Training is a vital part of improving the security awareness and management capacity of staff. Many NGOs understand the importance of security training; in practice, however, the cost, time and capacity of security staff to deliver training remain significant barriers to organisations implementing and sustaining security training for staff at the local and national levels. Smaller NGOs, in particular, with limited resources and security capacity, can struggle to provide much needed security training to staff.
While security staff are keen to establish and provide security training to staff, they are often time-constrained or have limited training experience. Therefore, developing training materials, and considering which topics to cover and how, can be an additional barrier, especially in an emergency setting when there is a need to quickly provide training to large groups of staff across many different locations.
Although some larger organisations already have well established security training programmes and provide security training resources for staff to deliver in their different offices, many do not.
The GISF Security & Safety Training Pack provides ready-made resources and comprehensive guidance to support security staff in the delivery of security training. The training pack is designed in a modular format so that the resources can be adapted to the training needs in different locations.
Who is this resource for?
The training pack is aimed principally at country-level security staff who are looking to facilitate security and safety training for their staff, or for staff from other organisations and local partners as part of a wider security collaboration initiative.
Although the resources were developed for country level training, the pack can also be used to support organisations in establishing security training at HQ or for international travelling staff, as much of the content is easily adaptable for different audiences.
How to use the materials
This pack provides flexible resources that can be contextualised to the local operating environment, the threats that exist, and the training needs of different staff. The programmes include three distinct levels of training: a short basic security and safety awareness training, a personal security and safety training, and a security management training.
Each training programme includes detailed session plans with learning outcomes and suggested activities and delivery times, PowerPoint presentations, handouts, and links to supporting material. The packages also provide practical guidance on delivering security and safety training in different locations, and will help security staff plan, deliver and evaluate their own training programmes.
Sections of the pack can also be used to support existing training programmes or activities, or to deliver standalone security and safety training. In situations where face to face training is not possible or feasible, the training materials and exercises can easily be adapted for delivery remotely, using video conferencing platforms.
Acknowledgements
The training pack was developed by Shaun Bickley (Tricky Locations) with input from Lisa Reilly, GISF Executive Director.
GISF would like to thank the following people who contributed their time and expertise to the development of these materials: Anne-Céline Okonta (Action contre la Faim), Gonzalo de Palacios (Oxfam International), Martin Hartney (Catholic Relief Services), Mike Croll (Tearfund), Peter Sjøstedt (Danish Refugee Council) and Philipp Burtzlaff (CBM).