Members of CSUN’s Department of Police Services works with children during radKids workshop. Photo provided by the Department of Police Services.

Safety first. That’s what officials with California State University, Northridge’s Department of Police Services urge students, faculty, staff and community members to consider when planning their activities.

To support this effort, the department will offer a series of safety workshops this semester that are open to students, faculty, staff and the community. The workshops will provide valuable tips on improving residential security, preventing identity theft and how to use pepper spray defense.

“ ‘It’s better to be safe than sorry.’ This is just one of the quotes we live by, but where do we learn how to protect ourselves, our loved ones and our property?” said Daniel Foster, the department’s crime prevention coordinator. “We encourage students, faculty, staff and the community to take advantage of our safety programs. Each workshop offers useful and valuable life-saving information.”

The department will kickoff the semester’s first session on Feb. 11 with a building and floor marshal training only for CSUN employees. The training will provide emergency response procedures for the most common campus emergency situations.

Faculty, staff, community and students can enroll on Feb. 13 for a free course on “How to Make Your Home a Safer Place,” a basic residential security workshop. Attendees will learn how to better secure their home, apartment or dorm room and reduce the chances of being a victim of a burglary.

The department will also offer a free emergency personal preparedness workshop on March 19.

One of the department’s most popular workshops is the radKIDS (Resist Aggression Defensively) program, which trains children to recognize an emergency and how to respond, as well as how to use verbal and physical defense techniques. CSUN offers a workshop Feb. 24 to 28 for children 5 to 7 years old. Both this workshop and a similar course scheduled April 7 to 11 are full; however, the department is accepting names for a waiting list.

For more information about community safety programs offered by the Department of Police Services, visit the community workshops page. If you would like to be notified via email of upcoming workshops, contact daniel.foster@csun.edu to be added to the distribution list.

radKids, safety