C3 Pathways / NCIER

09/01/2026

Lockdown is one step. It isn't a plan. That's why NCIER® is releasing SSAVEIM™ Foundations — School Safety and Violent Event Incident Management. 𝗙𝗿𝗲𝗲, 𝗼𝗻-𝗱𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗱, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝗻 𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗿.

As kids return to school, we are dedicated to making sure all communities have the knowledge on how to prepare for an active shooter event.

Thirteen short modules on how a violent event at a school actually unfolds and what happens after the lockdown: searching the building, getting medical to the wounded, who is in charge when police, fire, and the district are all on scene, and how every student is reunified with their family.

It is for everyone who would be part of that day — teachers, front office, principals, bus drivers, school resource officers, and the police, fire, and EMS who show up.

Nobody should have to wait on a budget or a training calendar to know what to do. So there is no cost and no schedule — just the knowledge, in everyone's hands, now.

Certificate when you finish. Free completion tracking for your school or agency.

𝗧𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 👉 ncier.org/ssaveim/foundations?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social

Share this with anyone you know in schools or emergency response.

08/31/2026

Lockdown is one step. It isn't a plan.

With students back in classrooms, we've been working on something for the people responsible for keeping them safe — school staff and the emergency responders who show up for them.

Details tomorrow.

08/29/2026

The moment an Area Command stands up, the first move is making sure every site knows it's there — where to pull critical resources from, and where to return them so they're back in service fast. That communication link between Area Command and individual incident sites isn't a nice-to-have. It's what keeps the whole response moving. Resource flow depends on it.

Watch the full episode: https://youtube.com/live/9DR97VXLPmI

08/28/2026

Back-to-school season means new schedules, new supply lists — and it's the right time to pressure-test your school's emergency plan before you need it.

If Episode 137 slipped past you, it's worth the 30 minutes. In it, we ran a simple but powerful exercise: instead of asking "does our plan look right?" ask "how could we screw this up?" The gaps surface fast — who calls the lockdown, whether first responders have current maps, whether parents know what reunification will actually look like.

If it's been a while since your school, district, and responding agencies sat down together and stress-tested the plan, this is a good time to do it.

Listen to Ep 137 → https://youtu.be/rzFKsYDvip0

P.S. — Stay tuned next week for big school safety news from NCIER®.

Schools across the country rehearse lockdown drills — but lockdown ...

08/27/2026

The moment you recognize a Complex Coordinated Attack, standing up Area Command can't wait — it's a right-now-right-now problem.

That's exactly what responders from 8 agencies practiced together over three days in Santa Monica, CA, during Active Shooter Incident Management (ASIM) Advanced. Law enforcement, fire, EMS, dispatch, and emergency management worked side by side, learning that recognizing the trigger is the easy part — acting on it immediately is the real discipline.

A big thank you to Santa Monica Police Department for opening their doors and hosting this training.

Want the details? Drop a comment and we'll share the link, or find the link in the first comments.

08/27/2026

A principle every emergency responder learns to live by: the situation dictates the procedure. Departments can — and should — write solid policies and train their people on them relentlessly. But no manual can anticipate every scenario a crew will face on scene. In this clip, Joe Ferrara explains why good guidelines exist to equip personnel to read what's in front of them and adapt, not to replace their judgment — the same mindset the military builds into its own training. It's a sharp reminder that preparation and flexibility aren't opposites; they work together.

Watch the full episode: https://youtu.be/xGnGOmA2Mjo

08/26/2026

🎓 22 new ASIM Basic Trainers — certified and ready to bring this training home.

Eight agencies. 22 responders. One classroom in the City of Janesville, WI. This month they completed the ASIM Basic Train-the-Trainer course at the Rock County Sheriff's Office — and every one of them went home with what they need to teach it: the curriculum, the ASIM Checklists, the slides and scenario scripts, the tests, and LMS access to enroll and track their own students.

Their certification is good for three years, and there’s no per-class fee to run it internally. Which means the training doesn’t stop when our instructors leave town. It keeps going, in eight agencies, for as long as they want to run it.

That’s the whole point of Train-the-Trainer.

Thank you to Rock County Emergency Management for hosting, and to every one of the 22 who invested their time in improving the readiness of their regions.

Want to host an ASIM Basic Train-the-Trainer for your agency or region? Course details are in the comments. 👇

08/21/2026

“All units, 20 minutes elapsed time.”

In Active Shooter Incident Management (ASIM) training, dispatch learns to make that radio call — because in the middle of a response, it’s easy to lose all sense of how much time has passed. And for the injured, time is critical. It’s one of dozens of small techniques that 56 responders from 23 agencies practiced last week during ASIM Advanced in New Albany, IN. Law enforcement, fire, EMS, dispatch, and emergency management ran 10 full scenarios together over three days — and details like that one are the difference between agencies that have a plan and agencies that have practiced it.

Thank you to Floyd County Emergency Management Agency for hosting, and to every responder who put in the work.

Want ASIM Advanced in your region? Details in the comments.

08/20/2026

On scene, you almost never know if an incident was a planned active attack or “just” a fight or family gathering gone bad. It doesn’t matter in the moment. You still apply the same priorities: stop the killing, stop the dying, and get victims from the parking lot to definitive care. The investigators can sort out the “why” later; your active shooter skills transfer to any event with multiple injured people in front of you.

Watch the full episode on our YouTube Channel

08/19/2026

"Great, we're in lockdown. Now what?"

That question — asked by students, teachers, and first responders alike — is the starting point for Episode 137 of the Active Shooter Incident Management Podcast.

School Safety and Violent Event Incident Management (SSAVEIM) instructors Kami Maertz and Brian Beechner join Bill Godfrey to talk about what really goes wrong when schools and public safety agencies each build their emergency plans in isolation. Lockdown drills are important — but they're one step, not the whole plan. Communication during the event, reunification logistics, accountability for every student at every transition point, and first responders who've never walked the hallways they're expected to clear — these are the gaps that don't show up until the day it's real.

One exercise they recommend for any school safety planner feeling overwhelmed: inverted thinking. Ask your team, "What could we do to guarantee this goes wrong?" You'll be surprised how fast the real priorities reveal themselves.

🎧 Listen now: https://youtu.be/rzFKsYDvip0
📋 Learn about the SSAVEIM course: https://ncier.org/ssaveim

Schools across the country rehearse lockdown drills — but lockdown ...