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THE PIMA COMMUNITY COLLEGE ROLE IN MMRS & CERT Deputy Chief Les Caid, Tucson Fire Department, Arizona The Public Safety and Emergency Services Institute of Pima Community College will coordinate the training portion of the MMRS. The Institute will also develop a curriculum in support of the future needs of emergency responders to terrorist incidents. The College will offer training, both on an as-needed basis and will also offer classes leading to professional certification. Additionally, college-level course credit for First Responders are available. The Public Safety and Emergency Services Institute of Pima Community College was established to provide training and educational opportunities to a variety of public safety-related agencies. The Institute helps provide the public safety professions with well-trained and well-educated professionals who can work in concert with their communities to create a safe and healthy environment.

A unique feature of the Institute is that it offers convenient, flexible and immediately useful programs to professionals who seek advancement in their careers. Educational opportunities at the Institute reflect contemporary issues, current techniques and technology used in public safety and emergency services. When employees complete Institute courses, the agency gains professionals who have a greater range of skills and have the education to meet the expanding role of safety agencies. Pima Community College is uniquely suited to both support the Tucson Metropolitan Medical Response System Plan and to provide on-going education and training for First Responders to terrorist incidents. Through the Public Safety and Emergency Services Institute, the College offers degree programs in Fire Science, Law Enforcement, Emergency Medical Technology, and Public Safety Communications. The synergy created by housing these First Responder-related programs within the Public Safety Institute allows the College to offer courses for those interested in pursuing a college degree program, yet allows the College to be flexible in meeting the rigorous training demands of the Tucson Metropolitan Medical Response System.
Pima Community College has provided Awareness Level Training and ongoing education in support of the MMRS. Pima College has also played the lead role in developing training in many formats. These formats include workshops for continuing education for emergency responders and health care workers, seminars on specialized areas of emergency response, college-level courses towards the Law Enforcement, Emergency Medical Technology, and Public Safety Communications degree tracks within the College. Ultimately, the student will be eligible for a Certificate in Metropolitan Emergency Response Systems. As of September 2003 over 6,000 individuals and agencies in the greater Tucson area have attended free training sessions provided by PCC and Tucson Fire MMRS.
Pima Community College is now playing an active role in training and education involving the Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT) With the addition of CERT training, PCC and Tucson Fire MMRS continues to build on our past success. CERT training promotes a partnering effort between emergency services and the people that they serve. The goal is for emergency personnel to train members of neighborhoods, community organizations, or workplaces in basic response skills. CERT members are then integrated into the emergency response capability for their area.
As we all know our first response agencies are burden with diminishing budgets and increasing costs of personnel and keeping up with our #1 priority; emergency response to 911 calls to our citizens. No matter how much the fire service supports the CERT concept, and realizing that CERT Training places a special demand on our fire service agencies, fiscally it is a burden in these tough economic times which makes it impossible for most departments to allow on-duty personnel to teach the 20hour CERT courses.
The solution that Tucson MMRS came up with was to place CERT at an institution of higher education that has an established record and the ability to train-the-trainer and of course organize and provide oversight to this program. To this end Tucson Fire MMRS has budgeted $20,000 dollars from MMRS to Pima College to allow CERT curriculum to be placed as part of the MMRS curriculum. The placement of CERT at PCC also allows the trainer to go to anywhere in the greater Tucson area to teach this course. The money provide by Tucson MMRS will pay for the classes and instructors for CERT.

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