We are aware of the recent story regarding an active shooter training scenario that took place in an Indiana elementary school.

It is important that media reports properly characterize ALICE training. Our training for adults typically starts with participants voluntarily experiencing a traditional lockdown scenario. Most of the time, traditional lockdown leaves participants scared and wanting options to do more. This traditional lockdown scenario leads to high casualty counts in training, as evidenced by the independent, peer-reviewed research published in the Journal of School Violence. ALICE (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate) teaches proactive response rather than traditional lockdown. The traditional lockdown scenario is used to illustrate why proactive response options are necessary and has been a standard part of ALICE training for over a decade.

Best practice for local training is for implementation details to be decided at the local level by the stakeholders. This means schools and local law enforcement work together and decide what is best for training in their community.

ALICE is committed to keeping students, teachers, and everyone working in schools safe, in addition to all of the other individuals we support in our training nationally (e.g., corporations, hospitals, etc.). The purpose of ALICE training is to empower individuals to participate in their own survival in the face of violence. ALICE training provides proactive response options to increase survivability.

As part of our ALICE Instructor Certification program, we provide Certified ALICE Instructors (ACIs) with guidelines and best practices for implementing training locally. Our instructor resources prioritize safety – for example our Conducting Safe Drills module inside our Instructor e-Learning course – and in our instructor downloadable resources such as the ALICE Safe Scenarios Guidelines.

We have tens of thousands of ACIs across the country. They are the foundation of local implementation and have brought our training program to every state. ACIs are the strength behind ALICE training and have allowed ALICE to become the number one civilian active shooter response training program.

ALICE Training will continue to work to provide civilian active shooter response training, with the support of Certified ALICE Instructors across the nation and remains committed to our mission of empowering individuals to participate in their own survival.