Black Immigrant Daily News
On Saturday, Hazard Management Cayman Islands (HCMI) and the Cayman Islands Red Cross successfully completed day one of the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training for community volunteers at the South Sound Community Centre.
The training, which covers various aspects of disaster preparedness, disaster management, risk assessment, team deployment, stress management and radio communication, continues again today (August 21) from 8:30am to 5:00pm.
Disaster preparedness
In relation to the training for disaster preparedness, Teresita DaSilva, Preparedness and Planning Manager for HCMI and Eddie Sepp Tinling-Miller, Head of Disaster Preparation of the Cayman Islands Red Cross, taught CERT volunteers about the structure of community emergency response teams, their roles and responsibilities and how they will be tasked with coordinating their teams with national agencies before, during and after a disaster event. An example of this structure, which includes team members assigned to medical, communication and search & rescue roles, is set out below (this structure is not set in stone and may vary by community).
Deployment
Once a community emergency response team is activated by the National Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC) to respond to a disaster event, the relevant community emergency response team will meet at a pre-arranged location (a shelter, community centre or park), assuming that the designated area is out of harm’s way and it is a place that the team can be safe (team members must be kept safe in order to be ready to offer help to others following a disaster). Before arriving or upon arrival at the meeting place, the community emergency response team leader and HCMI will share information with team members about the extent of the damage to the community. Once the task before them.is properly assessed, community emergency response team members will be deployed to various locations depending on assigned tasks.
Stress management
During and after deployment, as noted by the HCMI and Red Cross trainers, team members must take note of their own stress levels. They must also appreciate that many community members that require the team’s assistance may have also experienced emotional and mental stress as a result of the disaster event. This assessment can impact who is deployed by the team leader to specific disaster sites or to deal with specific categories of persons following the disaster event.
In explaining the importance of this, Mr Sepp Tinling-Miller, Head of Disaster Preparation of the Cayman Islands Red Cross, explained his personal experience as a police officer previously. He described how he was the first officer on the scene of an accident, where the shock and stress of the event impacted him so greatly that he did not function in the same way that he would have had he not been first on the scene and had sight of the accident.
When community emergency response team members, first responders and others understand the depth of this type of scenario, they will be better prepared to determine the appropriate approach to, and method of communication with, disaster victims, with the ultimate goal of keeping everyone physically and psychologically safe. If not handled correctly, the wrong approach could lead to unproductive or unwanted outcomes in the middle of a national emergency.
Radio communication
In relation to communication, the volunteers learned about the use of Whatsapp, a national disaster app and how to use radios or “walkie-talkies” to keep in touch with each other, the HCMI team and first responders in the event that phone lines go down post-disaster. A sample role play was also done with trainees by Leslie Vernon, Manager for Logistics and Operations at HCMI, who taught trainees about radio etiquette and important rules to be followed while using radios.
Leslie (Lennox) Vernon, Manager for Logistics and Operations at HCMI
Looking forward to Sunday’s training
As a result of this course being offered by the HCMI and Red Cross teams, by the end of today (Sunday), volunteers will have acquired sufficient planning, team coordination, risk management and risk assessment skills to enable them to competently fulfill roles as members of community emergency response teams, to be deployed by authorities (or self-deployed) in the advent of a disaster.
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