2023 Summer Training Schedule
June 13th, 2023 8am – 4pm
Presenter: Lynn Riemer
Lynn Riemer has a BS in Chemistry and Biology, and is an internationally recognized speaker, trainer and advocate on issues relating to substance abuse. Lynn is president of ACT on Drugs, Inc., a non-profit organization with a mission to educate parents, teens, and professionals about addictive and psychoactive substances, both legal and illegal, which are available in their community. With her in depth chemistry knowledge of drugs, having served with DEA and on the North Metro Drug Task Force, and her engaging style she brings a real, personal, and vivid face to the issues presented by illicit drug use. Over the past 20 years, Lynn has spoken regularly with students, school staff, parents, communities, companies, and governmental agencies about drug awareness, recognition, and prevention.
Presentation title: ACT on Drugs – Trends in Substance Abuse: Street Drugs…..What people need to know
Description: The majority of teens, college students, and young adults using drugs are not drug addicts: they are simply experimenting. Whether experimentation starts with the “challenges” promoted online, vaping, trying pot or popping pills, a few bad decisions can lead down a path with many consequences. Vaping is a nationwide issue, with Vapes being taken out of Elementary schools, Middle schools, and High schools across the nation. These are devices to disguise drug use, and many drugs are now vaped today. Abuse of Over the Counter (OTC) products are glamorized all over TikTok, and alcohol and marijuana use with youth continues to increase.
Drug abuse continues to be a major problem plaguing society today. Synthetic opioids, including fentanyl, were involved in more than two-thirds of the overdose deaths in the US. Today’s Fentanyl is a pure powder being made in labs in China and transported thru Mexico by cartels. Fentanyl is contaminating all types of recreational drugs across the US, and it can make anyone vulnerable to an overdose. According to the CDC the US has an overdose death every 5 minutes.
Marijuana use is increasing across the nation as perception of harm decreases. Marijuana on the street and sold in dispensaries today is extremely potent. The adolescent brain is not formed until after 25 years of age, and the science is extremely clear about the damage this drug is doing to our youth. Marijuana edibles are marketed to kids, extremely potent, and causing problems never seen before from Marijuana use. This workshop provides valuable training to help identify substances of abuse, create a better understanding of the effects illicit drug use has on users, and provides an understanding of how drug use affects all of us. Knowing how to recognize what the drugs look like, and the indicators of someone under the influence, is only the first part of the battle. The abuse of illicit drugs places every person working in the public sector at risk. This session will address vaping, over the counter products being abused, alcohol, today’s potent marijuana, and everything Fentanyl from the toxic pure powder to the candy looking pills on the street.
June 14th, 2023 8am – 4pm
Presentation title : Current Online Trends & Digital Threat Assessment®
Description: Safer Schools Together (SST) provides your Safety / Threat Assessment teams with the tools needed to identify if an individual is on the pathway to violence, homicide, suicide, radicalization, or gang associated behavior. Nearly 90% of today’s threats are communicated digitally. Digital Threat Assessment® (DTA®) training provides participants with direct skills and tools that are effective and can be utilized immediately by your teams. You will learn how to identify digital leakage, check to see if the individual has access to the means to carry out a threat, and proactively reduce the potential of violence within your community. You will also be introduced to Behavioral and Digital Threat Assessment Management (BDTAM) training. BDTAM is a multidisciplinary process that integrates DTA® and best practices from the National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) evidence-based model which is based on more than 20 years of research.
Presentation title: Current Online Behavioral Trends
Description: This workshop by Safer Schools Together (SST) will provide information on Current Online Behavioral Trends and complements SST’s Digital Threat Assessment® (DTA) training. The purpose is to enhance School Safety/Threat Assessment teams’ understanding of the ever-changing digital landscape.
Current Online Trends and Digital Threat Assessment (6 Hours)
This training hands on training will provide information on the leading social media platforms that our youth are using today. Trends, language, and new ways that youth communicate online, and risk enhancing behaviors will be discussed. The training then will focus on Digital Threat Assessment®, where participants will establish a Digital Behavioral Baseline through a Safety/Threat Assessment lens. By engaging with popular social media applications, participants will learn how to find and document worrisome digital media content originating from your community.
