POST Community Engagement Training

Training Focus

Outreach

Built around practical community engagement and service connection.

Primary Lens

Crisis + Care

Emphasizes mental-health collaboration, high utilizers, and public trust.

Audience

Law Enforcement

Designed for officers and agencies building stronger community response systems.

Course Purpose

Why this training matters

The document frames community engagement as more than public relations. It teaches officers how to recognize crisis, connect people to help, work across community systems, and build trust with groups who may have valid reasons to be cautious around law enforcement.

Core goal: help law enforcement understand the value of mental-health and law-enforcement collaboration, identify people in need, connect them to services, and engage communities with more credibility and long-term stability.

Training Map

Main strands covered in the course

Community Engagement Team

Defines team structure, mission, continuum of care, and the role of partnerships in reducing repeat offenses and increasing stability.

Build collaborative partnerships with citizens and providers.
Support sustainable recovery for people not helped by prior interventions.
Increase trust with youth, refugees, and people experiencing homelessness.

Community Engagement Practice

Teaches officers how to meet partners, listen first, understand culture, and design community-facing events that create trust.

Use active listening in partner meetings.
Ask communities what they need instead of assuming.
Adapt outreach for underserved and high-crime areas.

Youth and Juvenile Support

Highlights youth engagement, juvenile partners, schools, and community organizations that can interrupt long-term negative pathways.

Partner with schools, nonprofits, and youth-serving agencies.
Understand juvenile justice and family-service pathways.
Use early engagement to reduce deeper system involvement.

Refugee and Cultural Outreach

Gives officers context for refugee experiences, mistrust of government systems, and the importance of translators and cultural awareness.

Understand why prior police experiences may affect behavior.
Use translators and language support early.
Recognize that survival context often shapes responses.

Response Areas

Service areas the training prepares officers to work within

Youth + Schools

Focuses on youth engagement, homelessness, juvenile services, and school-connected intervention.

Youth Engagement JJS / DCFS

Crisis + Mental Health

Covers co-response models, trauma-informed response, and how to work with mobile crisis or case-management teams.

PMHC Models Co-Response

Community Connections

Reinforces public trust, public information, and long-term stability through meaningful community partnerships.

Public Relations Continuum of Care

Key takeaways

What a reviewer should notice

This is not generic theory. The training is built around real community-service categories officers encounter in practice.
The document ties law enforcement to service coordination, not just enforcement activity.
It deliberately includes youth, refugee, mental-health, and high-utilizer populations that often require cross-system response.
It supports the broader public-service credibility behind your outreach, curriculum, and review-facing work.