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Fairfax County CERT

Neighborhood Team Initiative
Working Group
Proceedings October 15, 2014


Background
The Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) program trains individual citizens in communities,
businesses and industries, schools and institutions in emergency preparedness and basic disaster response
techniques. This training enables them to prepare, as volunteers, to take an active role in providing
critical support to police, fire and emergency medical personnel during emergencies. The vision of
Fairfax County CERT is to train our residents to be a resource for themselves, their families, their
neighbors and their neighborhood in an emergency situation. The mission of the Fairfax County CERT
program is to provide a realistic and effective approach to training individuals to be a resource for
themselves and help others safely until resources are available.
Opportunity for Local Teams
Since 2004, Fairfax County has trained approximately 1300 citizens in the Basic CERT course.
Coalescing individual CERT graduates into local teams within neighborhoods, regions and business
communities across Fairfax County is envisioned as an opportunity to better leverage CERT skills into a
Whole Community Approach advocated by Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Over the
past decade, several attempts have undertaken the development of such local teams and now again in
2014, there is interest among CERT members to define and develop local CERT teams, such as in a
proposed Community/Neighborhood Engagement Teams (CNETs) concept.

Purpose of this Working Group Session
As Operations Lead serving on the Fairfax County CERT Steering Committee, Rolf Madole invited
interested CERT members to form a working group to discuss and incubate this local team concept. An
initial session of this Neighborhood Team Initiative Working Group was chaired by Rolf at the Fairfax
County Fire and Rescue Academy on Wednesday, October 15, 2014. The session convened at 7:00 PM.
Attendees agreed that the primary purpose of this Working Group session was to facilitate local
neighborhood teams.


Attendees
The following CERT members attended this session of the Working Group in Classroom 2 of the Fire and
Rescue Academy.
Mike Forgy
Jonathan Kiell
Jack Ledgerwood
Suzy Ledgerwood
Rolf Madole
Bob McDonald
Jim McPheeters
Gary Nisker
Brendan ONeil
Adam Samuels
James Sobecke
Missy Tuttle-Ferrio


Discussions
Following introductions by all attendees, the Working Group surfaced numerous ideas, considerations
and concerns relative to the design, development, and organization of local neighborhood teams.

[Note: The following discussion points were not universally agreed to nor were they adopted by the
Working Group. These points were captured during conversations and are listed below as place-holders
for follow-on discussion and decisions.]
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Why Have Neighborhood Teams?
To recruit and train new CERT members
To train and maintain active Cert members
To sustain the involvement of CERT graduates
To encourage CERT visibility and capture new opportunities for CERT operations
More effective CERT response to community needs during emergencies

Considerations in Developing Local Neighborhood Teams
Local team operations and policy must align with the County CERT program.
Local teams will benefit from sponsorship.
Charters help define the expectations, roles and limitations for local teams.
Local teams need to be addressed so as to include a variety of settings; including neighborhoods,
regions, business environments, and other communities.
Requirements and interests of communities across the County may vary greatly as dictated by
population density, demographics, and the specific local environment, including proximity to
man-made and natural risks.
Local teams are envisioned to serve as a conduit of services and information between the County
CERT programs and local communities.

Concerns and Issues Pertaining to Local Neighborhood Teams
In the design and development of local team operations and policy, the Working Group must
manage the expectations of CERT members.
Use clear and concise language used to describe local team guidelines, activities, and policies.
The Working Group should strive for transparency in the design and development of local teams.
Identify and manage liability issues.

Ideas Regarding the Development of Local Teams and Policy
Each team should have a designated leader or co-leader.
Develop standardized brief sheets and talking points to guide CERT members in outreach efforts
Jeffrey Katz should be invited and encouraged to attend and participate in the initial sessions for
this Working Group.
Target District Advisory Councils and Community Associations for outreach and education on
benefits of CERT members in their communities.
Pursue both Top-Down and Bottom-Up approaches to outreach efforts.
Designate CERT points of contact (POCs) for specific geographic districts, regions, towns, and
communities. These designated POCs would be for the purposes of leadership, coordination and
champions. They would specifically NOT be for the purposes of Command.
Invite graduating CERT classes to contact designated geographic CERT POCs for their area(s)

Foreseeable Objectives (for this Working Group and the local team initiative)
Develop and articulate and comprehensive package of guidance, plans, and actions to facilitate
local neighborhood teams.
Achieve support from Jeffrey for the Working Groups plan to facilitate local neighborhood
teams.
Identify and collect CERTs within given local neighborhoods.
Establish a Brand for local neighborhood teams.


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Decisions
During this session, the Working Group agreed to the following:
1. There was unanimous agreement for the development of local teams.
2. There was a majority vote supporting an announcement to the CERT community reporting on the
work of this policy working group and inviting CERT graduates who might be interested in
CNET policy working group to contact Rolf.


Action Items
1. Rolf committed to send out the Mission and Vision statements to all Working Group members.
2. All Working Group members are asked to review the Mission and Vision statements and email
comments to Rolf by November 7, courtesy copy to all other members.
3. All Working Group members are asked to submit additional input regarding ideas concerning
guiding principles, action items, policy suggestions, and shall nots to Rolf by November 7,
courtesy copy to all other members.
4. Invite Jeffrey Katz to the next session of this Working Group.
5. The NEXT MEETING of this working group is scheduled for Wednesday, November 12;
location to be announced.


Parking Lot Items
The following items and issues were raised at this meeting and were tabled for discussion at a later
session.
1. Liability issues
2. Charters for neighborhood teams
3. Consideration of lessons learned from previous neighborhood team initiatives

This session was adjourned at 9:00 PM.