Fairfax" NIMS-Plus" TrainingSubject: Fairfax" NIMS-Plus" Training
With the latest Department of Homeland Security (DHS) training mandates now widely endorsed, Fairfax County will offer a two-tiered training program to help all County ARES operators reach optimum certification as painlessly as possible, with no homework. The training will consist of two, 3.5 hour sessions and will be held in the Fairfax county Government Center AEOC. The first session will start at 0900 on Saturday, February 11th (18th raindate), and will consist of FEMA Independent Study (IS) Program enrollment, an Introduction to EOC Operations, the Incident Command System (ICS) briefing, and the IS-100 (ICS) final exam. The second 3� hour session will be held on Saturday, March 18th (25th raindate) and will include a review of EOC Operations, an overview of Understanding the Volunteer Workforce, the National Incident Management System (NIMS) briefing, and the IS-700 (NIMS) final exam. Completion of IS-100, IS-700, and the selected short subjects are needed before licensed amateur radio operators can be scheduled for the WebEOC Crisis Management software user course. WebEOC is now installed in participating Northern Virginia regional jurisdictions. It is also widely used throughout the Federal government, the Virginia Department of Emergency Management (VDEM), the State of Maryland, and in the INOVA Healthcare System. OEM envisions certified Fairfax ARES members actively employing WebEOC features while assisting served agencies during exercises and emergency activations. To put the training and certification process in motion, please reply back with your name and call sign before Saturday, January 29, 2006 signifying that you intend to complete both sessions. The courses with handouts and testing are at no charge to you, and a standardized record of training completed will be started and maintained in OEM. Additions and corrections to your record can be made at any time and the information is for Fairfax County validation of training purposes only. Thanks. 73 Subject: NIMS-Plus Questions
Since posting my first email this morning about NIMS-Plus, a few people have inquired about the acceptance in Fairfax County of accredited FEMA IS-100 and IS-700 courses completed from sources other than the training sessions I advertised. Anyone who produces a notice of independent study course completion, or a Certificate of Completion from FEMA, will be acknowledged in Fairfax County as having passed those courses. For Fairfax County ARES members, an Amateur Radio Operator Individual Training Record will either be started, or annotated as having successfully passed those, or any other accepted courses, including the ARRL CEP courses. Federal statues mandate that all jurisdictions, and tribes are responsible to complete specified FEMA courses for designated categories of people by September 30, 2006 or loose their ability to receive Federal grants or other derived State funding. Fairfax County has accepted this challenge, and in so far as Fairfax County ARES volunteer members are concerned, will provide what is specified under NSPD-5 and the DHS in a timely manner, and free of charge. With the new Northern Virginia regional WebEOC Crisis Management software system having been installed this month, and a preliminary concept of operations proposed that includes ARES, we have put in place prerequisites for Fairfax ARES members who want to be considered for Web-EOC user training. The prerequisites are County, AEOC, and ARES specific, integrated with mandatory training, and will be included as a valid, separate entry in the individual training record. In closing, and in response to another inquiry, the issuing of photo ID's (for amateur radio operators) in Fairfax County is on hold at the present. With the tightening of security measures over recent years, it does not seem likely that photo ID's as we once knew them will be returning anytime soon. For Fairfax ARES members, we have a credentialing program fairly well developed and hope to have it finalized in early 2006. Continuing with your interest about credentialing together with the training we are offering; any training we provide will be in accord with HSPD-5 and NIMS, and when the time comes, we will supplement our training schedule to include the new requirements for the National Emergency Responder Credentialing System. I hope I didn't leave out anything. If so, please drop a line. Thanks. 73 |