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This Problem definition has been adopted by Chicago, as Chicago will have CERT team members on site to do updates.
Please see the Chicago CERTS project page.
The long-term home for this project is as part of the main Sahana Eden project:
Contact deborahshaddon (@) gmail (dot) org
CERTS Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT) In the US, CERT Teams are local emergency response teams based on volunteers that take 20 hour initial training, and much continuing education, to be certified community response helpers in an emergency. They get mobilized to force-multiply the first responders, when all government-owned response teams are maxed out and overwhelmed. Famous ones are e.g. the LA CERT, the Arlington County CERT here in the area, and others.
CERTs have limited recourses and no standard equipment, so providing tools for them to register and organize their users beyond list-servs, assign responsibilities, keep track of skill-sets, general community management etc.
(original work - pre Nov 2010):
Relevant links:
UPDATE NOV 2010 - CHicago CERT Team Members of the Chicago CERT team will be at the Chicago RHoK site to work directly as SME's with programmers on some specific capabilities required and could be used by the CERT team.
In addition, the following problem statement is identifed:
Problem1: Within Illinois, CERT teams exist usually as a part of CitizenCorps or other local EMC organizations. There are dozens and dozens in the state of Illinois alone. Each team operates in a jurisdictional area, and are 'certified' only within the community for which they took the training. Their certification can be passed (manually by mail) to another jurisdiction to pick up. So, for instance, Chicago and Barrington have two different CERT teams and no access to the information or resources within each city. If a member wants to transfer to another area, then this is done manually. REQUIREMENT: Contemplate a state-wide CERT registry system, where there is a central coordinating registry of CERT volunteers at the State level. Information would be provided (uploaded) from each city, and stored locally. Consider a system where the cross-jurisdictional certification can be more easily implemented (ie, someone who lives in Barrington can also be certified to work CERT in Chicago), and a verification system. Achieve efficiencies to the process (over email or phone as most often is employed in CERT today) for 'calling up' resources in a time of emergency, based on where folks are located, not registered (geocode checkin?) Also consider the skills based needs assessment listed above for volunteers to help with deployment, as well as enhanced notifications and check-in/check-out in emergency response situations. Use an example if a Tornado hits the Northern suburbs, how a centralized system could help respond to this event across jurisdictions. More 'operational' system in nature than planning. Perhaps compare/contrast requirements with what is provided by Sahana.
--Deborahshaddon 06:58, 2 December 2010 (UTC) (Chicago CERT member and Chicago RHoK lead)
--Stephenrees 22:15, 5 June 2010 (UTC)