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The Carriage House, Eastern States Exposition

8:00 am to 5:00 pm

Have you ever considered the steps you’ll need to take to safely & efficiently re-unite children & families who may be separated by an emergency incident at your large planned event or venue?

What about the group of teenagers strolling down the midway? How will you manage their parents who rush to your venue after receiving a text from their child about being in a potentially dangerous incident at your location?

This training will prepare participants to reunite children and their caregivers following emergency incidents at large special events or venues.

This training is appropriate for Emergency Managers, Safety Directors, Law Enforcement, Municipal Officials and others involved in planning and hosting large events such as fairs, parades or festivals, or large venue managers and owners, such as colleges, universities, concert venues, casinos, theaters, etc.

Pre-registration is required (complete the form below).

The training will be held at The Carriage House at Eastern States Exposition in West Springfield, MA. The training will begin promptly at 8:30 am, with on-site sign-in beginning at 8:00 am.

The I Love U Guys Foundation will facilitate the training, adapting their Standard Response Protocol developed for family reunifications following an emergency incident in schools to the large event/venue setting. The WRHSAC Family Reunification Plan Template will be incorporated into the training. Copies will be provided to participants.

The training is free and a continental breakfast and buffet lunch will be provided.

Thank you to all who attended this training.

Any questions can be directed to Raine Brown, Homeland Security Program Manager, raine@frcog.org, 413.774.3167 x138

 

MEMA, Region 3/4, 1002 Suffield Street, Agawam, MA

8:00 am to 5:00 pm

The Western Region Homeland Security Advisory Council in partnership with the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency presents
Pediatric Disaster Response & Emergency Preparedness Training.

This training is facilitated by TEEX – Texas A&M Engineering Extension Services

Description

This course prepares students to effectively, appropriately, and safely plan for and respond to a disaster incident involving children, addressing the specific needs of pediatric patients in the event of a community based-incident. Pediatric specific planning considerations include mass sheltering, pediatric-triage, reunification planning and pediatric decontamination considerations. This is not a hands-on technical course, but instead a management resource course for stakeholders like pediatric physicians, emergency managers, emergency planners, and members of public emergency departments like EMS, Fire, Police, Public Health, and Hospitals in field of disaster response and preparedness work.

Prerequisite

None. However, familiarity with the National Incident Management System (NIMS) and the Incident Command System (ICS) via completion of study courses IS-100, IS-200, IS-700, and IS-800 (or equivalents) is recommended.

Requirements

FEMA/SIDNumber
Students must bring a copy of their SID number to class. To obtain a number: cdp.dhs.gov/femasid

Topics

  • Introduction to Pediatric Response
  • Emergency Management (EM) Considerations
  • Implications for Planning and Response
  • Functional Access Needs Considerations
  • Mass Sheltering
  • Pediatric Triage and Allocation of Scarce Resources
  • Pediatric Reunification Considerations
  • Pediatric Decontamination Considerations

Audience

This workshop is appropriate for mid-to-senior management level first responders from western Massachusetts in the fields of hospitals (including pediatric physicians, emergency room personnel & administrators), emergency medical services, public health, emergency management directors, schools, law enforcement, and fire.

16 hours of OEMS credit are approved for this course.

Registration is closed for this class.

UMass Hampshire MRC Exercise in the news

The Daily Hampshire Gazette reports on the upcoming large scale UMass / Hampshire MRC shelter exercise. More than 275 people are expected to participate. WRHSAC is providing funds to support the exercise. To read the article click here.

COAD Summit 2015

The Western Region Homeland Security Advisory Council has set the date for its Community Organizations Active in Disasters Summit 2015. The summit will be held on Thursday, April 30, 2015 at the UMass Center at Tower Sqaure in Springfield, MA.

Workshops for both community organizations and emergency management are being arranged and will likely include: a look at online tools useful for recovery; a training on the emergency rest center guide prepared by WRHSAC; food safety in a shelter or emergency rest center environment; working with children in disasters; and looking at the role libraries can play before, during and following a disaster.

The summit will be free and lunch will be provided. Please save the date to join us! Watch your email and this website for registration information.

Individual Module Training for WRHSAC's Regional Shelter Plan

WRHSAC has developed and helped western Massachusetts entities implement a Regional Shelter Plan. This comprehensive plan provides Job Action Sheets, Standard Operating Guides, Forms and more.

WRHSAC has developed an on-line training with individual modules for each job associated with operating a shelter. The training is free and accessible for anyone to take. Once a module is completed, participants are able to print out a certificate indicating they have taken the training. These certificates can be used by shelter managers to track staff training. The modules can also be used as just-in-time training during shelter activation.

A goal of this project is to familiarize people with the WRHSAC Regional Shelter Plan documents, how to use them, and encourage municipalities to adopt them to assist in creating common operating pictures in shelter operation throughout the region. The number of people that need to understand this content is also quite large: everyone from local Selectboards, to local Boards of Health, to Emergency Managers, to Medical Reserve Corps Volunteers, to local church organization active in disasters and even people who might show up the day after an event who just want to help out in any way they can. It became clear that online training or E-training was a positive solution and a contract was signed with a training development firm with a focus on emergency management.

The E-training was designed to provide learners with knowledge about how to carry out their assigned responsibilities in a shelter. The underlying instructional design is simple: apply problem solving versus memorization based on scenarios they would likely encounter in a shelter environment. The training builds on the regional and other national guidance documents and it contains all of the forms necessary to carry out shelter operations under the National Incident Management System.
The training has the following features:

● Scenario-based content
● An emphasis on ADA compliance
● Applied Learning
● Mobile ready
● Embedded and printable certificates