As the number of powerful natural disasters continues to increase across the United States, local governments need to have proper disaster mitigation strategies in place. To prepare for natural disasters and reduce the number of people in danger, municipal governments need to form a local community emergency response team, or CERT.
But what is a community emergency response team, and how can your local government recruit community based, and even out of town volunteers to get involved? Follow along to learn everything you need to know about establishing a CERT for your community.
What is a Community Emergency Response Team?
A Community Emergency Response Team, otherwise known as a CERT, is a team of community members at the local level that are educated on emergency preparedness and the community emergency response plan.
In addition to regularly providing citizen emergency response training to members of the community, expert CERTs will act as resourceful volunteers to respond in the aftermath of an emergency situation.
Why Are CERTs Essential at the Local-Level?
In recent memory, wildfires were ravaging California as Hurricane Ida rolled through the east coast. Towns and cities will need to analyze which natural disaster types pose the biggest threat to their community, and create a citizen emergency response training program to educate CERT members.
Failure to prepare for natural disasters accordingly could result in the destruction of residential and public infrastructure, a drastic number of preventable deaths, and an inadequate emergency response and recovery rollout. Community emergency response teams can drastically increase your community's preparedness level by educating community members and working in the field in the event of a disaster.
How to Recruit CERT Members?
Many community members across the country are actively volunteering in a CERT to make a positive impact in their neighborhoods. Properly trained volunteers can provide critical support to professional emergency management officials from the local, state, and Federal levels in the event of a crisis. Your municipal government will need to raise awareness around your emergency response team and get in touch with people interested in civic engagement.
Here are some of the best practices for community emergency response team organization:
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Seek Relevant Professionals: Effective CERT members often have relevant expertise and training that can be applied quickly in an emergency situation to support or reinforce existing emergency response agencies and employees. Relevant CERT members might be retired doctors and nurses, teachers, military veterans, or former first responders.
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Attend networking events: As an elected official, you should be networking with savvy community-members. While speaking with members of the community, spread the word to these people with a clear interest in contributing within their neighborhoods.
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Promote Your CERT via your website and social media: An ADA compliant website should be easy to navigate and provide community members with valuable information. Add an easy-to-locate section to your website for the CERT volunteering opportunity, and be sure to share about it via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, NextDoor, and LinkedIn.
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Spread the word to friends, family, government workers, and known volunteers in the community: Word of mouth can spread pretty quickly. Take some time to contact people within your municipal workers’ immediate networks; you can find trustworthy CERT recruits of all ages and have them spread the word to others.
To learn more about public sector recruiting, read our How to Recruit Government Workers guide.
What Should CERT Members Be Trained On (And Be Training Others On?)
Community emergency response team members need to be well educated on the relevant natural disasters. In most instances, they’ll be the ones:
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Educating community members about preparing for and responding to natural disasters
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Helping to implement mitigation and resilience strategies across the community
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Working with first responders and local officials in the wake of an accident or emergency
As a result, you’ll want to educate CERT members about:
Hazardous Risks to Your Community
Your municipality will need to do some risk assessment, and determine which natural disasters or man-made accidents pose the most serious risk. CERTs should then undergo citizen emergency response training directly focused on the most common disasters in your region.
Consider your immediate needs based on your community's history with earthquakes, floods, wildfires, mudslides, blizzards, hurricanes, tornadoes, and other potential hazards or events such as train derailment or chemical spill.
How To Run Emergency Response Trainings
One of the most important jobs of a CERT is to educate community members on how to prepare for and respond to a major disaster situation. Make sure that CERT members are trained on proper techniques, and how to provide resourceful tips on things like emergency evacuation routes, storm mitigation techniques, how to prepare go-bags, and how to apply for individual assistance from FEMA following a Federally declared disaster.
Be sure to include hazard training to CERT members so that they can keep themselves and others safe in the event of on emergency. This includes avoiding floodwater and downed power lines, as well as proper mold-remediation and muck and gut techniques.
Pro Tip: Consider training your emergency response crew on how to best train different age groups, like children and seniors, since CERTs will perform training for audiences of all ages.
Implementing an Emergency Response Plan
The most critical aspect of a CERT role is assisting in the immediate disaster response plan, from performing search and rescue missions to performing critical medical operations to taking notes on the level of damage across the community.
How CERTs Interact With Local Professional Responders
Introduce your CERT members to official emergency responders like police and firefighters within your community, and teach volunteers about how they can act as an extension of the official response team in rescue operations.
How to Run a Great CERT Program?
A well-trained CERT can accomplish a lot of meaningful things for your community.
Here are some best practices for your municipal government to leverage when formulating a CERT:
Set Clear Objectives
Government officials that are formulating a community emergency response team need to consider: why?
Why does your community need a CERT? What emergencies pose the largest threat? Where do constituents lack education on how to address a natural disaster?
Considering these questions before formulating your trainings for CERTs and community members will make the job substantially easier, and will have volunteers more engaged with an active objective in mind.
