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May 2025
CERT Auxiliary of Santa Cruz Country
| | May is Wildfire Preparedness Month | | |
This is the time of year when we all should be preparing our properties for the upcoming fire season. Here are some resources to help you know where to start.
From FEMA: 4 Tips to Prepare for Wildfires
From NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) Preparing Homes for Wildfire
Interested in starting a Firewise community in your neighborhood?
Assemblymember Gail Pellerin will be holding a Wildfire Home Hardening Town Hall on Thursday, May 15 from 6:15 to 8:30. There will be a livestream option for those who cannot get to the Almaden Community Center in San Jose.
This important event will feature guidance from dedicated professionals working to protect our communities daily, including experts from the Santa Clara County FireSafe Council, San Jose Fire Department, Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority, UC Agriculture and Natural Resources Fire Network, Komodo Fire Systems and the Santa Clara County Fire Department, along with local partners committed to prevention, resilience, and readiness.
The Livestream will be available on her website and on Facebook.
May is also a great time to check on the condition of Go Bags. Replace old meds with fresh ones. Check the expiration date on the bars you have packed. Have your kids outgrown the clothes packed in their bags? (Lia Jones, CERT Instructor and mother of 5 recommends grabbing the dirty laundry basket when evacating to ensure you have clothes that will fit the kids!) Are your important scanned documents up-to-date and stored on a password protected drive such as an IronKey?
Don't forget to check on your fire extinguishers and smoke detectors. Stay safe out there everyone!
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Congrats to our Newest CERTs
Two More Classes have Graduated!
| | Pajaro's Spanish speaking CERT Basic grads on March 30th. Felicitatión! | | |
April's CERT Basic grads came from all corners of the county.
For more pictures from the Live Oak class, click below.
LIVE OAK
| | Upcoming Trainings and Summer Vacation | |
CERT Basic Training
Santa Cruz County’s Community Emergency Response Team program seeks volunteers who live or work in Santa Cruz County ready to learn how to stay safe when disaster strikes and to assist the community during natural disasters and other significant events.
After we complete our current class up in Loma Prieta, we will take a summer break from CERT Basic. Fall classes should be posted in early August. Don't want to wait that long to start your training? There is an online version of the "lecture" portion of CERT Basic. You will not be completely CERT trained, but it will get you started and more prepared until you can attend a class in person.
The online training is a 12- to 15-hour FEMA-developed online course of instruction and a 2-hour California CERT-developed online triage unit. The online training is broken into 8 units plus a final exam that may be taken at your own pace and convenience. If interested in the online classes, go to https://csti-ca.csod.com. Sign up for a free account with your name and email. Then Browse Trainings for the two Community Emergency Response Team hybrid trainings.
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Stop the Bleed
For CERTs and the General Public. Teens welcome with a parent if under 16
Presenters - Joyce Smith and Ashli Sturgil, Santa Cruz County CERT Instructors
What stops bleeding? In this STOP THE BLEED course, you’ll learn three quick techniques to help save a life before someone bleeds out:
1) How to use your hands to apply pressure to a wound
2) How to correctly apply a tourniquet
3) How to pack a wound to control bleeding.
These three techniques will empower you to assist in an emergency and potentially save a life.
Class limited to 16 participants.
Central Fire Community Room, 930 17th Ave, LO
Saturday, June 21, 10 am – 12 noon
SIGN UP HERE
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Incident Command System: IS 100
For Active CERT DSWs
Presenter: Mary Edmund, RN, CERT Auxiliary Director
Struggling to complete the Santa Cruz County CERT required FEMA IS-100 course (Introduction to the Incident Command System)?
Why not try working as a team? The FEMA course slides will be projected on large screen and as a group we will complete the required course. This offers students a chance to ask questions and get additional information to have a clearer understanding of the Incident Command System (ICS).
Students must bring their personal computers (cellphones are not an option as the application works poorly on them) and will then take the required test independently.
Students will need to set up/retrieve a FEMA Student Identification Number (SID) prior to attending. Go to https://cdp.dhs.gov/FEMASID to set up/retrieve. Class is limited to 6 people.
Central Fire Community Room, 930 17th Ave, Live Oak
Saturday, June 21, 1 pm – 4:30
SIGN UP HERE
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Advanced Trainings for CERT DSWs
Last year CERT Planning Chief John Collins, CERT Auxiliary Executive Director Mary Edmund, and Deputy Operations Chief JoMarie Faulkerson developed a series of four advanced trainings that take CERT Basic a step further. All CERT DSWs are encouraged to take this series of 4 classes after taking the Basic Training course. Classes are repeated and can be taken in any order.
