Starting a CERT Program
Step 6: Establishing a Training Cadre
Establishing Instructor Standards
After selecting the instructors for your program, you will need to ensure that all instructors fully understand the materials and are equally qualified to present the training. Some ideas for establishing instructor standards are included below.
- Review your cadre's professional background. Most professional firefighters have been trained in emergency medical procedures and team organization and have at least some familiarity with disaster psychology. Others may have search and rescue experience. Civilian trainers may have even greater gaps in their knowledge of emergency operations. Review the professional background for each of your instructors and identify gaps in their background that must be filled prior to presenting the training.
- Review your cadre's training background. Virtually everyone has received some type of training, but not everyone can present training in a way that is engaging for the audience. Even trainers who have a lot of experience may not be able to train every topic with the same degree of thoroughness. Ask each potential instructor to provide his or her training background, and review the information carefully so that you can identify where you may need to build in some training "skills" sessions for instructors.
- Develop an instructor "deployment" strategy. Decide if you want all instructors to be able to train all CERT topics or if you want them to specialize. There are advantages and challenges associated with either strategy.
- If you have the luxury of being able to select your instructors from among a group of experts in each CERT area, you may be able to focus your efforts on presentation skills only.
- Requiring all instructors to be able to train the entire program will be more difficult for you but may benefit the program if an instructor becomes suddenly ill. Also, having instructors cross-trained in different modules will give you more flexibility in scheduling.
- Develop a train-the-trainer strategy. This strategy should be based on the instructors' backgrounds and your instructor deployment strategy. Some CERT Program Coordinators follow a train-the-trainer strategy of requiring observation, then gradually integrating the new instructor into the training. Others have developed a more formal train-the-trainer program that provides skills updates and training on presentation skills and techniques.
- Implement your strategy. Do a trial run of your program with the instructors conducting the training to each other and to you. Get feedback from all involved about how well they think the program worked and what could be improved for the future. Incorporate the feedback session into your overall train-the-trainer program.