Who We Are
The Sedgwick County Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) provides both a train and release public education program as well as an active volunteer disaster response team. Anyone who lives and works within Sedgwick County can take the CERT Basic Training Weekend class. It's open to those who'd like to learn and gain new skills as well as those interested in being a regular CERT volunteer team member.
Each CERT class participant or volunteer completes 20 hours of basic training on disaster preparedness, basic disaster medical operations, fire safety, light search and rescue, disaster psychology, and other essential topics. The training also includes a disaster simulation in which participants practice skills they learned throughout the course. In the event of an emergency, CERT volunteers can provide immediate assistance to victims, assist in organizing spontaneous volunteers at a disaster site, canvas disaster areas to gather or disseminate information, operate power generation equipment, provide support to the incident command post and provide critical support to first responders.
Training is offered free of charge by the Sedgwick County Emergency Management.
What We Do
Disasters require enormous an amount of manpower to stabilize. CERT volunteers act as a force multiplier in times of crisis. During blue sky days, CERT volunteers may assist with power generation and lighting scenes, search and rescue, emergency services rehab, parades, fairs, public events and more. Basic Training Weekend provides education and skills in emergency preparedness and basic response techniques enabling citizens to take a more active role in personal and public safety in the aftermath of a disaster.
A typical CERT Basic Training Weekend looks like this.
Friday
5:00pm Registration Opens
5:30pm Program Introduction
5:45pm Welcome, Housekeeping, Intros
6:15pm Emergency Management 101
7:00pm Disaster Preparation
8:00pm How CERT Works in Sedgwick County
8:45pm Fill out evaluations, talk about Saturday activities
Saturday
8:00am Sign-in opens
8:30am Fire Safety and Utility Controls (30 min slides, 40 min live fire exercise)
9:40am Medical Ops 1 (105mins)
(Break)
11:00am Terrorism (45 mins)
11:45am (Working Lunch) Disaster Psychology (45 mins)
12:30pm Medical Ops 2 (75 Mins)
(Break)
2:00pm Search and Rescue (120 mins)
4:45pm Fill out evaluations, talk about Sunday’s activities
SUNDAY
12:30pm Sign-ins open
1:00pm Question & Answers. Go over any issues or items requiring further explanation
1:30pm Exercise pre-brief and gear up
2:00pm Exercise Begins
4:00pm Debrief
4:45pm Certificates
Original source can be found here
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