First-Tac

At the beginning of this week, the first activity of the Erasmus+ project Development of Joint Curriculum for First Responders on the Use of Force and First Aid Tactical Procedures (FIRST-TAC) was held online, via BigBlueButton.

The meeting was attended by use of force and tactical medicine experts from partner institutions, who had the opportunity to discuss competences, topics and teaching/learning strategies for the future curriculum in two 90-minute sessions on September 25 and 26, 2023.

During the first session of the meeting, experts were divided in separate breakrooms, one for the use of force, and the other for tactical medicine. In breakout rooms experts agreed on a tentative list of competences and topics in both units (use of force and tactical medicine), as well as on the methodological approach for the training.

The second day the outline of the future training was summarized as follows:

• It will be divided in two phases – independent and contact learning phase.
• Independent, online learning will be dedicated to the theoretical background, and it will consist of no more than 4 hours for use of force and 4 hours for tactical medicine.
• Contact learning phase will have the following structure:
  • Day 1: Dealing with cooperative suspect – Including positioning, control, transport, body search and handcuffing techniques.
  • Day 2: Escalation – overcoming passive resistance including taking the position of advantage, takedown/defences/ground control, neck restraints.
  • Day 3: Working in patrol – techniques and tactics to operate in binoms, duty belts drills, handling the equipment, flashlight.
  • Day 4: Tactical medicine.
  • Day 5: Practical exercises in simulated environment – simple and complex scenario (individual and binom), all components integrated in scenarios.

Several points were opened for discussion. Regarding the distribution of time, there were concerns that 8 hours of tactical medicine in a row can be tiring, and suggestions were made to break it up in smaller chunks over the first four days. Regarding the topics related to police tactics, suggestions were made to include one more topic: entering the room. Finally, it was noted that the good way to go is from the simpler tasks to the more complex ones, from theory to practice, from practising techniques to applying them in real-life situations.

After the meeting, the Croatian team structured the agreed guidelines for the new common curriculum – competencies, training structure, teaching/learning strategy and topics – into a document that will be the basis for further curriculum development.

The next meeting within the project will be on October 2 and 3, 2023, also online via BigBlueButton.