What should a CERT member know before they are activated as a Disaster Service Worker (DSW)? The Basic Training course teaches us how to support ourselves, family and neighborhood in the event of a disaster but does not teach all the skills needed to operate with local government agencies or first responders. We have developed four modules to teach a DSW about the organization that they work under, personal safety, effective communications, and emergency medical skills.
All CERTs who complete the full series will be recognized with an "Advanced" designation on their badge. Join the CERTs who have already earned the new badge!
CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO AND TO REGISTER
| | The National CERT Association - 2025 Conference |
About this Year's Conference
The National CERT Association (NCA) is excited to announce the 2025 National CERT Conference will be held in the greater Indianapolis, Indiana area.
Theme
The 2025 National CERT Conference theme is "Building Resilience, One Brick at a Time," with a nod to the famous Indianapolis Motor Speedway, known as "The Brickyard." The conference will feature training and presentations for all levels of CERT including Emergency Managers, Program Managers, Instructors, Volunteers, and CERT Partners.
Date: August 6 - 9, 2025, with pre-Conference Training August 4 - 6.
Location: Greater Indianapolis, IN
Want to be a CERT instructor or learn about managing a CERT program? Pre-conference has Train the Trainer and Program Manager classes.
- - Inspiring speakers
- - Engaging workshops & breakout sessions
- - Unparalleled networking opportunities
- - Exclusive access to resources & tools
For more information:
https://mms.nationalcert.org/members/evr/reg_event.php?orgcode=CERT&evid=52660547
| | Photo from 2019 training. Shmuel Thaler, Sentinel | CERT George Wright patrolling the perimeter for 2024 Active Shooter Training | |
Save the Date!
Active Shooter First Responder Training 2025
We don't have all the details, and there is no sign-up available yet, but the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Department will again be sponsoring a training for Law Enforcement, Fire, and EMS to train together in response to a active shooter event. Every year CERTs are activated to patrol the perimeter of the practice site (mid-county for 2025) to ensure that people do not accidentally enter the practice zone. We will need lots of CERTs to assist with this very important activation.
June 23-27, 2025
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Thanks so much to recent donors and supporters. Without their support we could not continue to offer free CERT Basic and Stop the Bleed classes, offer well stocked packs and PPE to all new CERT graduates, or maintain supplies to use during activation.
Thanks to Central Fire for offering us space to hold classes and store supplies. You are truly our hips in so many ways.
Thanks to Loma Prieta School District, Pajaro Middle School, and the Santa Cruz Senior Center for making space available for classes.
We are grateful to the Rotary Club of Santa Cruz who donated $1500 and to the Monterey Peninsula Foundation for their grant for $10,000!
Even though all of our instructors, team leaders, CERT volunteers, and CERT staff are volunteers, it does cost money to keep the program going from one end of the county to the other. Just the packs we hand out have cost about $70 each or about $1000 for a class of 20 students. That price will likely rise in 2025.
Many of the dollars we receive come from the State of California and Santa Cruz County who receive funds to disburse for disaster-related programs from FEMA. Most grants from the Federal Government have been rescinded or reduced this year. This will probably mean a reduction of over $20,000 for the Auxiliary. Please consider making a donation to help us in 2025 and check with your employer for matching grant programs. It will mean a lot to the CERT program in the future. Thank you.
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This and That for CERTs
DSW Renewals: Do you know when your CERT DSW badge expires? Take a moment to check the badge. Does it expire in 2025? If the answer is yes, does it expire within the next 4 months? If yes, then it is time to get ready to renew. What is required?
- 25 or more hours of training, activations, continuing education, team meetings. Put together your list of hours and activities.
- Both FEMA IS 100 & IS 200. Note: You will need both a FEMA Student ID and a a government ID (login.gov) to complete the class and take the test.
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Make a renewal appointment with Joyce Smith or Mary Edmund.
- Bring your list of activities and FEMA class certificates to the appointment.
- You will get a new ID photo taken, complete a new DSW application, and get a new ID in the mail.
Keeping Data Current: Have you moved, changed your name, gotten a new email account or mobile phone number? This information needs to be current for us to ensure you are connected up with the appropriate CERT team and can be reached by email and text in case of activation. If any of this basic information changes or if you become a Ham radio operator, please let both your local team leader and the Auxiliary know so that we can update the database.
From the National CERT Association:
The 2024 Post National CERT Conference webinar series continues. This webinar series is being conducted in Partnership with FEMA Region 2, the National CERT Association, and the California Governor's Office of Emergency services.
The webinar series includes presentations from the 2024 National CERT Conference. The presentations were selected via a survey for NCA members and 2024 National CERT Conference attendees.
This year, one more presentation is coming up:
Attendance at these webinars will count towards your CERT DSW continuing education 25 hours.
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“Think of giving not as a duty, but as a privilege."
John D. Rockefeller, Jr
Please consider a donation to the CERT Auxiliary or your local CERT team.
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