Upcoming Trainings & Events

Upcoming Trainings & Presentations
by WTS Staff & Consultants

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WAVR-21 Training in 2023
with research updates and new case material
New location: Sunny San Diego

Our next two-day in-depth
threat assessment workshop 
with WAVR-21 creators
Drs. Stephen White and Reid Meloy

February 22-23, 2023
San Diego, California
Hosted by Intuit, Inc. 
at their regional site

This offering will be both live and virtual!
You have your choice to join us in person
or Zoom-in from work or home

The workshop will cover the foundations and proper use of the WAVR-21, and
best practices in threat assessment and management in work and campus settings.
We will discuss each of the WAVR items, illustrate with case examples their relationship to violence risk, and how practitioners can combine their WAVR findings with professional judgment to address challenging case management decisions. Topics included are mental disorder and violence, stalking, bullying, the suicide-homicide connection, domestic/intimate partner violence, data gathering and interviewing strategies, bias issues, and the expanding landscape of extremist and domestic terrorism. Recent research and new case studies will be presented for the first time in our two-day format.

To register, contact Dr. Stephen White by email: swhite@adminYou will then be directed to a registration form.
Discounts for “TAP” members and active law enforcement.

Youth Violence Prevention
Nov. 17-18, 2022
with national expert
John van Dreal

Do you have school-aged children? Forward this notice to your local school administrators!

This 8-hour program over two days will be taught by John van Dreal, author of Assessing Student Threats, and a new book, Youth Violence Prevention. Mr. van Dreal is a sought-after and engaging trainer who has conducted pioneering work in assessing and managing youthful offenders in Oregon over the past 35 years. The workshop is sponsored by Specialized Training and includes 8 hours of continuing education credit for most mental health professionals. The training will provide a template for building a sustainable, school-based prevention and threat assessment system composed of school behavioral intervention teams and community-based collaborators, and will highlight how threats of violence can be systematically investigated and managed.

For more information and to register: https://www.specializedtraining.com/p-1200-youth-violence-prevention-virtual-nov-17-18-2022.aspx



Stalking Risk Profile Workshops

Our Australian colleagues, Rachael MacKenzie and Troy McEwan, developers of the SRP assessment instrument, will conduct several virtual workshops in North American time zones in January and February 2023.
Click here for more information and to register: Stalking Risk Profile Workshop

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Structured Professional Judgement Tools
for Violence Threat Assessment
Dr. Stephen White
Association of Threat Assessment Professionals,
New England Chapter
May 19, 2022
Lexington, MA
Click here for more information and to register. 

WAVR-21 Training

Our next two-day in-depth threat assessment workshop 

with WAVR-21 creators

Drs. Stephen White and Reid Meloy

March 8 and 9, 2022

Mountain View, California

Hosted by Intuit, Inc. 

at their corporate headquarters

This offering will be both live and virtual!

You have your choice to join us in person

or Zoom-in from work or home

The workshop will cover the foundations and proper use of the WAVR-21, and best practices in threat assessment and management in work and campus settings. We will discuss each of the WAVR items, illustrate with case examples their relationship to violence risk, and how practitioners can combine their WAVR findings with professional judgment to address challenging case management decisions. Topics included are mental disorder and violence, stalking, bullying, the suicide-homicide connection, domestic/intimate partner violence, data gathering and interviewing strategies, bias issues, and the expanding landscape of extremist and domestic terrorism.

To register contact Dr. Stephen White by email: swhite@wtsglobal.com

You will then be directed to a registration form.

Discounts for “TAP” members and active law enforcement.

PLEASE NOTE: Our host, Intuit, requires proof of vaccination for those attending in person. Attendees must bring proof to the training site. If you are not vaccinated you may switch your attendance to virtual.

Protective Intelligence Event

February 21-23, 2022

Austin, TX

Join Ontic, a WAVR-21 software partner, for three days in Austin to explore the latest strategies and technologies propelling protective intelligence forward. Learn from renowned speakers, industry leaders, and practitioners on the future of security, and network with your peers. Dr. Stephen White will be a panel member addressing “The Importance of Threat Assessment for Modern-Day Security Programs.”

Click here for more information and to register.

Drs. Stephen White & Philip Saragoza
will conduct an invited workshop:

Extremism and Violence Risk

in Organizational Contexts

at the 2022 AETAP Conference

April 25-28, 2022

Nuremberg, Germany

More information on the workshop

will be available in the coming weeks.