This training will include:
• To apply the principles of Behavioral Threat Assessment to DTA
• To identify the digital behavioral baseline of individuals on the pathway to violence
• To assess the language of online threat-related behavior
• Searching within commonly used platforms such as, Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat
• To utilize boolean operators, people search engines, and access cached data
• To validate the source of images and video
• Best practice for online navigation and ensuring privacy safeguards
• To use law enforcement guides to request user identifying information (preservation and production orders)
• To crowdsource localized and time relevant social media posts from your community and area
• The latest updates to stories, reels, hashtags, and IGTV
• To identify concerning trends and create awareness to ensure safety and mental wellbeing
• To gather public social media data with geolocation relevance—what are the most effective ways to identify potential witnesses in a public act of violence?
• To use social media to find a missing person
• To document your digital findings
***This is a hands on training, so participants are required to bring a laptop or smart device.
Presenter: Lanae J. Holmes
Lanae is a licensed clinical social worker in the District of Columbia and has been at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) since 2007. Lanae is the director of case services, overseeing the team that provides clinical and emotional support to families of missing and sexually exploited children. She also manages the Safeguard Program for NCMEC staff exposed to child sexual abuse imagery during their daily work.
Lanae is a trainer and facilitator for numerous conferences, teaching the benefits of the Safeguard Program and addressing the therapeutic needs of missing and sexually exploited children and their families.
Lanae received a Master’s Degree in Social Work from Howard University in Washington, DC.
Presentation title: Coercion and Manipulation: Online Enticement and Sextortion from a Survivor-Informed Lens
Description: This session will include a co-presenter; a survivor of CSAM who experienced online enticement or sextortion. The presenters will share the ways perpetrators utilized coercion and manipulation to elicit submission and shed light on the psychological impacts left behind. They will also discuss the practical and tangible techniques used by law enforcement and other professionals that helped survivors feel supported and led to positive outcomes. The team at NCMEC will highlight the concepts of choice, consent, and control – three themes central to the healing process for sexual abuse and exploitation survivors.
2022 Summer Training Schedule
June 21st
- IASRO Opening Remarks
- Deputy David Gomez: 8:00am – 4:00pm
- Social Media Trends, including Drug Use & Abuse and Investigations
June 22nd
- Sean O’Neill: 8:00am – 4:00pm
- De-Escalation Education: Verbal Judo Institution
June 23rd
- Ret. Agent Mike Ferjak: 8:00am -12:00pm
- HUMAN SEX TRAFFICKING- MYTHS AND REALITIES
- SPO Deb VanVelzen: 1:00pm- 4:00 pm
- Pre-Arrest Diversion
Social Media Trends, including Drug Use & Abuse and Investigations
Deputy David Gomez
June 21, 2022
8:00am-4:00pm
Course Description: This presentation will educate attendees on the many facets of drug use and abuse through the many social media avenues. Deputy Gomez will break down the ways that social media “normalizes” drug use and abuse. He will also discuss the investigations of drugs and alcohol use and other illegal behaviors commonly seen on social media.
Upon completion of the session attendees will be able to:
- Identify drug use in social media
- Demonstrate illegal behavior and normalization in social media
- Recognize key terms and lingo, referencing drug use and other illegal behavior
- Identify images / pictures associated with drug use & abuse
- Recognize the drug associations in social media and how to investigate them
David Gomez has been at the forefront of educating parents and youth about the many dangers of social media on electronic devices. Gomez uses a collective information approach to create the best strategies for parents and their children to stay safe in a new world of digital citizenship. He also uses this information to train other SROs to better equip them in investigations with a digital element. Gomez has been a school resource officer for seven years and works in the schools with age groups that are most affected by digital devices.
