Seminars and Training

Our classes are built on the foundation of decades of practical experience in law enforcement, public safety, and clinical care. They were developed through extensive research with, and direct input from, first responder focus groups.

Please contact us through the “Learn More” buttons below to ask about training your own personnel at no cost by hosting any of these seminars at your agency.

Crisis Courses

Assisting Individuals and Groups During a Critical Incident
- A three-day certificate workshop on the essential group skills needed for Critical Incident Response. This workshop will also teach how to effectively manage Individuals in Crisis and how to provide peer support to emergency services workers.

Best Practices in Critical Incident Response
- This is a comprehensive one-day course which will help the trained individual develop proficiency in critical incident care as well as introduce the novice to the psychology behind crisis counseling.
Line of Duty Death
- This program provides insight into the effects of a Line of Duty Death for emergency services workers as well as helps agencies develop protocols for a Line of Duty Death.
Working with Traumatic Events
- This program explores the history and science behind traumatic events providing practical information and strategies for working with man-made and natural disasters.
Crisis Management in Universities
- This program helps to recognize the need for a crisis management plan in universities as well as teach the basic steps in the development and utilization of a plan. This program will also explore the nature of a crisis in a university and how to help the student body recover from a critical incident.
Crisis Management Action Planning
- This program helps to recognize the need for a crisis management plan as well as teach the basic steps in the development and utilization of a plan.
Excited Delirium
- This program explores the nature, signs, risk factors, symptoms and causes of Excited Delirium as well as provide strategies to avoid Sudden Custody Death Syndrome (SCDS)
Understanding Psychotropic Medications
- This program is a basic introduction to the different classes, side effects, and proper treatment of psychotropic medications.
School Shooting and Violence
- This program explores the nature, causes, and reactions of school violence and shootings and proposes possible action plans and strategies for avoiding those situations.
Effective Leadership
- This program aims at building essential leadership and communication skills for emergency services workers.
How to Manage Reactions to Man Made and Natural Disasters
- This program is designed specifically for Emergency Services workers who work with man-made and natural disasters. This program will help the worker develop and maintain a sense of balance and resilience through the most difficult of situations.
Police Communication and Crisis
- This program is designed to identify the role of communication in crisis intervention, to understand communication techniques for establishing rapport, calming, and defusing, to describe strategies for working with mentally ill, developmentally disabled, hostile people and witnesses, to explain the effects of crises & trauma on officer health and to identify practices for healthy communication with self and others for stress inoculation
Hurricane/Tornado Workers - staying safe in a hostile environment
- This program is designed to provide hurricane/tornado workers with the necessary tools to work in hostile environments while ensuring their mental and physical well-being.
Avoiding Vicarious Traumatization
- This program is designed to help emergency services workers and disaster mental health specialists to avoid the pitfalls and damaging effects of Vicarious Traumatization.
Law Enforcement Perspectives in Critical Incident Response
- Designed to provide insight and understanding of the different types of stress in law enforcement culture from a systems perspectives emphasis. This course will provide practical information in providing crisis intervention services to law enforcement organizations and individual personnel in crisis.

Warrior to Guardian : Veterans Returning to Civilian Law Enforcement
- We developed this class to help address the specific needs of men and women transitioning to, or back to, civilian law enforcement after serving in the military. Separately, each of these groups experiences high incidence of traumatic experiences; combining their experiences creates a special set of unique challenges. This seminar will prepare peer supporters, supervisors, and managers to recognize and assist with those challenges.

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Understanding First Responders: Tools for Effective Evaluation and Treatment

BRAND NEW First Responder Seminar for Clinicians

Brought to you by CIRS & The Trauma Survivors Foundation.

This two-day course was specifically designed for clinicians who treat or who wish to treat first responders in their professional practice.

First Responders (Police, Firefighters, EMS, Corrections, Dispatch, etc.) comprise a very unique sub-culture of our society.

The daily challenges faced by First Responders create an unimaginable amount of stress on their bodies, minds, and families. These challenges also create an “Us vs. Them” mentality which is often seen as guarded or “closed” to conventional therapeutic practices. The traditional approaches to the treatment and evaluation can fall short when working with First Responders, so Critical Incident Response Strategies & The Trauma Survivors Foundation has created Unique, Innovative and Educational Seminars to help you adapt your therapeutic approach to help First Responders and achieve more successful outcomes.