Click here for more information on the conference and to register.

Stalking Risk Profile Workshops

Our Australian colleagues, Rachael MacKenzie and Troy McEwan, authors of the SRP, an excellent tool, will conduct several virtual workshops in North American

time zones in February and March.

Click here for more information and to register.

Advanced Threat Assessment and Management

Dr. Kostas A. Katsavdakis

January 6, 2022

For more details and to register: American Academy of Forensic Psychology

And…

Advanced Case Debriefing Workshop:

A format for existing threat assessment teams
to maximize their continuing learning and growth.

Have you had training from experts, including perhaps from us? Have you attended conferences and bench-marked with other threat assessment practitioners and organizations? What’s next?

Consider a private workshop in which your threat assessment team prepares your own case presentations and then engages with us in a technical debriefing.

The best lessons and insights for you and your team ultimately come from your own case experience. If you include outside threat assessment experts to consult on cases, you hopefully learn even more from their perspective and contribution.

We have practiced post-case debriefs for years and are increasingly recommending it. The cases may still be active, but are more often considered resolved or inactive.

Among its advantages, this format illuminates the nuances in assessment strategies and case management that are particular to an individual organization, its culture, and its in-house practitioners. We can personalize teaching points and go beyond what is accomplished in general threat assessment workshops or public trainings. Discussing your own cases also provides a great way to improve assessment skills using the WAVR-21 V3.

The workshops are usually a full day and may include up to five or more cases that the team has prepared. In-depth discussion typically identifies obstacles and opportunities at various levels and how an organization’s threat management program and protocol may be improved.

Threat assessment consists of general principles, but threat scenarios present a wide variety of individual differences – in subjects of concern, targets and their expectations, and work environments and topography – calling for flexibility in response and selected interventions.

Threat assessment teams in organizational settings ideally meet regularly to discuss new and ongoing cases. But they rarely get an opportunity for a “retreat” with an expert to delve more deeply into their more challenging cases and the inherent “lessons learned” opportunities such exercises offer.

• Typical issues that teams address or recognize in their case presentations:
• Disagreements on opinion of risk among team members
• Information silos: Strategies to identify and collect useful data
• Recognizing bias errors and process flaws such as “disciplinary drift”
• Interviewing strategies with different kinds of subjects, for example individuals that are paranoid, very litigious, intimidating, or suicidal
• Identifying the possible unintended consequences of actions taken in a given case
• Communicating findings and managing fear, especially when a team’s objective opinion of risk differs from concerned clientele
• Managing one’s own emotions and personal concerns as a team member
• Identifying thresholds for appropriate engagement of threat assessment experts
• How different cases would be coded on the WAVR-21, and how to weigh and integrate findings

The critiques and discussions are conducted respectfully, as we offer teaching points and raise questions for attendees’ consideration. Threat assessment lives on information and collaboration. Attendees often come to recognize how collecting more reasonably available information leads to better-informed case management decisions.As an alternative to in-person workshops, webinars can be arranged, and are especially effective if scheduled periodically. We emphasize that the advanced case debriefing workshops are best suited for existing teams that have had some basic training in threat assessment and have some demonstrated experience working together.

For further information and pricing please contact Dr. Stephen White: swhite@wtsglobal.com.

Also please consider:

Help Support 

The Threat Assessment, Prevention, and Safety Act of 2019

As many of you may know, this bill in the House of Representatives (HR 838) is slowly moving forward, and outlines the beginning of a national strategy for threat assessment and management as a standard of practice. The bill is supported by many bipartisan sponsors in the House.

Your organization can help by formally endorsing this bill with a public letter of support. With organizational endorsements from institutions of higher learning, corporations, and other entities, the bill can become law.

The bill will direct a DHS Task Force to recommend a national strategy for preventing targeted violence through threat assessment and management, with grants then being awarded to establish community-based units for implementing the national strategy.

Dr. Reid Meloy has been very involved in assisting with the legislation. If you or your organization are interested in helping with a letter of endorsement, please contact Reid (reidmeloy@gmail.com), and he can fill you in on the relatively simple next steps.

Make no mistake, this is truly a much-needed and long-awaited step forward. The legislation is informed – it reflects an understanding of targeted violence dynamics and thus meaningful and practical ways to prevent it at all levels of awareness and intervention.

You can show your stakeholders what the bill is about with this YouTube video by its author, Congressman Brian Babin: click here to view video.