Counterterrorism Practitioner Education

Since 2006, the CTC and FBI have partnered on this flagship educational program. We educate every new Special Agent at the FBI Academy and provide week-long educational programs at ten Field Offices across the country each year.  In these regional venues and others, the CTC brings its rigorous counterterrorism curriculum to multidisciplinary audiences that include operational and analytical representatives from the Joint Terrorism Task Forces and Field Intelligence Groups to cyber teams, linguists and local law enforcement.  Further, the CTC serves as a resource beyond the classroom, offering an open channel for ongoing education and a reach-back capability to help the Bureau advance its active investigations.

In the aftermath of 9/11, the Fire Department of New York City reached out to the Combating Terrorism Center  to create an educational program that would help them rebuild capacity and inform their strategic level decision-making.  The result was the Center’s first practitioner education program, an eleven- week, graduate course,  which remains the only one of its kind in the nation. This tremendously influential program and our longstanding relationship with the FDNY continues to inform and shape our educational outreach efforts.

Understanding the essential role played by state and local homeland security practitioners in concert with federal agencies, the Combating Terrorism Center has designed an inter-agency, multi-jurisdictional educational program that addresses the need to educate the leaders as well as the broader workforce among key cities. Begun in Chicago where 800 plus law enforcement officers were trained, this program ultimately seeks to expand to twenty cities across the nation.  Presently, this program is supported through a grant provided by the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.

The Combating Terrorism Center provides tailored terrorism and counterterrorism education to United States Attorneys and to state and local audiences through the DOJ’s Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council.  The CTC has conducted events in Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington, DC.  These events are conducted in an interagency environment intended to strengthen collaboration across the spectrum of counterterrorism communities domestically.