Active shooter class returns

National Park College will hold its second active shooter training class this week, following the success of its first training event in November.

NPC’s Community and Corporate Training Division will host the class from 10 a.m. to noon Wednesday on the campus. The class, which teaches businesses what to do before, during and after a potential active shooter situation, was originally held in November 2016 at Baxley/LogPro for the business’ employees.

Unlike November’s class, Wednesday’s session will feature open enrollment and be split into three separate courses — one for employees, one for supervisors and one for both.

Corporate Resilience Solutions president and co-founder, Travis Sorrows, who will serve as the class’s instructor, says he hopes that the new format will allow him to cater better to each group’s nuances.

“The employees say, ‘I don’t need to know all of this stuff,’ and the managers say, ‘Well, I don’t need to know all of this stuff,’” Sorrows said. “It’s more focused, essentially.”

The class’ open enrollment allows anyone wanting to learn how to both prevent and deal with active shooter situations to sign up and attend. The decision to have open enrollment originated with NPC employees Barry Ballard, a workforce specialist, and Melinda Thornton, an education specialist, who wanted to provide a more open way for anyone in the workforce to benefit from Sorrows’ services.

“We decided to offer it that way, because a lot of the companies in the area don’t have enough people to have him come out and do a class or to create a specific class for their employees,” Thornton said.

Sorrows plans on keeping his training the same as November’s class. The training he provides deals with preventive measures that businesses and individuals can take before an active shooter situation, what to do during such a situation and how to recover in the aftermath.

Sorrows emphasized that the prevention of such a situation always takes precedent over its response. He said that such prevention, which his class will address, begins by identifying the day-to-day events that lead up to the situation, such as an employee who is becoming psychologically unbalanced, and intervening before it gets out of hand.

“Prevention is always more important than intervention,” Sorrows said. “I train people in, ‘How do you identify the at-risk person at the workplace?’”

Another topic that Sorrows will address is how to deal with secondary issues that arise from the crisis, such as dealing with media and law enforcement and keeping a business functioning afterward.

“He addresses some of that to be prepared for it, because people aren’t prepared for it — they just hope that it doesn’t happen,” Ballard said of Sorrows. “But then when it does, you gotta have people at the place, and you gotta have some direction.”

As could be expected, the class will also teach its participants about what to do while the shooter is active. Sorrows said that he will discuss a range of immediate responses to an active shooter, such as avoiding staying in one place and making oneself as small a target as possible.

“I try and teach them simple things to think about before that situation so that they can survive,” Sorrows said.

Ballard said that the training that Sorrows provides reveals aspects of an active shooter situation that those attending his class might not have previously considered.

“He addresses some of that to be prepared for it, because people aren’t prepared for it — they just hope that it doesn’t happen,” Ballard said. “But then when it does, you gotta have people at the place, and you gotta have some direction. The training is unlike anything I had ever been exposed to or heard before.”

Sorrows said that the objective of his course is to encourage others to think about the subject as it relates to their workplace. He mentioned that he aims to put the information in a convenient format that resonates with those who hear it.

“I take the time to do this so that they don’t have to,” Sorrows said. “They can go, ‘Hmm, that’s good information. Even if I’m not involved in an active shooter, I can relegate that information to this situation.”