De-Escalation Education: Verbal Judo Institution
Sean O’Neill
June 22, 2022
8:00am-4:00pm
Course Description: The essence of Verbal Judo is to influence others to come around to your way of thinking and is best defined as a gentle yet powerful way of persuasion that helps us to avoid, resolve and manage resistance by using presence and words, whether to resolve conflict or to close a deal with a customer.
Verbal Judo teaches us how to listen and speak more effectively, by engaging people through empathy (the most powerful word in the English language) and to use proven strategies that allow us to successfully communicate our point of view and take the upper hand in most contacts, regardless of the kind of day people are having.
What differentiates Verbal Judo from other communication systems is that it offers practical solutions that work when people are under pressure. It provides techniques and conditioned responses that have been extensively tested in the field. The Verbal Judo philosophy is that when you react, the event controls you, whilst when you respond, you’re in control.
When personnel are tactically trained, the environment in which they work improves and the threat of conflict, violence and litigation is greatly reduced. When you make Verbal Judo an essential part of your business, it will not only allow you to have more productive days but will keep your business moving in the right direction – forward. With customers, employees, peers or family members, Verbal Judo will give you the edge in any encounter, increasing the value of your business and the quality of your life.
Participants in the Verbal Judo program will learn a new gentle approach to being in control of situations without creating stress, without frustration, and without continued conflict, whilst at all times treating everybody with dignity and respect, making sure that everybody wins!
Sean O’Neill has been in Law Enforcement since 2013. He currently serves with the Des Moines Police Department as a patrol officer in the Mobile Crisis Unit. In addition to O’Neill’s duties he is a hostage and crisis negotiator, a certified instructor from the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy, and an adjunct professor of Criminal Justice at Des Moines Area Community College. O’Neill also has experience in tactical communications, cognitive interviewing and influence, statement analysis, body language and deception detection.
HUMAN SEX TRAFFICKING- MYTHS AND REALITIES
Documentary Title: GridShock
Ret. Agent Mike Ferjak
June 23, 2022
8:00am-12:00pm
Course Description: This program will provide an accurate and current assessment of human sex trafficking in the United States and Iowa. It will also address the level of awareness of human sex trafficking as it appears today; focusing on the methodology of how persons are subverted and ultimately exploited for the financial gain of the trafficker.
The program will provide audience members with information regarding common structures of human sex trafficking operations. The program will also address the counter-intuitive behavior of persons being exploited that is frequently, and mistakenly, described or labeled as “cooperation” or “voluntary participation”. The impact and damage experienced by trafficked persons and an overview of efforts being directed at combatting human trafficking will be discussed. The program will also share information on how to effectively report suspected human sex trafficking.
NOTE: There are no sexually explicit photographs or language used in this presentation, however, it will be a frank and direct discussion of the issues and may not be suitable for all participants, it is recommended that persons who may be sensitized or negatively impacted by the training content exercise self-care as necessary.
Upon completion of the session attendees will be able to:
- Discuss basic characteristics of human sex trafficking and be able to distinguish it from other forms of personal exploitation, i.e., labor trafficking, prostitution etc.
- Identify and discuss common structures of human sex trafficking operations.
- Discuss how the exploitation of personal vulnerabilities can result in persons being identified and engaged by traffickers.
- Discuss the counterintuitive behavior of persons being exploited and the impact of trauma-bonding.
- Effectively report suspected human sex trafficking.
Mike Ferjak is an honor graduate of the Iowa law Enforcement Academy and graduated with honors from Upper Iowa University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Public Administration with a Law Enforcement emphasis. He earned his Master of Arts Degree in Criminal Justice from Simpson College. Areas of concentration in his professional experience and training include highly specialized experience and expertise in interview techniques, written, verbal, and behavioral analysis, sexual offender threat assessment, human trafficking and the commercial sexual exploitation of children. Mike has completed advanced law enforcement training and leadership studies with the United States Department of Defense Management Institute, Patrick Air Force Base, Florida, the Southern Police Institute, University of Louisville, Kentucky, the Florida Institute of Police Technology and Management, University of North Florida and the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, Glynco, Georgia.
