Officer Virtual Academy – What’s Next?

Officer Media Group was proud to announce the November 2021 opening of the Officer Virtual Academy. At launch we had 18 courses available, at no cost, for registered users. We preregistered much of our subscriber list and are pleased to see, as of this writing, over 140 users have taken advantage of the training available. For 2022 we look forward to growing the academy offerings and to increasing the value. Here are a few of the things we have planned…

While we believe every officer should pursue self-improvement and continued education for its own sake, we also understand time constraints and the requirements for minimum numbers of in-service credit hours. In 2022 we anticipate getting approval for our online training to be certified for in-service credit hours in several states. We will, of course, post updates on that as it occurs.

During 2022, we look forward to expanding our course offerings. Currently our 18 courses fall into four categories: Tactical, On the Street, Investigations, and Training & Careers. We look forward to adding some courses that are specifically management or supervisory focused and adding the category of Command/HQ. We will also be adding more courses to each of the other four categories so that our “students” can continue to expand their knowledge base.

In the Investigations category we anticipate adding courses specific to fingerprint lifting, recording and classification. There will also be a course covering basic death investigations.

In the Command/HQ category, we’ll be offering management level courses related to active shooter response incidents, but potentially applicable to other mass casualty or large incidents. These courses will focus on all of the assignments and responsibilities outside of the incident scene.

In the Tactical category we look forward to adding courses covering low light operational concepts, common weapons familiarization, recognizing improvised weapons and building searches performed without use of a canine team.

In the On The Street category we’ll be adding a course on Basic Traffic Stops (see the article about this elsewhere in this issue). While technology develops and we get more data to use before and during each stop, the basics of how to perform a traffic stop have evolved very little in the past forty years. Officer risk management remains the same.

At some point during the year, every course we offer will have a “written” test (online) added with a minimum 80% score required to download and print the Certificate of Successful Completion. Right now, attendees can download and print that certificate after attending the course. The test for proof of comprehension will be added and required this year. We’ll make sure to communicate that well before it happens and then again when it’s launched.

Thank you to all of you who have already attended any of our offered courses. The feedback we continue to receive has been very positive and we take all recommendations for improvement very seriously. You can email me directly with such recommendations by sending to [email protected].