Using Insurance To Ensure Business Continuity

Recently, I had the good fortune to attend a workshop on “Business Continuity” that was hosted by a local company United Services Disaster Restoration Specialists.  The audience was made up of local insurance agents and brokers.  They came to learn about business continuity and how they might use business continuity planning to add value to the services and programs they offer their customers, primarily small businesses.  What great business partners these insurance folks will be to the businesses they work with.

Over the years, as business continuity and emergency preparedness planners, we’ve recognized the importance of insurance.  For most, it might have been simply making sure to include someone from Risk Management on the “Disaster Response Team” while for others it may have been contacting out “insurance guy” and make sure you had the “appropriate” coverage’s.  For me, I began talking with insurance professionals a few years ago and realized that insurance should be viewed in a much more strategic light.  Since then, I’ve been encouraging others, both business and personal, to go steps further and find out what resources their insurance provider might bring to their business continuity or emergency preparedness efforts … things such as data on risk and threats … things such as planning tools and inventory forms.  Additionally, we need to thoroughly understand and plan for what will be needed post-incident in order to process or settle our claims as quickly and completely as possible. After the fact is not a good time to learn from our mistakes.

Recently, I found that according to the Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association a catastrophe, as defined by the insurance industry, is a natural disaster that causes a certain dollar amount, currently set at $25 million in insured damage. I find it interesting their definition is focused on only natural disasters rather than any incident, natural or man-made.  Individual insurance companies may declare a “catastrophe” based on the anticipated loss to their policyholders in the impacted area.

Review Your Insurance Plan Now

Make sure you have sufficient coverage to pay for the indirect costs of the disaster—the disruption to your business—as well as the cost of repair or rebuilding. Most policies do not cover flood or earthquake damage and you may need to buy separate insurance for these incidents. Be sure you understand your policy deductibles and limits.

New additions or improvements should also be reflected in your policy. This includes construction improvement to a property and the addition of new equipment.

For a business, the costs of a disaster can extend beyond the physical damage to the premises, equipment, furniture and other business property. There’s the potential loss of income while the premises are unusable. Your business continuity efforts should include a detailed review of your insurance policies to ensure there are no gaps in coverage. Your policy should include business interruption insurance and extra expense insurance. Even if your basic policy covers expenses and loss of net business income, it may not cover income interruptions due to damage that occurs away from your premises, such as to your key customer or supplier or to your utility company. You can generally buy this additional coverage and add it to your existing policy.

Basic Commercial Insurance to Consider

• Building Coverage provides coverage up to the insured value of the building if it is destroyed or damaged by wind/hail, or another covered cause of loss. This policy does not cover damage caused by a flood or storm surge nor does it cover losses due to earth movement, such as a landslide or earthquake, unless added by endorsement.
• Business Personal Property provides coverage for contents and business inventory damaged or destroyed by wind/hail, or another covered cause of loss.
• Tenants Improvements and Betterments provides coverage for fixtures, alterations, installations, or additions made as part of the building that the insured occupies but does not own, which are acquired and made at the insured’s expense.
• Additional Property Coverage provides for items such as fences, pools or awnings at the insured location. Coverage limits vary by type of additional property.
• Extra Expense provides coverage for the extra expenses incurred, such as temporary relocation or leasing of business equipment, to avoid or minimize the suspension of operations during the time that repairs are being completed to the normal place of business.
• Ordinance or Law provides coverage to rebuild or repair the building in compliance with the most recent local building codes.
• Business Income (also known as Business interruption insurance) provides coverage for lost revenue and normal operating expenses if the place of business becomes uninhabitable after a loss during the time repairs are being made.

Business owners may already have property insurance, but that only pays just for damage repairs. What about the income lost if the company has to close down for a few days, a few weeks or even longer?

Business interruption coverage

Business income coverage, also known as Business interruption insurance, protects the profits that an owner would have earned had there been no problem. The insurance is generally bought as a package with property insurance.  Business interruption insurance provides for two financial loss scenarios: Loss of income due to interruption of operations, and additional expenses incurred as a result of efforts to continue business operations.

