Law Enforcement In-Service Training

Western Piedmont Community College provides in-service training opportunities for current law enforcement officers and Basic Law Enforcement Training (BLET) for individuals interested in a career in law enforcement.

Basic Law Enforcement Training

Learn more about WPCC’s Basic Law Enforcement Training program.

In-Service Training

To register for an in-service training course, you must download, complete, and submit the Law Enforcement Training Center Registration Form back to WPCC. The form is available by clicking the button under each course description in the calendar below, and instructions on how to submit the registration are included with the download. You must complete a registration form when you sign up for each class. Multiple officers from a law enforcement agency may register on one form. To view course descriptions and access the registration form, click the date or course name in the calendar. For more information, please contact Bryan Christy at (828) 448-3138 or at bchristy@wpcc.edu.

Class Offerings

Here are the scheduled law enforcement in-service training classes currently being offered by WPCC. To register, click or tap the ”Register for This Class” button underneath the description.

Field Training Officer

Date: August 3, 2026 – August 7, 2026
Location: Moore Hall – Room #216
Instructor: Jeremy Wendt

This forty-hour course is for law enforcement officers tasked with providing field training to law enforcement recruits who have completed BLET or equivalent training. It will focus on understanding the various roles that an FTO must fulfill and the basic requirements of their position.

Prerequisites:
The trainee must be a SWORN law enforcement officer who has arrest powers. This course is not appropriate for non-sworn detention officers. NCJA offers a separate FTO Course for detention officers. This course may not be appropriate for officers from agencies that use the Police Training Officer (PTO) Model or a similar model that does not use a rating scale for assessing recruit’s daily performance.

Course Goals:
To provide the knowledge and skills needed to perform the role of Field Training Officer effectively.

Course Objectives:
Upon completing this course, the student will be able to:
– Explain the history and significant components of the San Jose Field Training Officer Model and the Police Training Officer Model programs.
– Identify techniques to improve the FTO’s interpersonal communication and report writing skills, use of leadership styles, ethical standards, and actions that avoid civil liability while training.
– Describe the roles and responsibilities of the field training officer, including the techniques for teaching adults, and engaging students with problem-based scenarios.
– Observe, evaluate and document a trainee’s field performance while providing constructive feedback to improve trainee performance.
– Identify and apply effective remedial training strategies to improve trainee performance.
– Identify situations that contribute to felony assaults and accidental deaths suffered by law enforcement officers.

Methodologies:
This course is instructor led, and encompasses classroom lecture, discussion, reading assignments, PowerPoint presentations, group exercises, quizzes, and a final examination.

*Each student must register in ACADIS to reserve a seat in this class*

Crisis Intervention Training

Date: September 14 – September 18, 2026
Location: Foothills Higher Education Center, Room #211

The Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) program is a community partnership of law enforcement, mental health and addiction professionals, individuals who live with mental illness and/or addiction disorders, their families, and other partners to improve community responses to mental health crises. While CIT programs are known for CIT-trained officers, successful programs also focus on improving the crisis response system, advocating for needed services, and strengthening partnerships across the community.

CIT is a program that provides the foundation necessary to promote community and statewide solutions to assist individuals with a mental illness and/or addictions. The CIT Model reduces both stigma and the need for further involvement with the criminal justice system. CIT provides a forum for effective problem solving regarding the interaction between the criminal justice and mental health care system and creates the context for sustainable change.
Research shows that communities that prescribe to the CIT Program model, have higher success rates in resolving serious crisis situations.

Basic Goals:
1. Develop the most compassionate and effective crisis response system that is the least intrusive in a person’s life.
2. To help persons with mental disorders and/or addictions access medical/mental health treatment rather than place them in the criminal justice system due to illness related behaviors.
The CIT Program, based on the “Memphis Model,” has been spreading across the U.S. and abroad since 1988. A sound CIT program based on the Best Practice Guide will help strengthen your community in working together to help people who live with mental illness and/or addictions who are in crisis, it will also improve your community mental health system, save lives and bring hope and recovery to those in need. A strong CIT Program (and not just training) will sustain for years to come.
(contact the LETC @ WPCC to register (828) 448-3135 or (828) 448-3138)

First Line Supervision (FLS)

Date: November 16-November 20, 2026
Location: Moore Hall #208
Instructor: NCJA Staff

Who Should Attend:
New supervisors and supervisors who have not received formal supervisory training.

Course Objectives:
The student will be able to:
– Avoid liability problems arising from employment practices and field operations.
– Identify misconduct and corruption and be able to use appropriate techniques to prevent them.
– Determine and utilize motivational incentives to improve or cause high performance.
– Lead groups in consensus decision making and creative problem solving.
– Promote ethical practices in law enforcement and create a professional law enforcement culture.
– Complete and receive results from a personality inventory.
– Lead others through concepts of empowerment and transformation.
– Demonstrate supervising for results skills dealing with work performance and work habit problems.
– Utilize identified competencies of a leader to address factors in high performance by employees.
– Utilize at least three different techniques to forecast the future.

Resources Required
Attendance is required at all class sessions. Students must attain an average of 70% across course examinations. They must also successfully perform in supervising for results skill practices.

*Each student must register in ACADIS to reserve a seat in this class*

Like More Information?

We welcome the opportunity to serve your interests and needs. Feel free to ask questions, give your thoughts, or share ideas about classes you would like to see offered through the form below.