As you may be aware, IADLEST offers a National Certification Program (NCP), which serves as a standard for police training. As such, the program sets a higher standard of training for training companies—such as VirTra—and vendors to provide quality education and training content to our law enforcement nationwide.
NCP certification standards meet and often exceed individual State certification requirements, ensuring training is accepted by all participating POST organizations for training credit.
For this reason and more, VirTra has been submitting V-VICTA™—Virtual Interactive Coursework Training Academy—curriculum for NCP certification. VirTra is currently the only simulator company that offers certified curriculum for officers, which comes free with every law enforcement simulator.
With the NCP seal proudly displayed on the front of each coursework, agencies know they are provided with content that has gone through a rigorous approval process and meets most POST standards.
In addition to providing quality training to officers, V-VICTA certified curriculum also saves agencies time and money. Think about how many department resources are spent reviewing training, the time and money required to approve a single hour of curriculum.
Or consider the millions of dollars cities spend defending themselves or settling lawsuits due to lack of training and police wrongdoings. Litigation fees, settlement fees and court-ordered payments can all be minimized with officers who are properly and adequately trained. Officers trained to react appropriately to a variety of situations are far less likely to find themselves involved in lawsuits due to alleged wrongdoing.
However, creating these coursework materials is no easy task. When preparing to submit materials for certification, VirTra must meet a series of general requirements, such as: extensive research, citations, having correct knowledge retention format, comprehensive testing materials, scoring rubric, pre-test, post-test, class evaluation forms and much more.
Once submitted, the curriculum is thoroughly reviewed and vetted by professionals in the field. Professionals include some with Masters degrees in Instructional Design and Education Technology and years of real-world experience. Curriculum is then returned in a few weeks with any edits, comments and final approval or rejection. With approval comes a two-year certification and promise to our clients with the highest quality training.
To date, VirTra has submitted 17 V-VICTA courses through NCP with a total of 60+ hours. Our most recent certified curriculum was Autism Awareness, a combination of classroom materials and interactive scenarios designed to help officers distinguish autistic behavior from those that mimic others, such as indicators for drug/alcohol use or deceptive behavior.
This curriculum was co-created through a partnership with SARRC—Southwest Autism Research & Resource Center—and utilizes their industry insight and expertise. Together, this partnership resulted in curriculum that helps mitigate the difficulties law enforcement face when encountering people who may be on the spectrum.
Other critical curriculum created for law enforcement include: Active Threat/Active Killer, Contact and Cover Concepts, High-Risk Vehicle Stop, Mental Illness for Contact Professionals, Tourniquet Application Under Threat and more. Each of these curricula are NCP certified, ensuring the highest quality for agencies that implement this curriculum into their training sessions.
Instructors can train well, knowing all content is up-to-date, certified and designed for maximum skill transfer. To learn more about VirTra’s NCP-approved curriculum, please contact a specialist.
