News Archives: GPRC Partakes in VTRA Training
Thursday, May 19th, 2016
Internationally renowned threat assessment and traumatic stress expert, Kevin Cameron gave a two-day training session at GPRC on May 17-18 as part of the College’s ongoing work to ensure the safety of its students, staff and community.
“It’s been a great two days,” says Cameron. “The group has been really interested in the work and open to receiving a different perspective on how to understand violence and how to intervene.”
The Violence Threat Risk Assessment (VTRA) training program was developed primarily by Cameron who led the crisis response team during the Taber, Alberta school shooting in 1999 which occurred only eight days after the Columbine school shooting in Colorado. Cameron developed this two-level program in collaboration with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Behavioural Sciences Unit and several North American sites that had experienced school shootings or other traumatic events.
“With these school shooting incidents most originally thought the kids had just snapped, but as we started to look into the cases, we realized that serious violence is evolutionary and often there are blatant pre-incident signs and indicators that don’t get picked up on,” says Cameron, “Level 1 VTRA training is to help understand that evolutionary pathway the troubled individuals follow and put together a team on campus for initial assessments and learn how to collaborate with police and other necessary community partners.”
The two-day workshop serves as formal training for those who will participate on GPRC’s VTRA team as well as provides prevention information and awareness training for all other staff attending.
“GPRC takes the safety of all our staff, students and community very seriously,” says Don Gnatiuk, President and CEO of GPRC, “Implementing VTRA protocols and processes with our community partners is one of ways we will ensure their safety.”
Grande Prairie has a VTRA Service Assessment Protocol in place with school districts, police, mental health, child protection services and others, and after their VTRA training GPRC plans to join that collaborative team and become a part of the broader community protocol.
“VTRA builds on the work already done and in place at GPRC in identifying people who need help and ensuring they get the help they need,” says Gnatiuk.
For more information on Kevin Cameron and VTRA training, please visit: http://www.cctatr.com/