CHANGES IN ATTITUDE, CHANGES IN LATITUDE
Frank Lucier, Editor

In his research paper, Disaster Related Social Behavior: Summary of 50 Years of Research Findings, Dr. E. L. Quarantelli of the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware states that “When disasters occur, individuals as a whole react very well...prosocial behavior predominates with, for example, the great bulk, up to 90% plus of search and rescue, being undertaken by those civilian persons around the impacted site.”

This prosocial behavior has been exhibited in every disaster that has happened in this country in the past 50 years. People near the epicenter, near ground zero, near the impact area go to help. People want to help in disaster situations they just lack the knowledge of basic disaster skills. The CERT program was built on leveraging this desire to help, this prosocial behavior, with some basic skills and team organization to make them more effective. The program is also built on the understanding of the differences in emergencies (an everyday occurrence), local disasters (events affecting the community) and catastrophes (events affecting large areas and impacting almost everything), a concept that is explained in the same article.

The greater the disaster, the more emergency services will be overwhelmed and the greater the role of CERTs. The following quote come from the original Participants Manual dated 1994:

“The Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) concept was developed and implemented by the City of Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) in 1985. They recognized that citizens would very likely be on their own during the early stages of a catastrophic disaster. Accordingly, LAFD decided that some basic training in disaster survival and rescue skills would improve the ability of citizens to survive until responders or other assistance could arrive.”

I remember meeting Retired Chief Frank Borden, the “Father” (some now say the “Grandfather”) of the CERT program, back in 1990 and he told me that they weren’t just trying to train people; they were trying to change the “culture” of disaster preparedness. They were trying to change the culture of reliance on everyday 911 emergency response to self-sufficiency in a disaster situation. We change disaster culture by getting the information out to and by training as many people as possible.

In the last year all of the CERT materials have been revised, the content of the training program has been updated, and there is a new module on Terrorism. The CERT program now consists of three more hours and the requirement to receive a Certificate of Completion from the CERT program is to complete the 20 hours of course instruction. The “basic training in disaster survival and rescue skills” as envisioned by the LAFD in the 1980s still remains the same and the revised materials send the same message.

The following is from the new Participants Manual: “In 2003, President Bush asked all Americans to volunteer in the service of their country. The Citizens Corps program was created to spearhead this effort to harness the power of every individual through education, training, and volunteer service to make communities safer, stronger, and better prepared to respond to the threats of terrorism, crime, public health issues, and disasters of all kinds. CERT was selected as one of the primary programs offered to the American public to meet this challenge.”

The goal of the CERT training is unchanged, to train as many people as possible in basic disaster skills knowing that in a catastrophic event help would not arrive immediately and possible not arrive for days. There are two issues out there that appear to be in contradiction with the original vision of “changing disaster culture”.

The first issue is the retention of trained CERTs. We have now made this investment in time and money training people in our community. How do we keep them involved?

Recent materials have been developed and are available on FEMA’s web site Starting and Maintaining a CERT Program. It offers some suggestions on continuing training for CERT teams. In the CERT Background Information: CERT Overview section: 

“Initially, CERT programs were developed to assist communities in taking care of themselves in the aftermath of a major disaster when first responders are overwhelmed or unable to respond because of communication or transportation difficulties. As the CERT concept has taken hold across the country, however, CERTs have become much more than originally envisioned. CERTs have proven themselves to be an active and vital part of their community’s preparedness and response capability.”

“CERTs are an investment of local government’s time and resources. To capitalize on this investment, program sponsors can view CERT members as a volunteer resource that can assist with public safety activities. Such an approach will actively involve members in serving their communities beyond disaster response and add value to the CERT program.”

In order to capitalize on the investment of time, resources and money we want to actively retain as many people as we can in the program. We want them to become a resource for our communities. But we must understand that the more we involve CERTs actively in the program, the more time that takes to manage and oversee the retention process.

As programs grow across the country and more and more people are trained, the numbers become problematic for CERT program managers to keep CERTs involved. With 50 people trained it is relatively easy (and the key word here is relatively) to keep them involved. But what if we have 300 people trained, or 3,000.

