Years ago, unrest or violence at a church or other house of worship was beyond our wildest imagination, but, unfortunately, this is no longer the world we are living in and preparedness and training are the keys to facing potential adversities.
This is why the cutting-edge emergency planning management firm, Clearpath EPM is hosting an interactive six-hour safety training program for houses of worship on Thursday, May 16, from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
It is being held at the Center for Spiritual Living-Fort Lauderdale, 4849 Dixie Highway, Oakland Park. Church leaders and staff members are encouraged to attend this first-time event.
Clearpath CEO Mike Johnson, a board member of the Center for Spiritual Living, strongly emphasizes the importance of human connection when it comes to safety concerns at houses of worship, schools and other community centers.
Johnson, a Fort Lauderdale resident, has spearheaded numerous highly effective training seminars for schools and businesses. This is the first one of its kind for houses of worship using Clearpath’s proven emergency planning, safety and training processes.
“The best way to avoid human error is to provide training and build competency,” Johnson explains “so that all stakeholders know what to do when faced with any incident or disruption. I call that maintaining the human connection.”
After 28 years in diplomatic security and law enforcement for the U.S. Government, Mike entered the private sector in 2010 as an executive with a global risk consulting company.
Johnson is a lead trainer and facilitator for several non-profit education organizations and has provided safety, security, and campus resiliency training to hundreds of school and business leaders around the world. He is a Certified Protection Professional as awarded by American Society for Industrial Security (ASIS), a national and international security association made up of 34,000 professionals.
Emergency Action Planning
Using his extensive law enforcement and military experience, Johnson is the lead instructor for this highly interactive event and several highly-trained members of the Clearpath team will be available to assist the participants.
Founded in 2014, Clearpath EPM is a technology and consulting firm that helps U.S. and international schools, businesses, events, and places of worship build and maintain robust emergency preparedness, risk, and safety programs.
The company’s unique expertise in preparedness and the preventive aspects of emergency planning management ready its long-time clients to respond to any disruptive event or emergency.
The mission of Clearpath EPM is a huge one – “to keep people safe and healthy, and to make the world a better place.”
Why Houses of Worship Should Attend on May 16
“There is no reason that churches and other houses of worship have to give into fear and close their doors,” explains Johnson.
“There are a lot of methods that can be put in place that are not costly. It comes down to the training involved. That’s why this seminar is the ideal opportunity for every participant to recognize that there are a lot of highly effective changes that can be implemented at every site.”
He believes that if a house of worship is committed to improving its safety, it should send several of its team members, who can then go back to the congregation and start building a plan that will be tailored to the individual needs of the worship site.
“If someone is on the fence and thinking that this could never happen to them, that’s a problem,” says Johnson.
“We are not here to instill fear, we are here to instill how you can train yourself and your team to overcome the fear of what the potential is,” he adds. “We have a proven process to get you there. The truth is that once you are trained you can overcome anything and deal with anything that you are faced with.”
Participants will learn about emergency communication, emergency response protocols, the 4D’s of security (detect, deter, deny, and delay) and the importance of maintaining situational awareness.
Those who attend will learn how to create a crisis management team, safety response team, and emergency response team for the house of worship, and build the best practices for team incident response.
In addition, houses of worship often host large events at their facilities, and they will learn how event planning is a critical part of the overall protection and preparedness planning.
It is estimated that some 80 percent of the churches in the nation host less than 100 members, especially in small towns and communities. These church leaders are not spending a lot of time looking at the issue of preparedness and safety when it comes to some type of potential disruptive event.
“We are giving something back to the community and can offer it at one location and share resources, which adds a great deal of value,” Johnson explains. “I appreciate that these types of events are very collaborative. So, it goes beyond my teaching; it’s about worship leaders talking to each other, collaborating, brainstorming, and creating relationships that they can continue to nurture and benefit from after the day’s event is over.”
