Probation Officer Training

[gunace89]

Hello Everyone,

Im hoping that I could get some helpful insight.
Backstory: I was in the police academy as a non-affiliate, but only made it half way through. I have a medical injury that ive had since I was a teen but thought I could handle the intensity regardless. I ended up injuring myself worse, so I was released. I then got to thinking about getting my foot in the door by trying my hand at Probation. Im currently in the beginning stages of hiring for a couple different counties. I understand that if I was too pass the hiring process, including medical background I would have to attend C.O.R.E. I assume this is Corrections equivelant too P.O.S.T.? Does anyone know how rigorous this training is? Should I rethink this all together? Thanks for the help everyone, and stay safe, watch your six.

[Watchur6]

Its not as rigorous as a police academy training at all but I do have to say that there are people that pass training just fine but struggle as soon as they start working in the institutions. It is a lot of down time with spikes of intense situations. Please make sure u are able to protect yourself and your coworkers when working, you may be watching my back one day. But to get back to your question, the C.O.R.E. class is mostly classroom work. There is a lot of juvenile law to learn. I say go for it! You'll never know until you try. If you have any specific questions feel free to PM me.

[gunace89]

Thank you very much for the reply!
Im going to go ahead and try and see what comes of it. When it comes too the stress factor the academy I attended was big on training for those situations. They liked to get us relaxed and then bam! something would happen. It was great training. I was always big into the safety and teamwork involved with the profession, so ill definetly take into consideration the need to be physically sound enough for my own and everyone elses protection. I might be PMing you soon for more specific questions.

[JoeGSX]

I have both my POST and CORE certs. CORE was a cake walk compared to POST. If you have any specific questions u can PM me.

Joe

[CaptMike]

Hey gunace

I have been teaching Juvenile Corrections Officer Core for 10 years now. The course itself is made up of a minimum of 168 hours plus an additional 40 hours of POST for a total of 208 hours of instruction. Most probation departments stick by that minimum standard and run the course in relaxed environment with no stress. The minimum physical training and defensive tactics standards were updated in 2007. They now require about 30 hours of defensive tactics and approximately siminlar amounts for PT. The usual schedule is PT or defensive tactics every other day. The concentration in physical training is the use of plyometric training. Core body strength is the focus. the old days of regular aerobic workouts are over. Here is a link to the JCOC manual that is publicly available from the California Corrections Standards Authority-Standards and Training for Corrections:

http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/csa/stc/Publications/2007_2011%20JCO%20Core%20Manual.pdf

download the manual and you can see what the learning units are and it has a complete breakdown of the minimum PT program. Understand that these are minimum standards and a department may have higher standards.

My department JCOC training program goes above and beyond what the majority of Probation departments do. We run a semi stress academy and our JCOC academy is 280 hours at this point. Our department changed to the semi stress academy model to improve the professionalism of our department. We cut those that demonstrate that they do not meet our departments higher standard. Every recruit must meet the physical, defensive tactics and curriculum minimum standards, if they cant meet the minimum, they are released. Our academy is based on our county big brothers academy, LASD. They loaned us one of their training Lieutenants for a year to help us reformat our training academy. So understand that even though most Probation departments around the state run their training program in a relaxed manner, that is changing slowly. Our department is leading the change, but I have had contact with other probation departments that are beginning to change their training as well. Good luck to you and if you have any further questions, you can post them here or PM me if you like. Good luck

[BigKevLA]

LT Mike sent you a pm.

[deadcoyote]

There's also some concerns as to what county you are looking to go to work at. With a recent swing more toward the LEO side of probation work in some counties, they are now putting on their pwn CORE courses which go way above and beyond what STC requires. We're talking 12-15 week programs rather than the STC 5 week cirriculum.

[CaptMike]

Definitely changing times in probation. My department completes all the training in phases. upon hire, you go straight to the Academy and complete a 7 weeks of JCOC. You will be assigned to one of our juvenile halls and then to a camp. once you promote up to the field, you will attend a 5 week Field Probation Officer Core (FPOC) course. Finally, if you decide to go into an armed unit, then you have to complete the 5 week arming academy as well. so the total training to get to an armed unit ends up being 17 weeks of training. This is a huge difference from just 8 years ago when it was 4 weeks of JCOC and 4 weeks of field training. This training is definitely needed with the new caseloads that we are dealing with. Stay safe everyone.