PITTSFIELD, Mass. (Feb. 13, 2020) – As part of the City of Pittsfield’s ongoing public safety efforts, Pittsfield Public Schools and the ALICE Training Institute have collaborated to bring ALICE Instructor Certification Training to Pittsfield on Thursday, Mar. 12 and Friday, Mar. 13. The course will be held at the Hibbard School at 280 Newell St.

ALICE stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, and Evacuate and is recognized as a valuable critical incident response strategy for those in law enforcement, schools, universities, hospitals, businesses, and places of worship. This two-day Instructor Certification course, which is open to participants both in the Berkshires and beyond, is designed to teach proactive option-based strategies to increase survivability in the event of a violent critical incident. ALICE strategies empower individuals to actively participate in their own survival in the gap stemming between the start of a violent situation and the arrival of law enforcement on the scene.

“ALICE training is vital to ensuring that we in the school department can be in a position to respond to any type of incident we may be faced with. We are focused on the continuous process of improving and fine-tuning our response and preparedness skill sets in a time of increasing school violence throughout our country,” said Eric Lamoureaux, Emergency Services Coordinator, Pittsfield Public Schools. We may not be able to prevent certain events from happening, but trainings like this effectively position us to react accordingly and save lives.”

Currently, there are four ALICE certified trainers within the school department.

Completion of the ALICE Certification Instructor course provides individuals with certification in ALICE proactive strategies, enables them to incorporate those same strategies within their respective organizations, and provides access to exclusive ALICE resources. ALICE is aligned with recommendations from the following federal agencies: Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Health and Human Services, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Department of Education, Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as various state government agencies.

Lt. Gary Traversa, of the Pittsfield Police Department, completed the training and views it as an essential resource in Pittsfield’s emergency planning toolkit.

“The ALICE model has been an extremely valuable addition to our city’s emergency planning process, for both government and private organizations. It provides consistent concepts that are easily understood, practiced and reinforced with scenario training, and repeated with regular refresher sessions,” Traversa said.

Local participants signed up for the March training include Pittsfield public school administrators and teachers, and members of the Pittsfield Police Department, and 18 Degrees (formerly Berkshire Children and Families). Additional registrants include educators from Brooklyn, N.Y., upstate New York, and Hartford, CT.

For more information about the upcoming trainings or to register, please call the ALICE Training Institute at 330-661-0106.

(press release sent to the radio station from the City of Pittsfield for online and on-air use, article image taken from the official Alice Training Institute Facebook page

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