Training

Welcome to the EMRG Training Page. The purpose of this page is to provide EMRG members with a single location to access training documents, links and references that focus on EMRG delivery of Emergency and Disaster communications.

One of the primary strategy objectives for EMRG is to maintain stability and consistency in the organization. Training is an important part of ensuring EMRG has the skills to deliver on client requirements, which is why EMRG has adopted a training program that focuses on the basics.

For more information please read the EMRG Training Plan: EMRG-401: Training Plan.

Training Objectives

The main objective of EMRG training is to ensure that EMRG members have the basic skills required to effectively deliver EMRG communications services in an emergency. To be effective requires an understanding of the following areas:

• EMRG organization, roles and responsibilities, clients and partners
• How to activate the group in an emergency and deploy to an assigned location with the skills to establish an effective communications solution.
• Once on the air, have the basic skills to take messages from people in their location and send those messages to the destination. This includes the ability to receive incoming messages and to log key activity at their station.
• Once EMRG is no longer required, successfully deactivate as directed and participate in the de-brief through personal notes and group sessions.
• For locations with permanent equipment, understand how to access the site, rules of behavior in the site and how to operate the equipment onsite.
• Understand proper respect and handling for information that may be heard on site that is not public.
• Be capable of working with our Mutual aid partners in neighbouring ARES groups.
  

• Training as a group helps evolve from being a group of people, to being a team.
• Increase and maintain a level of technical expertise of EMRG members.
• Increase members activity and retention.
• Attract new members.

Foundation Requirements

The training and documentation that represents the minimum that must be understood by EMRG members is set out in the Foundation Requirements below.

• EMRG-402: The Four Cs of Communications
• EMRG-404: Introduction to EMRG
• EMRG-407: Logging
• EMRG-501: ICS-309 Communications Log
• EMRG-411: Message Handling
• EMRG-408: Personal Preparedness
• EMRG-103: Notification Plan
• EMRG-105: Activation Plan
• EMRG-512: Activation Worksheet
• EMRG-106: Operations Plan
• EMRG-111: De-Activation Plan
• EMRG-112: De-Brief Plan (To be completed)

Over time, the Foundation Requirements can grow as new documents and courses are developed and designated as Foundation Requirements. All of these are subject to updating as circumstances require.

Supporting Documents and Training
There are other documents and courses that cover topics of interest that are not part of the foundation requirements. Over time, new supporting documents and training will be developed and posted on the EMRG website.

• Examples of supporting training topics are Basic Net Control, Cross Band Repeaters and Introduction To CTCSS.
• Examples of supporting documents includes EMRG-207 Frequency List and EMRG-516 Repeater Guide.

Skills Evaluation

Each training course will include a quiz at the end to confirm that the individual has understood the basic concepts presented. The answers will be provided on a subsequent page so the user can test their level of understanding. In some cases, such as essay type questions, the answers will be a discussion of relevant points, rather than a specific answer.

• It is the responsibility of each EMRG member to complete the course, take the quiz and review the areas that were weak.
• Tracking of training completed and when, is also the responsibility of the individual EMRG member.

Personal Training Record

The form for EMRG members to record and track their training is EMRG-519: Personal Training Record. Since most of the EMRG training is done individually off the web, it is necessary for each member to track their own training.

The Personal Training Record provides a convenient method to track which courses are completed and when they were completed. If it has been a few years since a particular session was completed, or if an update has been released, please repeat the session and mark it again. Ideally, everyone should review each on line FOUNDATION session each year.

The training record can be used to track other training completed, whether in or outside of EMRG, such as the RAC CEC course, CANWARN, First Aid or other.

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