September is National Preparedness Month and the Borough Office of Emergency Management has added additional Community Emergency Response Team training classes.
Program Coordinator Dan Nelson said CERT certifications are focused on training community members how to respond to a large scale disaster.
Nelson: “This is broken into categories, the difference between this cert class and the others we’ve put on is that we’ve actually included an online component, the students will take an online class, takes about 3-6 hours depending on how fast you go through it, but it’s going to deliver a lot of the lecture, written material. These classes have combined many of those different categories at once because in our face to face time we want to concentrate on hands on skills, so for this upcoming class, people will take that online class first, then we’ll come in and we’ll really hit practicing things like medical techniques, triage, freeing victims, searching buildings, those types of things so it’s going to be even more of an active hands-on class than the ones before.”
This new integration of web and hands on teaching materials is a pilot program and they look forward to feedback from students.
The classes are free, with no commitment and will be held in Soldotna.
Anyone interested in participating or with questions can visit kpvolunteers.org or get in contact with Nelson at 262-2098.
The class is broken up into units covering Disaster Preparedness, Fire Safety, Disaster Medical Operations, Light Search and Rescue, Team Organization, Disaster Psychology, and Terrorism awareness.
The schedule for the class is:
Friday, September 12 6pm – 9pm
Saturday, September 13 9am – 5pm
Saturday, September 20 9am – 5pm
Friday, September 26 6pm – 9pm
Saturday, September 27 8:30am – 1:00pm
All classes will be held at the Emergency Response Center, 253 Wilson Lane, Soldotna.