Let’s say you are a small manufacturer who requires three months to remodel after a fire. In this situation you might face more expenses than just the loss of profits from being closed that long.

You might also face paying for:

• Lease or mortgage payments and ongoing utilities.
• Relocation to a temporary building.
• Quick replacement of materials from vendors, who may charge higher prices and delivery charges.
• Overtime to keep up with production demands.
• Securing the products and/or services of competitors to help manufacture or supply orders.
• Advertising to confirm the business is still operational.
• Re-compiling business records, financial and legal documents lost as a result of the fire.

Business interruption insurance can also provide paychecks for key salaried employees that an owner does not wish to lose while the business is shut down.

Business interruption premiums and claims

Unless you want to pay through the nose, you will have to shoulder some of the post-disaster costs. An 80/20 policy is typical, and generally provides for lower premiums while paying for 80 percent of the loss. The business owner picks up the tab on the other 20 percent.

One of the most important disaster preparations you can make is to secure your business documents (vital records) offsite so you can get your hands on them quickly should a disaster occur. Financial records are necessary to verify the value of claims made. Indeed, it may be difficult for a new business with no history to establish its actual loss of income, but every business should have business income coverage from Day One.

Even if profits cannot be reimbursed — either because you don’t have any or you cannot prove a history of making money — you are still likely to incur additional expenses while trying to keep your business buoyant.

Disaster insurance can keep your business humming

Developing a Small Business Disaster Recovery Plan

Looking ahead to what’s coming up

I’ve got a real treat for you … and me.  I’m getting ready to head out for another adventure training others to be prepared and I want you to come with me.  Starting February 12 (hey, that’s my sister’s birthday!), I’ll be writing a daily blog that will chronicle where I’m at and some of the terrific people I’ll meet along the way.  So, mark your calendars now, and plan to join me on February 12!

Until then, be safe!

Getting Prepared In a Year

It’s time to move to our third destination on our journey to becoming prepared this year.

When you are at the grocery store, I want you to pick-up the following items:

• One gallon of water (and remember one gallon of water for each pet too)
• A canned meat (i.e. tuna, chicken, ravioli, chili, beef stew, Spam, corned beef, etc.)
• A canned fruit (i.e. peaches, pears, mandarin oranges, applesauce, etc.)
• Sanitary napkins – beyond feminine hygiene, these are excellent first aid supplies
• Video recording media (i.e. DVD or tape)

Things to do:

• Use a video camera to record the contents of your home for insurance purposes
• Store your “insurance video” with a close friend or family member that lives out of town (off-site storage).

Spirituality in Preparedness

I was trying to think about what to write as an opening paragraph and found myself struggling.  Should I try something funny or witty (some of you might say “that would be a first”) or should I find something going on in my personal life and share it with you (boring!).  So what the heck, let’s just jump in …

Years ago, when I first entered into the business continuity field, I took several classes through the Disaster Recovery Institute International (DRII) whom I later received my certification through.  In one of those early classes, I remember the instructor talking about the emotional and psychological effects that we experience as a result of being in a disaster.  And I remember him saying that while our employers would very much like to think the first thing we will be thinking about is workplace and operational recovery, in reality “work” is very low in our thoughts and priorities.  Once the “dust settles” and we pick ourselves up, we make sure we are OK.  Then, we check those immediately around us.  After that, we think about our families.  Somewhere in the hierarchy, our “faith” or our “spirituality” is very high – maybe like fourth or fifth in our priorities.  In reality, work is quite low.  And as I continued to grow in both my faith and as a business continuity professional, this idea of how important our faith is in a disaster has always stayed with me.

On February 2, 2012, I’ll be conducting a workshop on business continuity for places of worship.  The workshop is part of a day-long faith-based conference being conducted by the Heartland Center at Saint Louis University here in St. Louis.  I want to share some insight with you that I will also be sharing in the workshop that day.

The information that was shared back in the DRII course was later supported in a Caravan ORC poll that was conducted in October, 2001.  In that poll, they found that :

• 59% of disaster victims preferred to receive support from a clergy or religious counselor compared to 45% seeking a physician and 40% seeking a mental health professional.

