Starting a CERT Program
Step 3: Gaining Support & Recruiting
Words of Advice: Tips for Gaining Support & Recruiting
Dale Kleos - Whatcom County, Washington
Get Buy In From Community Leaders
Get elected officials and businesses and industry leaders involved, get their buy in–civic organizations and other service organizations. Encompass as many groups as you can mobilize.
Joe Lowry - Memphis, Tennessee
Get Buy In From Emergency Operations Personnel
The emergency operations people in the community must be committed to making it happen. They've got to support the program. These are the experts and their support is essential.
Frank Lucier - San Francisco, California
Develop a White Paper
Develop a "White Paper" on the program. It's essentially a business plan for the first year or two. It should include an outline of the program, training goals, refresher and advanced training, CERT operational issues, CERT management issues, training issues specific to the community, and the financial costs associated with all this.
Joe Lowry - Memphis, Tennessee
Make Recruitment and Training a Social Occasion
CERT participation becomes much wider if the recruiting and training is made into a social occasion. One of the best social recruiting methods is to ask trainees to go door-to-door in their neighborhoods. This mobilizes CERT trainees to establish neighborhood teams. Typically, the volunteer distributes flyers that offer a yard party on a patriotic holiday, and then hosts it. If you offer food, they come, and after that, the neighborhood at least knows where to go. The flyers usually also give the schedules of training sessions. The social occasion gives people a place to meet and lets interested persons find each other and organize.
Rachel Jacky - Portland, Oregon
Have Enthusiastic Citizens Pitch CERT
Always try to "let your citizens do the talking." It works to have enthusiastic neighbors make the pitch about the CERT program. They simply have great credibility in recruiting their neighbors and friends. Citizens can advocate as well as, or better, than a bureaucrat can when trying to get support for the program from elected officials.
The single most effective technique for us has been to make the people who join the program responsible for recruiting others. Participants know from the start that it's their job to work with us to build their own team, and they are great recruiters.
They contact their own community groups (e.g., neighborhood associations) and make presentations or get announcements in the neighborhood newsletter. We provide support when needed–flyers, a display board that team members can check out for a neighborhood block party, etc. Sometimes the program coordinator attends a neighborhood meeting that team members have set up. But word-of-mouth, neighbor-to-neighbor, seems to work very well.
Tom Weaver - Florida Division of Emergency Management
Expand Your Concept of Neighborhood
CERT Programs over the years have branched out from the traditional "neighborhood" oriented team to a variety of team orientations. Newer orientations include "Academic" CERT units, teams that are based in school systems. Florida has several approaches to "Academic" CERT units.
"Academic CERT" applies the sound principles of CERT to the "neighborhood" of the school environment. After all, schools represent large "neighborhood" clusters of students housed together five days a week that require disaster preparedness capabilities, response and recovery if disaster occurs during the school day.
Click this link to access the Connection article titled "Academic" CERT.
Stew Anderson - Natrona County, Wyoming
Use the Media
When we recruit we run press releases, newspapers, local television and radio announcements. We also use ads at local movie theaters. However, the best advertising is word of mouth from previous students.
Joe Lowry - Memphis, Tennessee
Don't Overlook Any Group
When recruiting go to all the groups you can–there's no group that should be overlooked. These groups can include:
- Neighborhoods/homeowners' associations.
- Graduates of the citizens' fire and police academies.
- City and county employees.
- High-rise apartments and office buildings.
- The hotel/motel industry.
- Businesses/civic groups.
- Schools, religious groups, and retirement communities.
- Homes for the elderly.
- Anywhere people live and work!
Frank Lucier - San Francisco, California
Try Using Anything and Everything
It would be nice if there was one technique for recruiting, but there's not. Try using anything and everything. People come to the program for many different reasons. You have to appeal to them at every level you can. It's like advertising. The more they see and hear about CERT the better chance you have seeing them in one of your classes.