The U.S. Government has conducted outreach in various cities across the country with law enforcement, public safety officials, and directly to communities around the threat of violent extremism and terrorist recruitment. To schedule one of these Education Initiatives in your area, please contact the CSC Coordinator at PolicyOffice@CalOES.ca.gov.

Community Resilience Exercise

The Community Resilience Exercise (CREX) is a half-day table-top exercise designed to improve communication between law enforcement and communities and to share ideas on how best to build community resilience. DHS’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) and NCTC have worked with U.S. Attorneys and other local partners to implement this exercise—which involves an unfolding scenario of possible violent extremist activity—in cities across the United States.

Community Awareness Briefing

The Community Awareness Briefing is an unclassified presentation on radicalization and violent extremist recruitment designed to build awareness and to catalyze community efforts on prevention. The Community Awareness Briefing uses a series of case studies to illustrate the radicalization and recruitment process, but more importantly to identify vulnerabilities and possible points of intervention. The Community Awareness Briefing has been presented to audiences throughout the U.S. and overseas including law enforcement officials, public safety officials, and directly to communities.

Terrorism Prevention Planning Workshop

This one-day workshop brings together law enforcement and community members to work through a scenario of an individual radicalizing toward violence to identify key gaps and create concrete actions to address those deficiencies. The workshop is designed to improve communication, build trust, and to share ideas on how best to build community resilience. It uses an unfolding scenario of possible violent extremist activity with two threads: one thread disclosing what the police have learned and the other thread what the community experiences. The scenario is revealed in several stages, with participants breaking into small groups after each stage to discuss potential responses and how they should work together. The scenario is hypothetical, but based on the behaviors exhibited by past homegrown violent extremists prior to their arrest. The exercise is facilitated by individuals with credibility in both the community and government. At the conclusion of the scenario, participants draft a local action plan focused on trust building, violence prevention, and intervention to ensure lasting commitment from both law enforcement and community.