Furthermore, I found in a publication titled “Light Our Way – A Guide for Spiritual Care in Times of Disaster for Disaster Response Volunteers, First Responders, and Disaster Planners”, that statistics confirm:

• 96% of Americans profess to believe in God
• over 90% pray
• nearly 70% are members of churches, synagogues or mosques, and
• over 40% will have attended a house of worship in any given week.

Now, in most free countries of the world communities are quite diverse.  That diversity applies to our cultural beliefs as well as our faith or spiritual beliefs.  Wait a minute … faith? … spiritual?  Are they the same or are they different?

In the Merriam Webster Online Dictionary, “faith” is defined as belief and trust in and loyalty to God, or belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion.  Having a firm belief in something for which there is no proof.  Complete trust.

Spirituality is a broader concept than religion or faith tradition.  Many people choose to adhere to a religion or faith tradition which provides a source of belonging, meaning, and identity.  Spirituality is broader because every person has a sense of spirituality, whether or not she is ‘religious’.  There may well be as many definitions of Spirituality as people on the globe, however there are some common elements including the struggle for meaning, and the relationship of the Human Spirit to transcendence and hope.  The bottom line is that our “spirituality” is a complex and intricately personal experience.

So, how do disasters affect our spirituality?  Quite simply, when we are faced with any loss, but especially sudden and profound loss such as in disaster, one’s sense of meaning and purpose—indeed everything one may have thought about how the world works—is turned upside down.  And, this sense of disruption can pervade an entire community.  As planners, we must consider these implications as we look to supporting our employees as well as asking our employees to support us.

Let me leave you with this story about the Maltese Cross

 

Often, when you see a firefighter in uniform, one of the patches on his/her sleeve is that of the Maltese Cross.  This history lesson shoes how religion/faith/spirituality played a role in emergency response.

When a courageous band of crusaders known as the Knights of St. John, fought the Saracens for possession of the holy land, they encountered a new weapon unknown to European warriors. It was a simple, but a horrible device of war; it wrought excruciating pain and agonizing death upon the brave fighters for the cross. The Saracen’s weapon was fire.

As the crusaders advanced on the walls of the city, they were struck by glass bombs containing naphtha. When they became saturated with the highly flammable liquid, the Saracens hurled a flaming torch into their midst. Hundreds of the knights were burned alive; others risked their lives to save their brothers-in-arms from dying painful, fiery deaths.

Thus, these men became our first firefighter and the first of a long list of courageous firefighters. Their heroic efforts were recognized by fellow crusaders who awarded each here a badge of honor – a cross similar to the one firefighter’s wear today. Since the Knights of St. John lived for close to four centuries on a little island in the Mediterranean Sea named Malta, the cross came to be known as the Maltese Cross.

The Maltese Cross is a symbol of protection. It means that the firefighter who wears this cross is willing to lay down his life for you just as the crusaders sacrificed their lives for their fellow-man so many years ago. The Maltese Cross is a firefighter’s badge of honor, signifying that he works in courage – a ladder rung away from death.

UPDATED January 20, 2012 – I just ran across this Wall Street Journal article that touches on several things I’ve recently written about … business continuity (keeping the ski industry running), spirituality, and the Native American culture.  I hope you enjoy reading this article as much as I did.

Ski Resorts Call On Higher Authorities to Save Season After a Native American Ceremony, Vail Gets Blanketed; ‘Pray to Ullr’

Getting Prepared In a Year

Picking up where we left of on my first blog of the New Year, I’m including a series of simple actionable items each of us can perform to become better prepared for emergencies or disasters.  The following continues our second point on our Preparedness Roadmap!

