It has been a little more than three years since Lt. Michael Gifford was first introduced to the Leaders Helping Leaders Network (LHLN), a professional development organization focused on law enforcement leadership.

While Gifford is moving on to a position in Canton, Massachusetts, the Leadership 

 knowledge he gained will not be lost when he joins his new department as Deputy Chief of Police. Instead it will be institutionalized though leadership courses.

Lt. Gifford had been serving the citizens of Oxford for more than ten years when he attended the “Intentional Leadership” course led by LHLN founder Dean Crisp, a former police chief and current bestselling author.

The training not only changed the way he thought about leadership, it also changed the way Gifford viewed his responsibility to those he was leading. According to Gifford, “The course challenges participants to think critically about providing direction to those we lead, which motivated me to address what I perceived as a lack of direction for those seeking advancement in rank and specialty assignments”Thus began a year’s long process capped off with the Oxford Police Department’s Formal Career Growth and Development Plan, a structured, written, department-wide initiative that gives every officer, at any rank, a clear pathway toward their professional goals and establishes rank-specific career development framework that anyone, at any level, can use to take charge of their future.

Police departments across the country have training budgets that are fairly limited and when officers complete leadership and other specialized training courses, that knowledge often stays with the individual officer who often lacks any process to share their knowledge with subordinates. With retirement rates increasing over the last several years departments are losing veteran officers at an alarming rate and when those dedicated public servants leave, their years of knowledge often leave with them.

That’s no longer the case in Oxford. The Career Growth and Development Plan allows any officer to request training. When making the request, officers are required to supply documentation explaining what the training is and how it will benefit the individual’s career growth as well as the entire Oxford Police Department. The process requiring training participants to provide a summary of what they learned and how that information is shared is in the process of being implemented.

Now it’s just a few years since his first encounter with LHLN and Gifford was back for more. On April 7 and 8 he, along with Corporals Mercier and Shadis of the OPD, joined more than 250 members of law enforcement in Framingham for another “Intentional Leadership” presentation and residents can look forward to seeing what type of innovative changes take place as a result of this training.