Most of us don’t want to stand by when someone is in difficulty or when we see others vandalising, bullying or behaving in a threatening way. We have a natural urge to try to cool arguments or prevent fighting but in today’s streets such actions feel very risky. There are frequent reports of people who were trying to help getting hurt. Mostly we feel unable to do anything and this sense of powerlessness leaves us feeling bad about ourselves and sends all the wrong messages to those who are behaving antisocially.

We need a way to respond, somewhere in between keeping our heads down and doing nothing and intervening and putting ourselves and perhaps others in danger. We need to be able :

to read the risks of a situation continuously and consistently,

to know what can be said and done to deescalate confrontation

to be able to treat with respect those whose behaviour we reject;

to stand up for ourselves and our values without making the situation worse;

to find ways to change people’s behaviour without either party ‘losing face’

to have confidence in our own capacity to make a difference.

Whether you and you neighbours are concerned about vandalism, threatening behaviour, keeping the peace between embittered neighbours or general anti-social behaviour in your community the Dfuse training will help you feel confident that you can respond in a safe and effective way.

All the trainers we engage have dealt with many situations like these as serving police officers. The Dfuse training programme combines the communication skills of the UKs top hostage negotiators with the safety skills of the Metropolitan Police Officer Safety Training Unit to give you the ability to deal with conflict and confrontation wherever you encounter it.

The professionalism, humour and street-level experience of our trainers are regularly cited by participants as what makes the Dfuse courses unique and so effective.