Institute for Campus Safety launches professional certification program.

The mission of the Institute for Campus Safety is to continually enhance the professionalism of campus safety personnel. To accomplish this important responsibility, ICS has developed the Certified Campus Safety Professional (CCSP) certificate program.

The CCSP certification establishes professional standards, ensures top-quality training, and provides effective services to develop and support campus safety efforts nationally. The program, for the first time, brings courses offered through various public and private venues under one umbrella.

The ICS CCSP curriculum is modeled after the Campus Law enforcement Course mandated by law in California. The Campus Law Enforcement Course and the Campus Security officer Course were mandated after the California Legislature recognized the needs for the specialized training for campuses in addition to the 664-hour Basic Law Enforcement Academy. All California K-12 and community college peace officers must complete the 24-hour school security officer course.

The CCSP will be the national standard for training, and should enhance the campus safety professional's ability to provide service to students and staff on our nation's campuses.

This certificate program is for people who work in or are responsible for their organization's campus safety, emergency management and security compliance. People in these positions need a general understanding of many subjects in order to deal with relative routine operations, and they need adequate insight into the complexities of campus safety and security issues.

The Institute for Campus Safety's Philip Mullendore, says the CCSP program will be the national standard for training and should enhance the campus safety professional's ability to keep our nation's campuses safe.

The program's learning goals are designed to enable the participant to gain:

• An understanding of the history, role and development of campus security.

• Knowledge of the campus security officer's responsibilities in the educational environment.

• Knowledge of the campus security officer's professional image, as well as school structure and organization as they relate to campus personnel, ancillary groups and constituent groups.

• An understanding of the circumstances under which searches and seizures can be made of campus security officers in the educational environment.

• An understanding of the participant discipline process.

• An understanding, of crimes as they relate to on-campus violations.

• The ability to recognize when a violation has occurred and to identify the general crime by its common name.

• An understanding of liability issues, both on and off campus, inherent in the educational environment.

• An understanding of the unique circumstances that exist in a school environment that require an added awareness of potentially dangerous situations.

• An understanding of the tools available for handling potentially dangerous situations on and around the campus.

• An understanding of the importance of and techniques for utilizing mediation/conflict resolution skills.

• An understanding of the general responsibilities for managing disasters and emergencies.

• The ability to recognize the major personality disorders that are responsible for potential violent outbreaks.

• An understanding of the specific education process as it relates to discipline of special education participants.

• An understanding of the concepts of directing traffic on campus.

• An understanding of the purpose of campus parking enforcement.

• Knowledge of the types of campus parking offenses.

• An understanding of the techniques for enforcing campus parking regulations.

Philip Mullendore is Director of Training at the Institute for Campus Safety and member of the Campus

Safety Journal Advisory Council