Corrections officers graduate from first local training course

FARMINGTON – A graduation ceremony was held to recognize five people who successfully completed 200 hours of training to receive their corrections officer licenses.

The class was a first in many ways.

It was the first Basic Corrections class to be held outside the Justice Academy and the first to follow the expanded new five-week curriculum mandated by the state, which was formerly a two-week session. In addition, the five new officer hires graduated with the highest test score average in the state.

“It speaks volumes of the quality of the instructors and the students,” said Franklin County Sheriff Scott Nichols.

After the state’s Justice Academy canceled the basic corrections officer class in September because the 10-student minimum wasn’t reached, “we decided to hold the class right here,” Nichols said and he added, “we’re the first to do it.”

The classes at the academy are routinely led by experts in corrections and related fields who would travel to the Justice Academy in Vassalboro. Once Nichols and Franklin County Detention Center manager Doug Blauvelt decided to hold the course here and at the training facility at the Somerset County Sheriff’s Office, they contacted other sheriffs in the state to see if they would be interested in having new corrections hires who need to take the training course attend.

Androscoggin County Sheriff Eric Samson, and Oxford County Sheriff Wayne Gallant enthusiastically said yes. New hires are required to pass the basic corrections officer course and take the 120-exam to be awarded a license to be employed at a jail.

In all, the three sheriffs enrolled five people to take the five-week course. Then Blauvelt, who coordinated the course and served as head instructor, went about bringing in staff members from Franklin and Somerset counties corrections, the Maine State Police, Evergreen Behavioral Services, Farmington Fire Rescue Department, and Medpro. Arranged too, was that the kitchen staff at the detention center would be able to add meals each day of the training session for instructors and students.

The experts who taught the course covered many different subjects including ethics, sociology, investigations, correctional standards, mental health and disabilities, sexual assault investigation, writing reports, court testimony, reading body language, inmate classifications, discipline, suicide recognition and prevention, training and more than 16 hours learning the mechanics of restraint and control.

It turned out holding the class at the real facilities proved much better than the classroom setting at the academy, Nichols said. The class, held every day from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., ended up costing about the same as running the course at the academy, but the local, real life classroom was “more convenient for most and it was wonderful to have it at the jail,” Nichols said.

He pointed out “corrections is a demanding job. While patrol officers may “deal with unsavory types 20 percent of the time, these folks deal with them all of the time.”

“It takes a special person to do this,” Blauvelt said.

Holding the course after the academy had canceled it, “was a relief for us and this will put us at full capacity,” Samson said of his jail’s employment needs.

Gallant said it was a good example of “taking the lead by putting on the class. They received top notch training and we’re very appreciative.”

Completing the course were Amber Ryan and Russell Dodge, Jr. of the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office, Deanna Petrie of the Oxford County Sheriff’s Office and Dominique Belanger and Alec Duquette of the Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Office.

“It was truly a team effort to put this class on and the success is proven by their final test scores which averaged 92.6 in a test which had 120 questions,” Nichols said.