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SSAVEIM™
School Safety and Violent Event Incident Management

Active Shooter Training for Schools

Lockdown, Response, and Reunification

Lockdown is one step, not a plan. Once the doors are locked, school staff, police, fire, and EMS are all working the same event at once, and no single organization can rehearse that on its own. SSAVEIM trains them together on one plan: lockdown, stopping the threat, getting medical to the wounded, clearing the building, and returning every student to the right family. It is built on the Active Shooter Incident Management (ASIM) Checklist™, developed by C3 Pathways and endorsed by the NTOA as the national standard for managing active shooter events.

See Ways to Train
Schools and first responders together Follows SRP and SRM Grant fundable
Participants in command vests work a reunification exercise on a Counterstrike Terrain map table during a SSAVEIM delivery, with student assembly routes marked across the campus parking lots
Why SSAVEIM Exists

No School Can Be Ready Alone

Lockdown drills matter, and schools run them. But readiness is bigger than any single procedure. Response breaks down when school staff, police, fire, and EMS are working from different plans, and coordination is the one thing no organization can practice on its own.

The Building

Officers move to the threat. Fire and EMS need a way in, a place to treat, and a route out. Staff lock down and account for students. All of it happens at once, and everyone needs to be working from the same plan.

The Command Post

A school incident pulls in a district, several agencies, dispatch, and a PIO. Without shared roles and one set of priorities, the first hour is spent deciding who is in charge instead of running the response.

Reunification

After a violent attack, part or all of the campus may be a crime scene. Reunification may happen onsite or at a secured offsite location, and either way families have to be sent to the right place and matched to the right child.

The Readiness Pathway

Ways to Train

Not everyone needs the same training, but everyone needs the same picture of the response. Start where your role fits.

Free · Online

SSAVEIM Foundations™

4.6 (429)

Shared understanding for anyone who would be in the building or responding to it.

  • Open to school staff, police, fire, EMS, and dispatch
  • 13 modules, under one hour, self-paced
  • No cost, no prerequisites
  • Certificate on completion

Covers the whole response, from the first 911 call to the last student returned to the right family. It is also the prerequisite for Train-the-Trainer.

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2 Days · In Person

SSAVEIM Train-the-Trainer™

4.7 (1,009)

Certify your own local trainers so the training keeps happening after we leave.

  • 16 hours for up to 30 candidates: ideally 10 law enforcement, 10 fire/EMS, 10 school staff
  • Day 1: experience the class. Day 2: learn to teach it.
  • Exercises run on Counterstrike Terrain™, which NCIER brings
  • Three-year certificate, no per-delivery fee

Leaves you with certified local trainers who keep the curriculum, ASIM Checklists, and LMS access, so SSAVEIM keeps running on your own schedule.

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Ongoing · For Organizations

ASIM Readiness

Implementation and proof.

Foundations and Train-the-Trainer train people. ASIM Readiness is about the organization around them. It is scoped to where you are starting from, so it begins with a conversation rather than a registration.

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Where this sits in your existing plan. SSAVEIM covers the violent event from start to finish: the 911 call, lockdown, the public safety response, and reunification. It follows the Standard Response Protocol (SRP) and Standard Reunification Method (SRM) from The “I Love U Guys” Foundation, so it works inside the protocols your district already runs and shows how school staff, police, fire, and EMS work that event together.
Paying For It

Federal Grant Funding for SSAVEIM

Three federal programs are the closest fit for training like this: the Justice Department’s STOP School Violence Program, the COPS Office School Violence Prevention Program, and Byrne JAG. Several others work depending on who is applying and which disciplines are in the room, among them homeland security, emergency management, firefighter, and tribal grants.

Who applies differs by program, and the windows change every cycle. For most of these the applicant is not the agency that holds the deadline, so eligibility, current status, and citation detail are maintained on the grant funding reference rather than here. SSAVEIM Foundations is free, so none of this is needed to start.
See Grant Options for Your Agency
Common Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

A lockdown drill rehearses the first step. SSAVEIM covers the whole sequence starting from the 911 call: lockdown, the public safety response as law enforcement, fire, and EMS arrive and work the building, and violent-event reunification once part or all of the campus is a crime scene and students have to be moved, onsite or offsite, and returned to the right families.

SSAVEIM Foundations is for everyone who would be part of that day: teachers, principals, front office and facilities staff, bus drivers, custodians, school safety officers, and the police, fire, EMS, dispatch, and emergency management personnel who would respond. It is online and self-paced, so anyone can take it on their own schedule.

Train-the-Trainer is a smaller group: up to 30 people who will go on to train others inside their own district or agency, ideally 10 law enforcement, 10 fire/EMS, and 10 school staff. There is no rank requirement, and line-level staff regularly make strong trainers. They keep the curriculum and a three-year certificate, so they can deliver SSAVEIM locally with no per-delivery fee from NCIER.

Either way, everyone works from one shared incident playbook, so the response holds together regardless of who is on shift that day. Police, fire, and EMS can go further in ASIM Advanced, which covers active shooter incident management across many different scenarios with schools as one of them. It runs three days, 24 hours total, for up to 60 responders.

SSAVEIM Foundations. It is free, online, self-paced, 13 modules, and takes under an hour. There are no prerequisites and no budget approval needed, so an entire staff roster can take it this week.
SSAVEIM is built on the ASIM Checklist™, developed by C3 Pathways, aligned with NIMS and endorsed by the NTOA as the national standard for managing active shooter events. It is built in partnership with The “I Love U Guys” Foundation and follows their Standard Response Protocol (SRP) and Standard Reunification Method (SRM).
No. SSAVEIM covers the violent event from the 911 call through reunification. It is designed to sit alongside the plans and protocols a district already runs and to strengthen them.
It can. SSAVEIM Train-the-Trainer is fundable under BJA STOP School Violence, COPS SVPP, and JAG as primary pathways, with HSGP, AFG, EMPG, THSGP, and COPS CTAS as conditional pathways depending on the applicant and the discipline mix. Who applies differs by program, and application windows change every cycle, so check the grant funding reference for current status.
Evaluations are collected from verified course participants and published without editing, and you can read them in full. People also finish it. About 75 percent of those who register for SSAVEIM Foundations on their own complete all 13 modules and earn the certificate. That counts only voluntary registrations, not those completing it as a Train-the-Trainer prerequisite.

Talk Through What Your Schools Need

A short call will tell you whether SSAVEIM Train-the-Trainer fits your district or region, and what hosting it would take.

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15 to 20 minutes · No obligation

SSAVEIM™, ASIM™, Counterstrike®, Counterstrike Terrain™ and Active Shooter Incident Management Checklist™ are trademarks of C3 Pathways, Inc. The “I Love U Guys” Foundation, Standard Response Protocol™ and Standard Reunification Method™ are trademarks of The “I Love U Guys” Foundation, used with permission under license.


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