I have a team that I need to have certified in the near future. Does anyone have any recommendations for a place in Indianapolis, Indiana that isn’t took expensive to train our team? Any suggestions for good online training as well?
Thank you in advance.
Welcome to the USCCA forums!
I do know a guy in Texas that is very involved in teaching church security. You probably need someone closer.
Out of curiosity, who certifies them in your state?
A friend of mine contacted his local P.D. and they were very helpful might give that a try.
Welcome to the family @ChuckR and God bless you. I’m on my church security team and I am one of the coordinators. We just got 10 of us CPR certified today and the church picked up the tab. Not all churches are the same. We have a large church with 4 campuses. What type of certifications are you looking for?
Hello and welcome @ChuckR
@ChuckR, try to google search security schools in you area and shop around and get prices per student. If you are from a big church and want a safety team there they may put up some of the costs. Talk to your senior pastor. In the mean time you can PM me and see what else I can come up with.
@ChuckR Welcome to the community. 
@ChuckR This one seems interesting, read some of their offerings.
Also click on the magnifying glass on the top right, there are 10 previous threads on this topic. 
@BRUCE26,
Excellent choice. Never heard of them but it looks like they offer some good training. @ChuckR look into that and let me know how it goes.
@ChuckR Welcome to the community. I’m here in Texas and have done quite a few EOP’s and training for House of Worships. My suggestion would be to travel to Fr. Worth for this years USCCA Convention as there are multiple learning workshop tracks on HoW training.
Also, look in the “Training” section of the USCCA website for instructors who have HoW certification. I do but IN is a bit far for me. I’ve been asked to travel before but since the Wuhan thing I don’t fly anymore, to oppressive and not fun any longer.
PM me as well and I can get you started and pointed in the right directions with at least what you should be looking for.
Hey Chuck, I live in southwest Colorado in a small mountain town…we get a lot of tourists in the summer and sadly have a less than stellar city council who decided we’re an “unofficial sanctuary city”. I’ve also been an NRA certified firearms instructor for 12 years and make sure any new team member is trained and Colorado certified. We do periodic team practices and idea swaps for better coverage at our church. We’re located up in the mountains by a popular lake and get a bunch of traffic in the summer.
My local sheriff has the names and contacts of all instructors in my county. You might check with your sheriff first for a trained, certified instructor and any feedback. Sadly there are always a few who are convinced they’re “experts” but are just flat out incompetent, not to mention dangerous. You might also check with the NRA for a list of certified instructors in your area. If you have a local gun club find out when their meetings are. Myself and one other instructor here are the primary instructors and we conduct classes at the indoor range and our gun club page online has our names and contact numbers for any new members wanting to certify.
I also had a good friend on the police dept. come and do an “incident training” with our members for a half day. He is the firearms instructor for the PD and also the SWAT team.
Hopefully your local law enforcement is sympathetic to your situation and will help you on legalities as well.
Either way it’s going to cost you some $$. I don’t charge team members for recertifications but for baseline to finish it’s nominal for the whole class. You might also talk to your pastor about establishing an ongoing fund in place through the church for training, radios, other equipment you may need for communication with the team in situations.
Once you get your team in place make sure you have periodic meetings to discuss improvements in strategy, fire arms practice and ideas you may have in the course of the first year. Best of “luck” and include lots of prayer in those meetings. Denise
There are a lot of great options on here to get help with this, and I am so happy to hear your church security team is looking to get some formal training. As stated above, you can look for a USCCA instructor to help you out with this.
To find one in your area, check out the USCCA training website here: https://academy.usconcealedcarry.com/search
Chuck,
I lead the firearms training for our church’s teams. We use the OPOTA qualifications for our teams. PM me if you’re interested.
Welcome to the ranks, ChuckR! I can’t answer your question, but there are lots of good people here whom I’m sure will chime in with advice.