The term efficacy may not be frequently used in public safety circles, but its meaning is deeply important to police. Individual officers, organizations, and communities across the nations strive to achieve efficacy every day, though they usually describe it as crime reduction, partnerships, problem-solving, or organizational transformation. In public safety, efficacy is community policing; and the concept is at the core of Community Policing—Improving Police Efficacy and Building Trust (CPIPEBT).

Initially developed in 2017 through a cooperative effort between the COPS Office and the Virginia Center for Policing Innovation (VCPI), CPIPEBT is a multiday train-the-trainer course addressing the current and emerging issues that challenge the effectiveness of law enforcement agencies and the well-being of the communities they serve. The CPIPEBT curriculum, which has been regularly updated throughout its five-year run, focuses on applying the principles of community policing to daily law enforcement operations in order to advance public safety with greater efficiency and with less risk to officers and the communities they serve. The course also identifies strategies for sustaining improvements and building a culture in which the significant challenges facing our nation’s public safety agencies are viewed as opportunities for effectiveness and change.

Unique in its design, CPIPEBT offers learners a complete and comprehensive package for use beyond the classroom. Specifically, the course features a flexible curriculum that allows participating instructors to take the core content back to their organizations, customize it according to their specific needs, and train law enforcement, local leaders, and other stakeholders to implement community policing in their communities.

Since its development, nearly 3,000 public safety practitioners have received direct CPIPEBT training through on-site classes, live web-based (virtual classroom) courses, and on-demand eLearning. In the most recent eight deliveries of the course, beginning in 2019, the positive feedback from participants has been exceptional, with 85 percent of those who participated in a post-course training survey reporting that they were able to apply what they learned in the CPIPEBT course to their work in the community.

Boasting a long track record, CPIPEBT remains a prime and contemporary option for community policing training. Its flexible design, practical utility, and applicability have kept it timely and relevant in today’s policing environment. CPIPEBT continues to be offered as a web-based, on-demand training through the COPS Office Training Portal and in a variety of customizable formats directly from VCPI.

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