By Ashley Silver
Police1
ELKTON, Md. — The Cecil County (Md.) Sheriff’s Office was recently awarded $460,000 to improve officer training and acquire resources that will assist in the implementation of recent policy changes in the State of Maryland.
According to the Cecil Daily News, the department will use the Police Accountability, Community and Transparency grant provided by the Governor’s Office of Crime Prevention, Youth and Victim Services, to purchase resources that will expand the training capabilities of their office through new technologies and partnerships.
“This grant is specific to three things: policy and procedure, officer wellness and training,” Cecil County Sheriff Scott Adams told the news platform. “These three things are all very important to law enforcement everywhere.”
The sheriff’s office will use part of the grant to purchase the CordicoShield smartphone app. Once implemented, the app will offer mental health-focused benefits free to all officers and their families at the department.
“In our world, it might not always be the deputy going through something, it might be their family as well,” Adams told Cecil Daily News. “The app has 24/7 access to online therapists, a clergy, a wellness toolkit, a self-assessment and we are going to have our chaplain listed on there also.”
To help implement recent state policy changes, $195,000 of the $460,000 grant will be used to purchase Lexipol – a resource for law enforcement to accurately and succinctly update their department’s policies and procedures to ensure compliance with new laws through an easy, intuitive approach.
“Several agencies use Lexipol so they have numerous existing templates which they will compare to what our department currently has in place and make adjustments and if we agree, it will become our policy,” Adams said. “Once a policy is changed, it is sent out automatically to all of our deputies that they have to read through and accept.”
As part of the grant, the sheriff’s office also has plans to purchase VirTra – a $205,000 real-life police simulator. The interactive 180-degree virtual simulator will allow officers to practice their judgment in a variety of situations, which include a variance of weather scenarios and the capability to analyze different response options based on how the officer in the simulation reacts.
Editor’s note: Police1, part of the Lexipol Media Group, is owned and operated by Lexipol.