UT Police Participates in Campus Safety Magazine Webinar

In July, Campus Safety Magazine hosted a webinar focused on security considerations for large campus infrastructures in densely populated urban centers. The webinar spotlighted methods for securing a regional or distributed health care system environment.

During the webinar, University of Texas Police at Houston (UT Police) Executive Director and Deputy Chief Security Officer Ray Gerwitz and Risk Preparedness Services Manager David Cribbs introduced and discussed protection and safety strategies for a variety of health care campus environments.

Participants learned about the different types of health care campus environments that exist and the challenges of securing each type of infrastructure.

The webinar ended with a series of questions from the audience, which were focused on training and awareness programs available to security personnel and community members. Gerwitz shared with listeners the types of de-escalation training that UT Police public safety officers receive.

“We have a program that we put them through that starts with Behaviors of Concern training. Once that is in place we talk about Verbal Defense and Influence,” Gerwitz explained during the webinar.  “Because we do operate in a clinical setting, our officers go through the Crisis Prevention Institute, which specialize in health care settings and closing the loop on de-escalation training.

Proactive awareness tools at UT Police were also shared with webinar participants. Specifically, Gerwitz discussed the department’s AWARE Program, a passport-themed journey that allows people to receive a stamp on their Passport after they have completed a training. After they visit some safety destinations in the form of safety classes, they become a Prevention Partner. Further destinations afford them additional opportunities like ride-a-longs with police officers, visits to our simulation center and invitations to special events.

The webinar is available to listen to online at http://bit.ly/utph-csm-webinar.