One
Make space
Hands up, palms open, one step back. It looks like calming someone down. It is really buying the two seconds you need.
Almost every church, school and office we walk into has a rough idea in somebody's head and nothing written down. That's not a failure. It was never anyone's job. It's ours. We look at your building, tell you plainly what we found, then teach your people what to do.
Most of a session isn't fighting at all: it's de-escalation. Reading someone who is winding up, keeping your own voice level, and giving them a way to back down before anybody has to run. That is not a soft idea, and it is not ours. Congress funded it for police in the Law Enforcement De-Escalation Training Act of 2022, and when Louisville put its officers through the ICAT de-escalation course, use-of-force incidents fell about 28% and citizen injuries about 26%. Police have had a decade of this. Your greeter has had none of it, and your greeter is the one who gets there first.
It's all one method, written by one man over thirty years, and a qualified instructor teaches the classes.
Twenty minutes with somebody who knows the material, not a salesperson. We mostly listen. If we're not right for you, we say so on that call. Free.
We look at your doors and your ordinary routine so any program we put in writing actually fits your building, not a generic package.
A plain, written proposal sized to your building and your people, no guessing, nothing priced before we've seen the place.
Seminars in your own building, across the year, so the training keeps reaching whoever is new. Here is what a class looks like.
Every walkthrough ends the same way: something you can hand to a board, an insurer, or a grant reviewer, not a slide deck we talk you through once and take with us.
Doors, sightlines, arrival and dismissal, how a warning would actually travel through your building. Walked the way a stranger would see it.
Who's watching what, whether a plan exists anywhere besides someone's memory, and what happens if that person isn't there that day.
What we found, in plain language. No jargon, no score designed to sell you the next tier up.
Ordered by what's free and fixable this week, what's worth planning for this year, and what belongs in next year's budget. Nothing dumped on you all at once.
Which sessions your building needs first, sized to your people, not a one-size curriculum sold to everyone who calls.
This is the document the funding conversation and the grant application both start from. Here's how that works.
No mats, no sparring, no uniforms. Street clothes, a room you already have, and skills a sixty-eight-year-old usher can still do with shaking hands.
Ninety minutes to a half day. Instruction first, then practice standing up. Nobody gets on the floor, nobody is put on the spot. At the end we audit what people retained instead of handing out certificates for showing up.
Seminars can be booked on their own. Ask what a single session would cost.
The six things we teach
None require strength, speed, or being young. That's the whole point.
Hands up, palms open, one step back. It looks like calming someone down. It is really buying the two seconds you need.
Grips fail at the thumb. One turn and a step, no strength required. We drill it until it stops feeling like a trick.
Almost nobody thinks to move sideways. A single step off the path someone is charging down solves most of the problem.
Somebody has to say the words and point. We decide in advance who, so nobody stands there waiting for permission.
Which doors in your building actually lock, which ones only look like they do, and what to wedge under the handle when they don't.
Twelve people all calling 911 is twelve people standing still. One person calls, by name, decided beforehand. The rest are already leaving.
No church gets turned away here because of what's in the budget. If training is the right call for your building, cost is not the reason you go without it. We sit down with you, look at what's actually available, and help you go after it, at no added charge, so an invoice never becomes the thing standing between your people and this training.
The federal Nonprofit Security Grant Program funds security improvements for at-risk nonprofits, houses of worship included, and training is an allowable expense. Awards reach $200,000 per site, up to three sites.
Most organizations miss the calendar. In nearly every state the application goes through a state agency first, and that window closes months before the federal deadline. Your assessment is the documented vulnerability analysis these applications ask for, so we schedule around the window instead of chasing it.
We're not grant writers and we don't guarantee awards. We're a vendor whose services are fundable, and we hand you the paperwork that makes the application stronger.
We can't tell you yes over the phone, that call belongs to the state and to FEMA. But these are the questions we ask every organization before we start.
Questions about any of this?
I'm an automated helper. I can explain how we get started, what we actually teach, or how congregations pay for it.
Automated answers, written by us. Anything specific to your building, call (310) 422-6172.