NIC Grant: Managing Executive Leadership Training for New Wardens

The growth of the incarcerated population coupled with the retirement of baby boomers has dramatically increased the number of wardens required to operate our nation’s prisons, jails and community corrections facilities. It is the responsibility of the individuals in this position to manage facilities in a manner to ensure public safety, protect the safety of staff and incarcerated individuals, and be good stewards of taxpayer dollars. Many are tasked leading workplaces with many complex missions that include dealing with specialized populations, overcrowding, staff vacancies and external stakeholders. Today’s wardens are the chief executive officers of multi-million dollars enterprises that are often misunderstood by the public.

The NIC curriculum for Executive Leadership Training for New Wardens was developed in 2001 as instructor-led training (ILT) and a new curriculum was completed in 2022 This 36-hour program is designed to enhance the skills of wardens who have less than 2 years on the job. It specifically focuses on the leadership and administrative attributes necessary for a warden to successfully operate a correctional facility. Topics to be discussed include institutional culture, central office relationships, fiscal decision-making, human resource management, media relations, action planning, and self-care management. The training also allows participants to network with other wardens from all over the country, which is an opportunity highly regarded by those who attend. 

NIC welcomes applications that involve two or more entities; however, one eligible entity must be the applicant and the others must be proposed as subrecipients. The applicant must be the entity with primary responsibility for administering the funding and managing the entire program. Only one (1) application will be accepted from a submitting organization.

The growth of the incarcerated population coupled with the retirement of baby boomers has dramatically increased the number of wardens required to operate our nation’s prisons, jails and community corrections facilities. It is the responsibility of the individuals in this position to manage facilities in a manner to ensure public safety, protect the safety of staff and incarcerated individuals, and be good stewards of taxpayer dollars. Many are tasked leading workplaces with many complex missions that include dealing with specialized populations, overcrowding, staff vacancies and external stakeholders. Today’s wardens are the chief executive officers of multi-million dollars enterprises that are often misunderstood by the public.

The NIC curriculum for Executive Leadership Training for New Wardens was developed in 2001 as instructor-led training (ILT) and a new curriculum was completed in 2022 This 36-hour program is designed to enhance the skills of wardens who have less than 2 years on the job. It specifically focuses on the leadership and administrative attributes necessary for a warden to successfully operate a correctional facility. Topics to be discussed include institutional culture, central office relationships, fiscal decision-making, human resource management, media relations, action planning, and self-care management. The training also allows participants to network with other wardens from all over the country, which is an opportunity highly regarded by those who attend.