Who, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHY, and HOW DO YOU BEGIN?
Carrie Barnecut, BPA  Emergency Services Coordinator, Coastal Region, California State OES

Tim Murrell who is currently serving as a member of his Local Emergency Planning Committee in Albuquerque New Mexico. Tim read about BayNET, our regional collaborative for neighborhood emergency training that I administer. He is hoping to work with his city’s interested residents in Albuquerque’s neighborhood associations to enable the community to be prepared for response when fire and police are not immediately available. Tim asked for advice about the process involved in planning, training, and implementing a neighborhood training program. Tim found sources of information about existing programs, but not about start-up. I realized others might need such information. Here is my reply.

“BayNET was started by a group of participants of a NERT train-the-trainer class offered by San Francisco Fire Department. BayNET supports programs that are already in place as well as other disaster public education efforts. I'm not sure that for what you want to do that BayNET is the place to begin.

You may want to consider the CERT program (citizen emergency response training) that FEMA sponsors. Many communities in the Bay Area have adapted CERT. (Some, like San Jose, use the entire program, others build components of CERT into their own program.) If you are not familiar with CERT, check out the FEMA web page. CERT is going to be an important part of President Bush's Citizen Corps Initiative. (For more information on that, go to Citizencorp.gov.) Most often the CERT-type programs are sponsored by fire services. Typically the program advances preparedness by forming neighborhood response teams. 

The more beneficial programs (in my opinion), train people to respond where ever and with whom ever they are – be it at work, on vacation, commuting. There is a much different program in Huntington Beach. They train individuals to be volunteers for the city (they may be assigned to work anywhere, not just in their neighborhood). Some really wonderful programs (like in Apple Valley) take the training to the teachers (since the school is a neighborhood). I can refer you to program managers from the different programs if you like.

One thing these programs all have in common is their outreach to neighborhood associations and neighborhood watch groups. The people involved in these organizations are likely to be the ones who would participate in neighborhood emergency training. So, I think you are on the right track working with Albuquerque's neighborhood associations.

There are a couple other aspects of citizen emergency response you should consider as you develop your plan. 

California has incorporated trained citizen responders (such as amateur radio operators, building inspectors, etc.) into their Disaster Service Worker Volunteer Program. With this inclusion, our participants are eligible for State Workers’ Compensation, and probably more important to the jurisdictions, increased liability coverage. If New Mexico has such a program, see if you can work your neighborhood groups into it.

No matter how hard you try, you will never train all the people who will want to help following a disaster. Therefore, I encourage you to plan for spontaneous volunteers as well. Our counties' volunteer centers have developed a plan to use volunteer mobilization centers to help jurisdictions handle the influx of well-intentioned citizens. You may want to get a copy of my State Office of Emergency Service’s publication, "They Will Come." The volunteer mobilization center program is discussed in the publication, as are several options for working with volunteers.

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