing in front of a class rambling on about the topic, and failing to engage with the students on more than an auditory level. Police officers now learn from technology and if we as instructors are not incorporating technology into our presentations then we are failing our students.

 

Beyond Bullet Points: Bringing Power Back to Your Point with PowerPoint – Antonio Zarzoza

PowerPoint presentations can be a powerful training tool for delivering information and ideas to an audience. However, creating a visually appealing presentation can be challenging, especially if you're not familiar with design principles, which is commonly the problem among most police/corrections trainers that often fall short on their presentations due to ineffective design and lack of visual appeal.
This proposal aims to address these issues by providing guidelines for creating visually appealing PowerPoint presentations that captivate and engage audiences with impactful presentations that go beyond the bullet points.

 

Leading Though Change: Strategies for Effective Change Management – Tanida Mullen

The workshop titled "Leading Through Change: Strategies for Effective Change Management" aimed to equip participants with the knowledge and skills necessary to navigate and lead successful organizational change. The session was designed to address the challenges that leaders face when managing change and provide practical strategies to ensure effective change management.

 

Driving on Empty: Supporting Tired Cops to Improve Safety and Performance on the Roadways – Stephen James

Policing requires officers to be awake at all hours, and combined with staffing shortages and increased operational demands, the job leaves many cops chronically fatigued. The problem is, fatigue is a major risk factor for motor vehicle collisions and compromises critical decision-making capacity. This presentation will discuss fatigue-related risks and explore how agencies can implement restorative rest and fatigue management practices to improve the safety and performance of their officers. Speakers will include executives from Georgetown (TX) Police Department and Delaware State Police, who will identify the challenges and benefits of their agency’s approach to supporting tired cops. This workshop is provided as part of the National Law Enforcement Roadway Safety Program, supported by BJA.

 

Who does 911 call after the call? – Bret Batchelor

As the first first responders, 9-1-1 telecommunicators are always the first to handle a call for someone's worst day but are often left out of critical incident debriefings. How do we change that? By creating a Critical Incident Stress Managment Team made up of Telecommunicators for Telecommunicators. Who better to relate to the challenges 9-1-1 faces than 9-1-1 themselves. This session will provide an outline of creating and implementing a CISM team for your agency, district, etc. Let's make 9-1-1 wellness the first thought instead of the afterthought.

 

The Best Solution to Agency Recruiting Challenges is Retention: The Key to Retention is Developing and Enhancing Agency Leadership, Particularly Among Sergeants – Dr. Marshall Jones

Recruiting and retention is an ongoing crisis in law enforcement. TCOLE participants (2022) reported 91% of agencies experiencing recruiting challenges and 90% experience retention issues. The long tradition of applicants seeking to fulfill a life-long dream in policing has faded. Today’s recruiting landscape requires a much different approach to successfully recruit GenZ. Agencies maintaining selection systems with infrequent testing opportunities, lengthy application processes, and long decision times continue to struggle. The key to overcoming the recruiting crisis is retention. Evidence supports the key to retention is agency culture focused on leadership development, with a focus on sergeants. This workshop explores the challenges of recruiting, the critical need to retain, and how agencies can bolster retention by developing good line supervisors. The Law Enforcement Leadership Pipeline Model will be used to highlight how agency policies, processes, opportunities, training, modeling, and structured coaching can build a sustainable culture of leadership development.

 

Five Questions to Understand the Fourth Amendment – Anthony Bandiero, JD

This presentation will ask and answer five questions which will leave the attendee with a better understanding of when Fourth Amendment applies. Additionally, the attendee will learn what it means to be “reasonable” and consequently constitutional. Finally, attendees with learn some of the major exceptions that will save evidence despite a Fourth Amendment violation.

 

Emotional Intelligence in Public Safety-The Science of Emotions in Saving Your Bacon! – Dr. Michael Goold

Emotional Intelligence is the science of understanding and controlling your emotions and recognizing and influencing the emotions of others. It's not soft or weak. It's a skill that could save your life, career, and family. EQ influences almost every aspect of public safety and is applicable to sworn and professional staff. You don't want to miss this workshop!

 

Instructor Development for the the 21st Century Police Officer – Josh Crosby

This presentation is for the incoming law enforcement instructor or training coordinator. For far too long, instructors in all disciplines have been passed with a "rubber stamp" and a certificate at the end of a class. As the industry and the culture around policing changes, we must adapt and overcome the challenges as peace officers.

 

Empathetic Leadership – Katharine Manning

Empathetic leadership is the key to building teams that are productive, resilient, and cohesive. Unfortunately, balancing the needs of employees with those of the office, while also meeting the organization's mission, isn't easy. This session covers the importance of empathetic leadership and the practical steps we can take to build an empathetic culture that works. 

 

Coping Behind the Console – Sofia Brabham

Someone's worst day is a telecommunicator's everyday. The types of incidents handled by telecommunicators range in severity. Some calls can leave lingering feelings, such as stress and anxiety. This course is designed to help telecommunicators cope behind the console.

 

Best Practices for TCOLE Course #7887: Interacting with Drivers who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing – Trevor Anderson

Approximately 3.8 million Texans are Deaf or Hard of Hearing, which makes TCOLE Course #7887 critical as this legislatively mandated course provides law enforcement officers tools and knowledge on how to interact with them during a traffic stop. This presentation shares best practices of providing instruction in this course. We will discuss how to invite subject matter experts and presenters from the Deaf community along with communication and instructional strategies. We will share our successes and challenges in offering this course with resources to maximize this course to best serve Deaf and Hard of Hearing Texans.

 

Brain-Centric Design - What You're Missing When You Think "Engagement" – Kerry Mensior

Brain-centric Design will show you how to arrange your course content so the brain will accept it, and present in a way that people love to learn. It’s not clever…it’s science.  What’s keeping your students from learning ALL that you’re teaching them? You are! Sorry to tell you but you’re probably turning the learning parts of their brains off! Come find out how you may be doing that AND how to guarantee you’ll be turning their brains ON in the next class you teach!

 

Texas Law Enforcement Peer Network – Dustin Schellenger

The trauma associated with police work affects all police officers and has contributed to record high suicide rates across the state of Texas.  It has been proven time and again that peer support groups can drastically reduce these numbers.  Despite these facts, 70 percent of police departments in Texas have no peer network or mental health resources.  The Texas Law Enforcement Peer Network was created to provide statewide peer support and culturally competent resources to officers no matter where they are in the State, while prioritizing their anonymity.   This presentation will cover the history, development, structure, training, and resources of the Texas Law Enforcement Peer Network.

 

Crash 101 for LEOs: How TxDOT is Working to Make Crash Data Less of Your Job - James Markham

TxDOT is constantly working to improve crash data collection methods to reduce the time and effort required for officers to fill out and submit crash reports. This session will cover the ‘Crash 101’ level overview of how crash records are collected, warehoused, and analyzed in Texas.  We will also highlight the current major efforts going on at TxDOT including the development and roll-out of a map-based module for crash location data entry, and a complete overhaul of the crash record form to significantly streamline the process.

 

3188: Legislative Update  - John Wilkerson

This session will cover the bills passed in the 88^th legislative session.

 

Dealing with Dysfunctional Teams  - Dr. Marshall Jones

Course description coming soon.

 

The Wolf Pack Outranks the Bully - Sofia Brabham

This course is designed to provide students with an awareness of bullying by describing bullying behavior, types of bullies, and different forms of bullying. Additionally, the course will provide tips on how to address and prevent bullying in the communications center.