Successful treatment requires a compassionate therapeutic relationship and effective, research-based interventions. After this two-day workshop you will learn how to:

Differentiate the cultures associated with Police, Fire, and Emergency Medicine

Develop a rapport, mutual understanding, and trust with First Responders

Understand the myths associated with working with First Responders

Gain an appreciation and reverence for traditions in the different First Responder cultures

Understand and hopefully break the “wall of silence”

Develop an understanding of how to effectively create useful integrative trauma treatment plan

Develop an understanding of how to effectively counsel a First Responder through a Line of Duty Death

Target Audience

Counselors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Psychiatrists
Case Managers
Addiction Counselors
Marriage & Family Therapists
Mental Health Professionals
Nurses
Physicians

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Customized Training and Services

We also offer services to help with building, growing, and/or mentoring a peer support team for your agency.

We are available to assist with debriefings and critical incident responses for agencies with limited resources or newer teams when your resources are overwhelmed or you feel outside providers would be preferable to an intra-agency response. For example, in cases of a mass casualty or natural disaster incident involving many of your own personnel.

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Meet Our Trainers

Dennis J. Carradin, Jr.

Dennis Carradin is a Licensed Professional Counselor of Mental Health, a Nationally Certified Counselor, a Board Certified Expert in Traumatic Stress, and a Diplomate for the American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress.

Currently, he is the Executive Director of New Perspectives, Inc., a private counseling agency in Delaware, and has served on the faculty of Penn State University, Brandywine Campus, for 15 years. He is a Vice President and Principal Consultant for SSC Consulting. Dennis is a trained trainer for Crisis Care Network and serves on three international trauma firms.

Dennis is a former Nationally Registered Emergency Medical Technician and a former Emergency Medical Technician with the state of Delaware. He is a former volunteer Fire Fighter and serves as a LAST member for the National Fallen Firefighter Foundation in conjunction with the National Fire Academy. He is the clinical director and team coordinator of the New Castle County CISM team and serves as the State CISM Chairman for the Delaware Volunteer Fireman's Association. Dennis is a Past President and active member of the Wilmington West Rotary Club. He is also listed in the National Center for Crisis Management’s directory of expert witnesses and premiere speakers bureau.

He has attended Millersville University, Temple University and Walden University. Dennis has conducted numerous debriefings in domestic as well as international disasters, shootings, bombings, bank robberies, corporate incidents, school disasters, and Fire, EMS, Police tragedies. He has responded to several national disasters including, but not limited to, the attacks on the WTC in NYC, Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Sandy relief efforts, Sandy Hook Elementary School Shootings, The Boston Marathon Bombings, the Navy Yard shootings, the Pulse Nightclub shootings, and the Hurricane Harvey relief efforts.

Lt. Harold Bozeman

Harold is a 24-year veteran of the Wilmington Police Department in Delaware. He is a Lieutenant serving as a Platoon Commander in the Uniformed Services Division. During his twenty-four year career, Harold has responded to more than 300 individual and group crisis calls for first responders from all public safety disciplines He is the Commander of the Wilmington Police Critical Incident Stress Management Team and its Crisis Intervention Team and is a Team Leader on the Crisis Management / Hostage Negotiations Team. He serves as the New Castle County Law Enforcement Coordinator and a Team Leader for Delaware CISM.

Harold holds a seat on the Board of Directors of The Trauma Survivors Foundation as well as on the Advisory Board for the Delaware affiliate of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI DE). He is listed in the instructor directory for the Grand Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police for officer wellness and peer support curricula. He is also a three-term (2013-2019) Local President of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #1 in Delaware.

Harold holds a certificate in specialized training in Law Enforcement CISM from The International Critical Incident Stress Foundation. He is a Certified Police Instructor and regularly delivers seminars on officer mental health and resiliency to the recruits of the Wilmington Police Academy and other agencies. He has delivered training and instruction on stress management in critical incident response, peer support, and related issues on the local, state, and national level.

With his extensive FOP and critical incident response experience, Harold is uniquely qualified to train and advise on the interrelation between peer support and labor; especially as it relates to confidentiality protections, union contracts, discipline, and labor relations.