When you are at the hardware store, pick-up the following items and add them to your preparedness kit:

• Crescent wrench
• Heavy rope
• Duct tape
• Two flashlights with batteries
• “bungee” cords

Also, here’s a couple of things to do around the house:

• Check your house for hazards (electrical, fire, water, chemical, etc) -if you aren’t sure what to do, drop a comment to this blog.
• Locate your gas meter and water shut-offs and attach a crescent wrench near them (to shut-off the utilities in a disaster)

Returning Home

They say all good things must come to an end and I guess that’s true with regards to my trip to Reno, NV this week.  Today was a travel day taking me from Reno, NV early this morning to Las Vegas, NV and then finally home to St. Louis. MO.

I’m very proud and appreciative for the opportunity that I had this week.  People often asked me what I like about the teaching I do.  In hind-sight, I think there are two elements of this past week that are great examples of what I love about teaching.

The students

Our students … and friends from this week

I really enjoyed meeting and getting to know the students that were in our class this week.  While the first day of a class is always a bit more reserved as compared to the remainder class time, eventually, we all became more comfortable and trusting of each other.  In the end, the people who were in class this week were terrific students.  They came to class each day with great energy.  They were genuinely interested and respectful of what we had to say.  And, if you’ve been reading my blog this week, you know that several students were very open and gracious to share with me information about their culture, which I found extremely fascinating and in turn shared with you.  Although I was the teacher, I feel I learned a lot from my students.

My co-instructor

I can’t say enough positive things about my co-instructor.  The only other time I had the pleasure of working with him was back in October 2011.  Back then, I quickly realized he was one of those special people who can very quickly warm-up to a classroom of students.  He is an excellent communicator that is very comfortable in front of an audience.  Once he has the students interest, he’s able to keep it.  I think his professional, yet caring, attitude and sense of humor plays a large role in being able to establish that connection.  In the end, I feel watching him work this week helped me to improve my own teaching skills.

Well, it’s been a long week this week.  I’m returning to a regular schedule and so, my next post will be on January 15, 2012.  I hope you will come back.

Until then, best wishes.

Wrapping up our week – I’m almost home.

Welcome back. If you’ve been with me all week, I say thank you. I’ve got to say that this has been one of the most interesting, challenging, and rewarding classes I’ve ever taught. I truly am thankful for the opportunity that I was blessed with. And while I’m anxious to get home to my family, I’m a bit sad to say good bye to my new friends. But all is good. I leave with great memories.

Today, we finished off our last day of the CERT Program Manager class. Before we actually started working in the material, we had a couple of surprises. First, Ms. Betsy Hableton joined us. Betsy is the Program Director for the Washoe County Medical Reserve Corps (MRC). Becky took time to explain the MRC initiative in Washoe County . The Washoe County Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) trains both medical and non-medical volunteers to help support local, state and federal disaster response efforts during emergencies and natural disasters. Our volunteers provide added volunteer staffing and crucial medical resources during disasters. She encouraged our CERT Program Managers to consider and participate in the MRC’s whenever possible. She left materials behind including some “trash and trinkets”.

Later in the morning we were privileged to have the Chairman of the Te-Mok Tribe of Western Shoshone Elko Band Council  join us. The Elko Band served as our hosting organization for this week’s training. Chairman Gerald Temoke told our students how pleased he was to see so many attendees from various tribes participating in the training. He went on to say that preparedness is important to the tribe and that he’ll be working with the Tribe’s District leaders to take an active interest in the continued offering of CERT classes.

Once we were ready to begin class, one of our students offered to sing a tribal song to help begin class. Take a look at part of this very beautiful song …

At the conclusion of class, after we took care of all the administrative things we had in close down, another one of our students offered to say a closing prayer to send us on our way and asking that each of us be protected as we travel home. What a great week! Tomorrow, I write a final post to close out this terrific week. I hope you’ll check back.

Ready Indian Country

Today we started the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Project Manager class.  All of the students that were with us earlier this week in the CERT Train-the-Trainer stayed with us.  Not to pat ourselves on the back too much, but one student wasn’t originally going to stay, but said he enjoyed our first class so much that he wanted to stick around and complete the Program Manager class.  Many of the students that we’ve been working with this week are very interested in developing new CERT Programs, so the next two days should help them quite a bit.

