News and press interest – 15th May 2009

In close co-operation with Nottinghamshire Police, Inforce developed a four-day exercise, which took place at a Nottinghamshire Police training facility in May 2009. The central aim of the exercise was to enable DVI (disaster victim identification) officers to set up and run a temporary mass fatality mortuary. The exercise comprised of four units: 

• a short teaching and briefing element
• planning, setting up and running the temporary mortuary be a team of 20 experienced DVI officers
• an introduction of a further 20 less experienced officers by the first 20
• an identification commission, in which the officers had to present their findings to a panel of experts, including the Nottingham coroner

The Inforce team supplied the lectures and then acted as the 'ologists' in the mortuary operation, carefully supervising the police officers. The key educational principle behind the Inforce approach is to step back as much as possible during the supervision and to encourage the team to make decisions themselves. This not only results in vastly improved levels of knowledge transfer but also builds up group's and individual's confidence in being able to tackle what is a difficult and stressful challenge in real life.

By empowering the more experienced officers to train their colleagues, with minimal interference by external supervisors, the educational outcome is not only higher, but far longer lasting.