In 1987, I found myself standing in front of 20 New York City police officers in a Manhattan classroom to teach them how to successfully manage people with emotional disturbances when they become confused, angry and a potential threat. I’d just started my career as a soft skills trainer, and, as terrified as I was, I also knew that being in the room with those cops and bringing to bear my...
My first real training development and delivery job was for the New York City Police Department in the 1980’s and it was a doozy: use professional actors to help train police officers learn how to manage what they called “EDP”s – Emotionally Disturbed Persons. My responsibility was to cast and direct the actors and help them create realistic characters – like drug addicts going through...