We were fortunate to have Valerie Sumner join us today.  Valerie works for the State of Nevada Citizen Corps office.  She was with us to observe our Program Manager class and look for opportunities as to how the state Citizen Corps can better support the needs of the tribal community as they develop and promote CERT and citizen preparedness.

Earlier in the day, we were able to distribute a couple of handouts that were recently developed under the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s “Ready” program.  Under the “ReadyIndian Country” program, the two documents “Is Your Tribe Ready?” and “Prepare For Emergencies In Tribal Nations” were new documents recently produced and made available.  Both documents can be obtained from the Ready.gov website or by calling 1-800-BE-READY.

More tomorrow … Stay tuned.

Wrapping up training and my necklace

It’s hard to believe that three days have already flown by here in Reno, NV.  Our class has been progressing very well and has surpassed many expectations.  We’ve made great new friends and enjoyed some very enlightening conversations.  I’m happy that we still have a few more days to spend helping each other learn.

A new classroom layout

Today in class we surprised everyone when they arrived by having the tables reconfigured from classroom seating in rows to a “U” shaped layout with two small rows of tables in the middle.  We explained that as instructors, they will need to make sure they are providing an atmosphere that encourages learning and the way the classroom is layout has an impact on that.  Once we got underway, we covered several areas, including the following:

Managing the classroom – we spent a lot of time talking about how to teach to different generations.

Disaster psychology – students reminded each other to consider tribal elders and tribal medicine men as helpful resources.

Terrorism

Bringing it all together, and

Another teach back!

Adult learners are motivated to learn

Native American culture

Today, I had the honor of spending time with one of the students after class and learning more about his tribal ancestors and culture, which I want to share with you now.  His ancestors are part of the Coastal Mewuk tribe which is not one of the 109 federally recognized tribes in California.  More specifically, his tribe ancestors were located in the area of Tomales Bay.  Unfortunately, his tribe almost became extinct.  Although he was raised in a non-Native American culture, he is reconnecting with his culture and hopes to re-establish family in the Tomales Bay area.

He works for the Inter-Tribal Council of California which is the largest inter-tribal organization in California.  Interestingly, there are other similar Councils across the nation.  One of the functions the Council oversees is a grant to fund emergency preparedness training among their tribal partners.  Some of the training they are supporting includes Incident Command System (ICS), National Incident Management System (NIMS), and Community Emergency Management Team (CERT).

What drew my interest to this gentleman today was that before class started he was in the back of the room with abalone shells laid out on the table and was making necklaces as gifts to his fellow students.  He later explained to me that the abalone shells have always been important (sacred) to his ancestors and other tribes as well.  They believed their dreams were held in the shells.   He didn’t realize this until after he had been walking on the shoreline one day collecting them and subsequently did some research. Now, in hind sight, he feels he was drawn to their beauty just as his ancestors were.  A familiar connection!  Since then he walks along the beach, and singing “Gathering” songs, looks for abalone shells.  Once gathered, he brings them home and cleans them by rubbing them with sage and then drills a small hole in them.  Through the drilled hole he runs a piece of string to make the necklace.  The string he uses is store bought but it’s wrapped around a piece of crystal stone.  The purpose of the stone is to help purify the string.

My abalone necklace and a piece of "Osha" or "Bear" root

As he presented me with my necklace, he offered a prayer that the receiver (me) will remember the ocean (giver of life) and the dreams of my ancestors and weave those dreams into the fabric of my life.  And all of this is done in an effort to help preserve his culture.  As a way of saying “thank you” I wanted to shake his hand.  Our handshake was not the usual hand to hand shake I’m used to.  Instead, his hand grabbed my forearm, and mine naturally grabbed his.

Before I left, I told him I had noticed a subtle herbal smell while we were talking and asked what it was.  He informed me it was “osha root” which might also be called “bear root” or “bitter root”.  They are all part of the wild celery family.  The native belief is that when the sleeping bear awakes from hibernation, he eats “bear root” to shock his system to get it going again after a long sleep.  In life, it’s used to fight the common cold, and as a cleanser when in a tea.  Another plant that’s similar is “Angelica”.  My friend offered me a piece of “osha root” to try, and it does smell and taste like celery.

