Police Professional Teaching Experience
In addition to Kenneth’s academic teaching experience, he also has a long history of success as an effective trainer for in-service police officers on a wide variety of topics. He is certified by the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services Municipal Police Training Council as a police instructor for general topics.
The crown jewel in Kenneth’s training portfolio is a leadership training class he designed to address an alarming spike in officer suicides. He served on the NYPD’s task force to investigate this alarming trend. One of the deficiencies identified was that poor supervision was a leading stressor for officers. On his own initiative, he created a one-day class for newly promoted supervisors entitled “Building Morale through Effective Leadership” using evidence-based strategies. The class began with skill building for personal wellness resiliency and then, upon that foundation, built leadership skills to promote “a culture of resiliency” among subordinates. Ken developed the TOP COP principles of leadership (teamwork, ownership, professional/personalized communication, community-focus, recognize outstanding performance, and pride) to enhance student retention of the concepts taught. The class received outstanding feedback from students.
Kenneth continues to teach police professionals today:
Ken teaches a variety of classes in leadership for both police frontline supervisors and senior-level executives with Penn State's Justice and Safety Institute - JASI (click here to learn more about JASI).
He teaches in a US federally funded police officer suicide awareness and prevention program called SAFLEO (click here to learn more about SAFLEO).
He is a certified instructor, and helped refine and develop the curriculum for, CONQUER, a suicide intervention program (click here to learn more about CONQUER).
He teaches an online course in emergency management that specifically addresses law enforcement and order maintenance issues to various first responders in El Salvador.
He is also in the process of conducting a needs-based assessment regarding police officer mental health in El Salvador. The findings of this assessment will be used to tailor an existing mental health and resiliency program, Warr;or 21, to fits the needs of the national police force in El Salvador (click here to learn more about Warr;or 21). Kenneth will then deliver an in-person course to train-the-trainer for dissemination of the program throughout the nation.
In addition, Kenneth previously taught within the peer support training program for the NYPD to bolster workforce mental health. He also taught the department’s language access policies to in-service trainers so they could disseminate the information throughout the workforce in order to enhance human rights compliance.