CERT team assembles
At a recent monthly CERT meeting, we used a YouTube video as the main part of the training. The video, entitled “CERT in Action,” was made by the Alameda, California CERT group, and published in February, 2013.
Because of the length of the video – nearly 20 minutes – we wanted to be sure our whole team would stay engaged. Plus, we wanted the CERT graduates to come out with a solid review, and the non-CERT people to have a chance to understand the main points being presented, i.e., successful team operations.
To accomplish our goals, we created Ten Questions to accompany the video, and presented them before the showing via PowerPoint. (We could also have handed each person a list of the questions, and asked them to fill in the answers as they were revealed during the course of the video.)
Here are the questions:
1. What are the first three things the family members do when the storm has died down?
2. What equipment does the family have?
3. At what point does the Dad switch from being a Dad to being a CERT member?
4. What equipment do the CERT members have? Do they have any equipment that we don’t have and should have?
5. Where do the CERT members gather?
6. Who takes charge?
7. What instructions does the leader give regarding searching the building?
8. Who takes over supervising the walking wounded?
9. Why do they choose the particular spot for the seriously injured?
10. At what point do the CERT team members disband?
After the video, our group leader used the questions to begin a discussion. Naturally, the discussion covered more than just the answers to the questions, but having the questions kept things moving and made sure the main points were covered.
This is the third video program we have had in the past year. In each case, the quality of the material – both video and Leader’s Guide Questions — has been good enough to capture the interest of our CERT group and to inspire feedback and further action.
If you are looking for meeting ideas for your group, we’ll be happy to share ours as we develop them. Just sign up below.
Virginia Nicols and Joe Krueger
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team
I would love to get more of your ideas for team meetings and engagement.
Great job on coming up with the questions for the CERT in Action video!
CERT graduates remain our recommended foundation for all our neighborhood emergency groups. So every year we do our best to send people to their local CERT classes. Here’s a description of the most recent CERT promo in our neighborhood: http://emergencyplanguide.org/new-cert-graduates/ I’ll track down a couple more Advisories that focused on CERT meetings or group meetings that could be used for CERT, and send them to you directly! Virginia