What a great way to end another very productive day.  So until tomorrow when we start a new CERT Program Manager class, be safe a please come back.

Day Two of CERT Train-the-Trainer and more Native culture

Thanks for coming back.  We’re having another great day in training here in Reno, Nevada, and I’m happy you are part of it.

Before I get to today’s classroom activity, I wanted to mention an article I just came across that appeared in today’s “Emergency Management” newsletter (Emergency Management magazine).  The title of the article is “How to Include Diverse, Vulnerable Populations in Emergency Preparedness”.  While the article is good, and I encourage you to read it, I want to draw your attention to a website that was referenced within the article.  The website is for the National Resource Center on Advancing Emergency Preparedness for Culturally Diverse Communities.   The site looks to be a terrific resource asset that you’ll want to reference often.

In the classroom today

Earlier this morning we jumped right back into our training with a discussion about disaster medical operations.  In the basic CERT course this unit teaches students about public health considerations, disaster medical operations and medical treatment areas and how to set them up, how to do a head-to-toe assessment, and how to treat specific kinds of injuries (ie. fractures, sprains, burns, bleeding, and cuts).  For the purposes of our class this week, our students are learning that they (instructors) should be experienced.  They should know their audience and their physical abilities and comfort level.  Instructors are encouraged not to deviate from the material, and to be prepared to deal with questions about different techniques.  Additionally, our new instructors are encouraged to follow state, local, and tribal protocols, to reinforce the concept of CERT size up and the use of Personal Protection Equipment (PPE; gloves, goggles, helmet, etc).

We then spent time talking about the importance of teaching organizational issues including on scene management, CERT mobilization, CERT tasks, and the importance of documentation tools.

The remainder of the day was spent with students working on their “teach backs”.  As part of a learning activity, using a ‘teach back’ is a great way to help students learn more deeply and remember information. As Instructors, we find teach backs useful in an effort to check for understanding and to identify if and what kind of learning has occurred.  For our teach backs, students were broken up into groups and then further broken up into pairs.  Each pair prepared and delivered a five-minute presentation covering a CERT related topic.  Each presentation pair is then critiqued by the instructors as well as their fellow students.  Everyone seemed to really enjoy the teach backs.

I’m including some of the class pictures of students doing their teach backs …

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Oh yeah … we also had time for lots of picture-taking … hopefully to remember great experiences with great friends.

 

More on Native American culture

Just as our class was getting started this morning we had a bit of a medical emergency with one of our students.  Fortunately, it didn’t sound as though it was very serious, but did require medical attention.  As we got underway, we began by offering a prayer for ”our brother”.  One of our fellow students offered to lead us in prayer.  Again, the prayer was directed toward our “Grandfather” who is the creator of everything.  As he asked Grandfather for protection and healing for our brother, he was also making “swirling movements with his hands and arms.  The motions were in a clockwise and counterclockwise direction starting in the front of his body then over his head and then back in front.  It was explained to me that this motion represented wind which is an energy for all of us.  The wind starts to over our heads and then moves slowly down our body to our feet, and then moves upward again over our head cleaning our body of negative (bad) energy.  He then closed the prayer asking for protection for all of our “relations” which includes all living things (animals, plants, trees, fish, etc) the land, water, and air.  As he was saying these things he was pointing forward in three or four different directions in front of him in an effort to direct the spirit.

Later in the day I had a chance to sit in on a conversation with a couple of the students in class about the importance that plants, roots, and herbs have with Native Americans for medicines and healing.  It was interesting to hear how from a preparedness aspect, that despite whatever bad things may happen in the world, by having the knowledge of how to use plants, roots, and herbs to heal, Native Americans can be self-sufficient and continue to care for, and heal, themselves.

And to wrap up for today, I was given a brochure titled “Indian Territory” produced by Travel Nevada.  If you’d like to learn more visit Nevada Indian Territory.

Tomorrow we’ll be wrapping up the Train-the-Trainer class, but I look forward to learning more about the great people I have the pleasure and honor to be working with this week.  I am very fortunate to have this opportunity and be able to share it with you.  Please come back again tomorrow.