Mike was born and raised on the southside of Chicago, Illinois. From 1976 to 1998 he served as a Patrol Officer, Sergeant, Captain, Chief of Police and State Investigator working in Illinois and then Iowa. In 1998, he was recruited by the Iowa Department of Justice as the lead investigator for the Sexually Violent Predator Unit where, in addition to criminal case investigations, he participated in over 500 risk assessments and evaluations of criminal offenders identified as possible sexual predators. In 2004, he was placed on special assignment to the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation’s (DCI) Cyber-Crime Unit where he served with the federal Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force as an investigator and trainer while continuing to work as the senior criminal investigator for the Attorney General’s Area Prosecutions Division handling high level felony criminal cases.
In 2011, Mike was selected by the Iowa Attorney General to create and lead the Department of Justice Human Trafficking Enforcement and Prosecution Initiative (Task Force). In that role he worked closely with law enforcement leaders at the local, state and federal levels investigating cases and coordinating operations to increase law enforcement’s operational response capacity, deliver specific victim services training, direct community outreach efforts and provide allied professional education efforts in Iowa and nation-wide.
In September of 2016, Mike retired from the Iowa Department of Justice completing a 40-year career of public service. Mike is the Principal and Chief Trainer/Consultant of his training and consulting firm, “I Know A Guy” Training & Consulting, L.L.C., providing investigative skills training and subject matter expertise throughout the United States and Canada to regulatory and law enforcement personnel. Since 1992, Mike has trained well over 7500 agents and investigators in the United States and Canada. He also offers training on personal safety, situational awareness, child exploitation and human trafficking to non-government and community-based organizations, education and medical organizations and other professionals that conduct and support efforts against human trafficking.
Mike continues to serve with the federal Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and has served as an instructor on the adjunct faculty of the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. Additionally, he serves on the Board of Directors for Dorothy’s House, a “safe house” restoration program for human trafficking survivors in Iowa, and the Board of Directors for the Iowa Association of School Resource Officers. He is a member of the Iowa Police Chiefs Association and is also a member of the Story County Sheriff’s Department Human Trafficking Response Team.
Mike is a recognized expert on human trafficking and the commercial sexual exploitation of children and has been called to testify before the Iowa Legislature and the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary on the topic of human trafficking as well as before other government offices, private corporations and venues throughout North America.
He is an invited guest lecturer at Iowa State University’s Gender Studies Honors Seminar and senior level classes, Drake University’s Law School and Des Moines University’s School of Medicine lecturing on sex crimes, sexual predators and human trafficking issues. Mike is a Senior Instructor for the national Council on Licensure, Enforcement and Regulation (CLEAR) teaching the advanced national certified investigator training (NCIT) course.
Mike is a retired career military officer with twenty-seven years of service in the United States Army, active and reserve forces, serving in the Infantry, Combat Engineer and Aviation branches. On three separate occasions he was selected to command combat engineer units and has served on the Commanding General’s Staff of the Iowa National Guard.
Pre-Arrest Diversion
Deb VanVelzen
June 23, 2022
1:00pm-4:00pm
Course Description: Do you want to keep your students out of the Juvenile Court system, but yet still hold them accountable for their actions? Often the youth that School Resource Officers come in contact with have committed low offenses and are considered low risk offenders. In addition, many youth referred to the juvenile justice system have significant mental health issues, experienced childhood trauma, are receiving special education services, or are children of color. Pre-arrest diversion programs are alternatives to initial or continued formal processing of youth in the juvenile delinquency system. In this session, we will discuss the research behind effective pre-arrest diversion programs, explore the benefits of implementing a diversion program and provide models of free to low cost diversion programs. Participants will leave with the knowledge to start a diversion program specifically tailored for their community’s needs.
Deb VanVelzen has been a police officer with the Des Moines Police Department (Iowa) since 2004. She is currently assigned as the Youth Services Coordinator where she implements the department’s juvenile pre-arrest diversion program and other youth programming. She has 13 years of School Resource Officer experience and 8 years as a public school educator. She currently serves on the Iowa Association School Resource Officers’ Board of Directors and is a NASRO instructor.