Talk:Community Emergency Response Team

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[edit] "Amateur"

I'm going to object to the word "amateur". It is true that CERTs are not professional emergency responders, but the word amateur implies that they are unskilled or untrained. I think that volunteer would be a more fitting word. Cashcraft 20:21, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Disaster Service Worker

A disaster service worker is actually an unpaid employee of the state (at least in California) in times of disaster. This has been detailed later in the article. I'm replacing the phrase disaster service worker with volunteer emergency responder to avoid confusion. Cashcraft 20:21, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Attention Tag

A lot of the information on this page is based on information that is old, outdated or unverified. Since CERT teams are a US phenomenon, the content on this page should conform to FEMA's guidelines for CERT Teams. The introduction and the Community emergency response section are badly in need of a rewrite and update. FEMA's CERT page is at http://www.citizencorps.gov/cert/. Cashcraft 06:14, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree on the need for an update. This article also lacks reference to recent directive concerning CERT members being ICS/NIMS trained. Further, the Community Emergency Response section focuses too heavily on volunteer response strategies which are California specific (like bag on the bed because of earthquake) or better placed in other pages/categories (like the home survival kit contents). I believe this article should focus more on the certified, uniform training all CERT members (should) receive as proscribed by the DHS training materials. Likewise in the training section; the current discussion is long on specific local recruitment tools (not universal by any means), but very short on the actual training techniques.--Parradoxx 22:47, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] As "one person's take" on the subject, I like this article.

Being a CERT trainee, former Air Nat Guard unit disaster preparedness officer, firefighter and EMT (and currently a nurse), I find the material here superior to the materials I was issued for the class. They are more engaging and address some practicalities not covered in the class. It should have the caveat that the situations described as far as how volunteer trainees are handled may vary widely according to local social norms, and how the individual initiating bodies choose to organize and visualize their CERT people's potential for aid. In many places, CERT is a social phenomenon like a volunteer fire department, while in others mostly it helps saturate a population with semi-trained citizens who may be of help, but who aren't going to "swing into action" as shown in the training videos.

I'm new to this and would like to discuss this material with the article's prime author.

[edit] Excuse me?

QUOTE The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) recommends that the standard, ten-person team be comprised as follows:

   * Team Leader. (1 person)
   * Fire Suppression Team (2 people)
   * Search and Rescue Team (2 people)
   * Medical Triage Team (2 people)
   * Medical Treatment Team (2 people)

END QUOTE

FEMA can be pretty incompetent sometimes, but not THAT incompetent. Surely they can count to ten correctly.

70.231.161.189 23:23, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This article needs some cleaning

Does this page really need to list all the supplies necessary for a disaster? That information can just be found on a simple link, in my opinion. I'd edit this, but I don't have the time at the moment. Rebelyell2006 (talk) 16:21, 18 February 2008 (UTC)