Developing Instructors and the Tuolumne Band of Mewuk Indians

Today, we kicked off a terrific CERT Train-the-Trainer class.  At 8:00am this morning 43 eager students showed up ready to learn how to become great Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Trainers.  As I’ve mentioned previously, this class, along with the CERT Program Manager class, which will begin later in the week, are being supported by the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Emergency Management Institute (FEMA EMI) in Emmittsburg, MD.  With support like this, a local community can receive from FEMA all necessary books and administrative supplies necessary to conduct a class at no cost.  However, they will still need to arrange for and pay instructor costs.  If needed, the staff at EMI can help identify qualified instructors.  And, as in the case of this class, there may be grant money available to pay for instructional delivery.  In the end, this can be a cost-effective way to deliver quality training that our communities need so badly.

Welcome to class!

The class make-up is such that 95% of the attendees are tribal members representing many different Native American tribes from California, Nevada, and Arizona. The one reason I am very excited and honored about teaching this class is to learn more about the culture and beliefs of the various tribes represented.

As in most adult educational classes, we started off the morning with individual introductions.  One of the things we do in our training classes is to ask students what their expectations are of the class.  The reason we ask this is to make sure we are making the training relevant to them and that when they leave at the end of the class they do so feeling it was time well spent because we addressed their expectations.

From the introductions and expectations came the following interesting observations:

• We need to bring this training to tribal members within Indian Territory because they are often overlooked.
• We must find ways to engage and teach our children (ie Teen CERT) because they don’t readily see the value or show interest on their own.
• Tribal elders aren’t always interested in “preparedness” because they feel by talking about preparedness we are encouraging bad things to happen.

Once we completed student introductions, one of our students was gracious and offered a prayer.  I found out this is a fairly common practice before tribal meetings.  The prayer was directed toward “Grandfather” (our creator) and focused on helping our families and others and protecting “Mother Earth”.  What a great way to begin teaching a class!

Other things we learned today …

• Native speakers tend not to read from notes … instead they speak from the heart
• Native speakers tend to be less aggressive and more thoughtful in their verbal communication

Students learning how to be a CERT instructor

The material we covered today included:

Course Introduction – Identified instructor qualifications, how to prepare content and classroom, what’s in the Instructor Guide Table of Contents, and a description of Instructor Guide and Participant Manual.

Disaster Preparedness Basics – We spent time talking about how to introduce and sell the CERT Program, how to get people hooked, and how to provide information on preparing the home and workplace for emergencies/ disasters.

Your role as an instructor – We described the roles of the CERT instructor and covered desired qualities of an effective CERT instructor.  W also addressed some qualities of a good presenter, and explained how to develop a teaching style that conveys those qualities.

Fire Safety – Throughout this discussion we provided basic information about fire, fire hazards, and hazardous materials, teaching about fire hazards and personal fire safety, how to reduce hazards, what CERT volunteers can and can’t respond to and how to do it safely, and how to introduce the concept of “size up” and reinforce the concept of teamwork.

Emergency Medical – In this unit they will be teaching how to recognize and treat three “killers”: (Airway obstruction, Bleeding, and Shock), what “triage” is and general procedures for conducting triage, including how to evaluate a victim during triage and how to document what is found.  We reinforced the need that as instructors they will need to continually emphasize the importance of rescuer safety.

Throughout the day we reminded students to be aware of the makeup of their students participants.  For example, not everyone will want to engage in medical operations exercises.  As instructors, they will need to be conscious of the students reactions as theyteach.  they need to teach to the appropriate level of participants.  Students were encouraged to use scenarios to make the skills seem more useful and to facilitate learning.  When it came top triage, we encouraged the students to keep triage instruction simple.  We emphasized clearly the distinction between medical treatment and triage – for CERT first responders, the need for speed is eclipsed by the need for proper assessment within the scope of the responder’s training and skills.  We spent time talking about liability and the Good Samaritan law.  Key to liability issue:  Make sure that everyone stays within scope of the training/skills provided.  As Instructors we should model correct step-by-step procedures and safety equipment.