One approach has been to train a small cadre of CERTs and keep them actively participating with refresher classes and involvement in community events. Some times these teams are trained to a higher skill level through continuing education and advanced courses. This limits the number of people that are trained and thus the number that have to be managed.

The two concepts should not mutually exclusive. Many of the people who take the CERT training want to be involved in a team. Many of the people who take the training want the information and the skills but either they don’t have the time or the desire to be part of an active team participating on a day-to-day basis.

If we examine the statistics for the major programs that have been around for 10 years and have trained more than 3,000 people we will find that on average only about 10% show up for refresher classes and continuing education classes. But this 10% are the active CERTs, the ones that can be used as a community resource when needed for non-disaster activities. It is critical that we involve these people and provide for them what they need to stay involved.

But we can’t ignore the other 90% of the people who attend the trainings. The other 90% have been trained in basic disaster skills. By getting the information to these people we are having an effect on overall community preparedness and training them to be self-sufficient. They can also work as part of a CERT team in a disaster.

If we restrict the training to a small cadre of actively participating people that we train to a high level we are limiting ourselves to developing a response asset that can be used in a local disaster to assist emergency responders at an incident site. But are we really having an effect on the overall disaster preparedness of our community?

To have an effect on overall community preparedness we have to train as many people as possible. We will never change disaster culture by limiting the number of people who participate in the CERT training. To be truly prepared we must change people perception of themselves, in a disaster situation, from one of helpless victims to one of community response resource.

The second issue, which has come to our attention because of a press release that was sent to us, is the formation of an ad hoc committee to develop a national standard for CERT instructors and CERT train-the-trainer classes. This is a bit confusing since the CERT Instructors Guide on FEMA’s web site is a comprehensive guide and is all that has been needed for the past 10 years.  

Since its adoption by FEMA in 1994, the CERT program has grown at an almost exponential rate. One of the main reasons for this growth is the ability to adapt the program to local hazards and resources and control the program at a local level, including the selection and training of instructors.

We have been conducting CERT train-the-trainer class since 1994 and have had over a thousand participants from varied backgrounds, experience levels and organizations in our trainings. We have found that the qualities that make a good instructor is the understanding of the CERT concept and how it fits into the local community response efforts and the desire to impart this knowledge to others.

In the last year we traveled to Guam, Saipan and American Samoa to conduct train-the-trainer programs at the request of FEMA Region IX. Being on your own following a catastrophic disaster is an ever-present possibility for these islands. The participants in our trainings were a mixed group from fire, law enforcement, civil defense, public works, school departments, clergy, local government, emergency medical services, The American Red Cross, volunteer organizations, non-governmental organizations, and the private sector. Each Island was setting up their program a little differently to fit their culture. We learned a lot on our trips to these beautiful Islands about how the CERT program can be adapted to fit many cultural differences. 

The consensus of the focus group that developed the Starting and Maintaining a CERT Program materials was captured in the excerpt from that manual below.

Regardless of the decision you make about the type of instructors to recruit and train, all should:

• Be interested and enthusiastic about the CERT concept
• Be able to make the training hands-on and fun
• Enjoy working with people
• Teach to the training and program objectives
• Know how their session fits into the other sessions and the program

Is a national standard really needed for a local program? Don’t we already have one in the Instructor Guide? If we restrict the number of people who can teach the CERT training because of their background, employment experience or any other artificial requirement, we may be affecting the ability of the local community to conduct the training. If we start limiting the number of people we train we have no chance of having a prepared community.

If we want to leverage this "prosocial behavior", if we really want people to be prepared for a disaster, then they will need to have the knowledge and skills required to be self-sufficient for a period of time following a disaster. If we really want people to be prepared we have to expand the CERT training in our communities and reach out to everyone. If we really want to be prepared we also have to train those that are willing to a higher level and involve them in other types of events where they can be useful.

If we want to change the disaster preparedness culture of this country from one of depending on every day 911 emergency response to one of self-sufficiency, and active response and assistance following a disaster that Chief Borden envisioned many years ago, then we have to start with the children. Cultural change in this country has always begun with the children. In the future CERT training should be part of the education program in the schools. Then and only then will we be truly prepared as a nation.

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