Hold Regular Trainings for CERT Members
CERTs are typically trained annually on natural disaster mitigation and response techniques. After taking the time to formulate a well-thought out training, hold extensive yearly sessions for CERT volunteers. Also consider offering more specific disaster training in-between that directly cover the natural disasters that pose the biggest threats to your community.
Follow Ready.Gov & FEMA’s Best Practices
In addition to your own personalized training sessions, emergency managers can also lean into FEMA and Ready.gov for additional support.
Here are a few ways that the federal government can help:
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Have CERT Members Attend Official FEMA Training Schedules: FEMA offers an extensive course at the community level that provides instructions on disaster preparedness, basic disaster response skills, first-aid training, and other important natural disaster information.
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Register Your CERT: At community.fema.gov, you can make your CERT officially recognized at the national level, and will get access to educational resources for disaster best practices and networking opportunities with other emergency response programs
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Training For Young CERT Recruits: Since you want people of all ages in your community to be involved in your CERT, consider leveraging ready.gov’s training program specifically designed for teens when getting high-school students involved. Have CERT Members Conduct Regular Citizen Emergency Response Trainings & Drills
One of the biggest objectives in forming a CERT is for the team to actively train community members on the best practices before, during, and after a storm or emergency event. Training sessions open to the public should be regular occurrences, and CERT volunteers should also educate children in local schools and the elderly at retirement homes on things like fire safety, emergency evacuation routes, how to take cover during storms, and where communication channels can be accessed before and after storms.
Acquire All of the Necessary Resources for Your CERT
Having the right infrastructure and materials in place will be critical for your emergency team's success.
You’ll need proper physical and IT infrastructure, like buildings to hold regular CERT training sessions and technology to improve workflows within the disaster preparedness and response plans for your CERT team to implement.
You’ll also need proper CERT equipment like gloves, first aid kits, TYVEK suits, and face masks to use in training sessions AND in the field.
For more advice on how to specifically train CERT members and constituents on specific storm-types, read on with these helpful resources:
Disaster Preparedness: How Local Governments Build Resilient Communities
Flood Mitigation & Disaster Response Plan
Wildfire Mitigation & Disaster Response Plan
How Can Technology Help CERTs and Local Governments with Disaster Management?
Leveraging modern digital government infrastructure can ease the burden of government workers and CERT members alike.
Here is some technology you should consider for your municipality when taking action to improve your disaster preparedness:
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Online CERT Volunteer Registration: Make applying to join a CERT as simple as possible for constituents. Digital volunteer registration will allow constituents to join in with a few simple clicks. Utilize digital forms to quickly register spontaneous volunteers who are not members of the CERT but nonetheless seek to volunteer their time in the aftermath of a disaster to do things like debris removal and food/clothes distribution.
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Communication platforms: Local governments should coordinate a communication line that will allow for easy contact with CERTs, emergency personnel, and community-members.
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GIS Mapping Software: In the wake of the storm, CERTs and government officials will need to assess the situation as quickly as possible, so that your local government can determine what issues are top priorities before applying for federal relief funds. Geographic Information System (GIS) Mapping will allow officials to make note of damages in-real-time on a 3D map, and inform the public of the locations of emergency infrastructure such as triage centers, shelters, food distribution sites, and FEMA assistance resources.
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Automated permitting software: CERT volunteers should actively push constituents on the importance of using disaster resistant materials and techniques when building. Allowing residential and commercial builders to quickly file permits online will expedite the process and encourage more constituents to build disaster resilient infrastructure, homes, and businesses.
CERTS - In Conclusion
The significant increase in severe natural disasters in recent years has proven that local governments and communities need to be prepared. CERTs are an integral aspect of that preparation. Consider what your community needs to be educated on such as local risks, recruit volunteers, and work with community-members to be as prepared for a disaster as possible.
To learn more about how cloud-based government management software can help with resilience and disaster preparedness, schedule a consultation.
CERT FAQs
What is a CERT?
Community Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) are a team of volunteers within a community that are trained on disaster mitigation and response strategies. Typically, the volunteers host regular community events for training civilians, help to implement emergency preparedness projects, and provide immediate assistance to emergency responders at a disaster site.
How Should CERTs Train Community-Members?
CERT training should provide constituents with a realistic approach to disaster mitigation, drill training for events like wildfires or earthquakes, and disaster survival in the wake of a storm to provide family safety and a game plan for evacuation.
Who Should Get Involved With CERTs?
Your local government should get a diverse group of volunteers to get involved. Take a non-discrimination approach, with various genders, ages, economic classes, etc. so that volunteers can spread the world within their immediate circle and ensure the safety of every sub-culture within your community!
Interested in learning more about how to improve your municipality? Read on:
Building Trust in Local Government
2021 US Infrastructure Bill: What It Means for Local Governments
Building Inspections 101: How Municipalities Can Improve Public Safety
Should The Public Sector Use the Cloud or In-House Servers