At this point of the class, our future instructors were getting prepared for more disaster medical operations that will be covered in Unit 4.  Students are also learning and practicing increasingly complex teamwork as they progress through the various units in the class.

I want to conclude my posting today by sharing with you some interesting information about one of the tribes represented in our class this week.  I’m actually going to do this each day this week with several of the other tribes in class as well.

Several students in class represent the Tuolumne Band of Mewuk Indians.  I encourage you to visit their tribal website at www.mewuk.com .  The tribe resides in the central California region near the Sierra Nevada foothills.  Nationally, there are about 560+ nationally recognized tribes.  Of those, about 160 reside in the state of California on approximately 467,000 acres of tribal land which is relatively small but growing.  Today, the Tuolumne Band realizes the importance land has in the economic development and well-being of the tribe and its members that they regularly look for opportunities to increase their land holdings.

Members live on “Rancherias” which is a term used for tribal land trusts.  Today, more and more Native Americans want to move back and live on the Rancherias (or reservation) in an effort to be with family and regain their history.

With their economic development and growth in both land holdings and residents, emergency preparedness has become an important issue for the tribe.  Their culture teaches them that they must take care of themselves and so programs like CERT are seen as a great training opportunity that can help members of their tribe be self-sufficient.

A unique public safety/preparedness initiative recently undertaken by the tribe was working with county government to establish Memorandum’s of Understanding.  An example where this was helpful was when some county roads that served the Rancherias (reservation) and maintained by the tribe were not listed on county records therefore hampering timely ambulance service.  The tribe worked with county government to get those roads mapped with GPS coordinates and now members of the tribe enjoy improved ambulance accessibility.

If you want to learn more about emergency preparedness issues in a Native American culture, you might want to take a couple of tribal related courses in the FEMA Independent Study Program

Well, please come back tomorrow to hear more about my experiences with this class and the terrific people in it.

Hello From Reno, Nevada!

I’m in Reno, Nevada this week teaching a couple of Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) classes and will be posting each day I’m here in an effort to share my experiences with you.  I hope you’ll follow along daily AND, if you feel so inclined, offer a comment or two about what I’m sharing with you.

The two classes we are teaching are “CERT Train-the-Trainer” and “Program Manager”.  I say “we” because I have the pleasure this week of working with a co-instructor that I’ve worked with before.  His full-time career is in the law enforcement field.  He’s a terrific instructor who has the ability to quickly develop a very likeable rapport with the class, and he knows his material too.

Our classes are supported by the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Emergency Management Institute (EMI).  If you’ve been reading my blogs, you’ll remember I wrote a series of blogs back in October 2011 dealing with a similar opportunity I had in Emmittsburg, Maryland which is where the EMI is located.  I’m very excited about the classes we are teaching this week because the majority of our students are tribal representatives from many different Native American tribes.  Additionally, we’ll have non-native students in both classes representing local, state, and federal emergency management.  It looks to be quite a large class with a lot of diversity, which should generate a lot of interesting discussion and networking.

The flight here

I’ve commented on this before, but whenever I fly, I try to fly Southwest because they consistently do a great job.  My travels today reaffirmed this.  On my flight from St. Louis to Denver, I checked my bags only to go through security and have a Gerber multi-purpose tool found in one of my carryones.  Along with being expensive, the tool has sentimental value, so I didn’t want to lose it.  Long-story-short, the Baggage Office in St. Louis had my bags brought back to me so I could put the Gerber tool in my checked bags and not lose it.  Kudos to the St. Louis baggage team at Southwest.  Wow, they were really helpful and accommodating.

What’s on tap this week

We’ll be starting class early tomorrow morning and will be teaching CERT Train-the-Trainer over the next three days (Monday through Wednesday).  Then, starting Thursday and concluding late Friday, we’ll be teaching the Program Manager class.  In each of my daily blogs, I’ll discuss class highlights.  I also hope to include some insight on the various native cultures as shared with me throughout the week.  So, plan on coming back tomorrow.  Until then ….