PORT TOWNSEND — Jefferson County is about to start a Community Emergency Response Team training program.

Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training has been provided in neighboring Clallam County but not in Jefferson County, until now.

The Jefferson County Department of Emergency Management, all county fire districts and the Neighborhood Preparedness (NPREP) action group through Local 20/20 are collaborating on the program, said Lynn Sterbenz, director of Jefferson County Department of Emergency Management.

The CERT program educates volunteers about disaster preparedness for possible hazards and trains them in such basic disaster response skills as fire safety, light search and rescue, team organization and disaster medical operations.

A program manager course will be offered May 21-22, while a three-day train-the-trainer course is planned May 23-25. Both are offered free, with training materials provided, but prerequisites and pre-registration are required.

Interested participants must complete and return a registration form by May 16. Registration will be on a first-come, first-served basis. Class size is limited to 30 students with minimum being 15.

Qualified volunteers are sought for both courses, Sterbenz said.

The first step for the Jefferson County program is to build a cadre of volunteer CERT instructors, Sterbenz said.

The county now has seven qualified CERT instructors, as opposed to more than 25 in Clallam County.

“We know there are highly qualified retired people in Jefferson County, some of whom are likely CERT trained already who might be interested in joining our instructor pool,” Sterbenz said.

Program managers will assist in the ongoing logistical aspects of coordinating the CERT program. The course will prepare participants to work with the Department of Emergency Management, fire districts and NPREP.

The prerequisites for both courses are the same: Participants must have completed the CERT basic training course (any location is acceptable) or completed the online course IS-317: Introduction to CERT, which can be found at https://training.fema.gov/is/courseoverview.aspx?code=IS-317.

It also is necessary to have a referral from a CERT-sponsoring agency, such as the Department of Emergency Management, city or county government, fire districts, schools, hospitals, or a community-based organization such as NPREP.

The registration form is available on the State of Washington, Emergency Management Division’s Training and Exercise calendar. Visit https://mil.wa.gov/training-and-exercise and click on the In-State Training Calendar.

CERT offers a consistent, nationwide approach to volunteer training and organization that professional responders can rely on during disaster situations, which allows them to focus on more complex tasks, Sterbenz said.

“Through CERT, the capabilities to prepare for, respond to and recover from disasters is built and enhanced,” she said in a news release.

The CERT program was designed as a grassroots initiative and is structured so that the local and state program managers have the flexibility to form their programs in the way that best suits their communities, Sterbenz said.

There are more than 2,700 local CERT programs nationwide, with more than 600,000 individuals trained since CERT became a national program.

For more information, contact Paula Towne at 360-725-5290 or [email protected] or Sterbenz at 360-316-6008 or [email protected]