CERT: Beyond Training

Maintaining CERT Volunteers and CERT Programs

When volunteers are not engaged they are lost!

The key to maintaining volunteers is keeping them engaged! This can be done by providing volunteer opportunities, additional training, refresher courses and regular meetings.

  Managing Volunteers and planning for spontaneous unaffiliated volunteers (.doc) coming soon... 

Emergency Uses of CERT Volunteers

• General response team for controlled deployment or self-deployment
• Assistants to first responders and emergency managers
• Manage utilities and small fires
• Immediate assistance to victims
• Organize spontaneous (unaffiliated) volunteers
• Donations center assistants (or management)
• Community relations
• Assistants to the community for filling out forms
• Taking recorded testimony and gathering disaster intelligence
• Clean up crews
• Chainsaw crews
• Roof tarping
• Crowd control, road closing, safety monitors
• Information hotline assistants
• Emergency Operations Center/Mobile Command Center assistants
• Sandbagging
• Distribution of food and water to emergency workers
• Translators/Signers
• AND MORE!

Non-Emergency Uses of CERT Volunteers

• Everyday volunteer assistants for first responders
• Mitigation projects within the community
• Installing smoke detectors for low income, elderly and disabled
• Assessing neighborhood needs
• Checking on elderly/disabled/homebound neighbors prior to threat and during threat of an emergency
• Hazard Analysis projects
• Assisting with Emergency Planning
• Marking roadways where fire-hydrants are located for better visibility
• Painting street addresses on curbs
• Building plans
• Communicating between agencies to create a Citizen Corps Council
• Newsletters: Create and Distribute
• Staff booths at fairs and special events on CERT, Citizen Corps and Family Preparedness
• Victims in Large Scale Exercises in the city/county/etc
• Participate in Large Scale Exercises/Table Tops as a response resource
• At special events: gatekeepers, crowd control monitors, safety monitors, parking lot attendants, volunteer coordinators.
• Service Learning in schools: evacuation plans, exercises, basic talk/training for kids
• AND MORE!

Additional Training Possibilities for All CERT Graduates

• First Aid/CPR/AED (Red Cross)
• Incident Command System
• Donations Management
• Community Relations
• Damage Assessment (Red Cross)
• Traffic/Crowd Control
• Animals in Disaster/Animal Control
• Advanced Search and Rescue
• Additional utility safety training
• Advanced Disaster Psychology
• HazMat Awareness/WMD briefing/Homeland Security briefing/etc.
• Communications
• Suspicious Activity training
• Reporting
• Severe weather training/awareness
• Storm Spotters Training (National Weather Service)
• Amateur Radio/HAM
• Sandbagging
• Introduction to Disaster Services (Red Cross)
• Mass Care (Red Cross)
• Shelter Operations (Red Cross)
• AND MORE!

Refresher Courses for All CERT Graduates

• Host a CERT Rodeo and compete between teams, cities or counties.
• Allow previously trained members to sit in on parts of course and/or participate in the final exercise.
• Hold exercises 1-2 times per year.
• AND MORE!

Resources

    EMI/FEMA CERT Website:

• Job Aid - Starting and Maintaining a CERT Program http://training.fema.gov/emiweb/CERT/new_CERT/index.htm

• CERT Program Maintenance http://training.fema.gov/emiweb/CERT/prgmnt.asp

 

There are additional resources listed throughout this website

 

Last Updated: January 19, 2005