Emergency Service MOU Expansion

[cap235629]

packet was sent in last month

[sardak]

If someone can decipher their website to determine the real cost to get to all of their ratings, that would help this discussion as well.

The way it has been explained to me is that the course fees beyond the NASAR fee ($30) are up to the individual instructors and evaluators. They charge what they want to cover their time for either teaching an entire course (but not required to test, as mentioned above) or just for setting up the tests. 

Correct, except that it's any cost beyond the course fee ($30) AND/OR the certification fee ($30). However, one doesn't have to take the course to take the certification exam. So one can become a SARTECH III and SARTECH II for a total of $30 (certification fee), because the written exam for SARTECH II covers the material in SARTECH III. The cert fee covers one retest taken within one year.

SARTECH I covers technical skills that aren't part of CAP ground team/leader ratings, so there isn't really a reason for a CAP member to get it. I don't think you're interested in getting all the dog handler certs, but there is Planning Section Chief class/cert and a tracking course. The same fee schedule applies to all of them.

Hypothetically If there were CAP members [or non-CAP members] who were NASAR evaluators, they could do it for free, except for the NASAR required fee.

Correct.

Getting there seems be the complicated part....and may end up costly, but maybe thats where the MOU may be handy.

Not sure where the complications and cost come from, other than finding an instructor who won't charge unreasonable fees, but agreements that come as a result of the MOU may indeed help.

The $30 is the NASAR member rate, the non-member rate is $65. An individual membership is $54/yr but an organizational membership is $165/yr which allows up to 29 members of the organization to get classes and exams at the member rate. A squadron can get an organizational membership. Perhaps the MOU will deal with this, too.

But it has been repeated over and over that the real problem is that units aren't getting the word out that CAP has ground teams. So why is this not being done? Why are members once again discussing all this NASAR hassle which isn't going to get them more business? Why worry about an MOU that might not do anything?

Mike

[Ed Bos]

SARTECH II is close, but it doesn't align directly with GTM.

You have that a bit backward, GTM is CLOSE but is not as indepth as SARTECH II.

I hold both certifications and SARTECH II was much more involved and harder that any of our GTM levels and I am a GTL/GTM1.

Another plus is that if CAP does not self certify, all SARTECH evaluations are done by an outside evaluator.... NO MORE PENCIL WHIPPING......

One other consideration is that SARTECH is a one-time evaluation. GTM/GTL requires requalification and continuing education. More food for thought.

[sardak]

SARTECH recert was approved this summer:

Subject: Recertification - Fee structure will go into effect Jan 1 2016
Fee Structure:
SARTECH III: Every 3 years, recertify by retesting for $15 OR 12 hours of CE class training or documented field experience.

SARTECH II: Every 3 years, recertify by retesting written and field stations OR 30 hours of CE class training. Field experience will count 50 %. Teaching will count 2 hours for 1.

SARTECH I: Every 3 years, recertify by retesting written field stations OR 60 hours of CE class training. Field experience will count 50 %. Teaching will count 2 hours for 1.

Program details will be posted by Oct 1 2013. (NOT  This is from the board minutes.)

Mike

[RiverAux]

But it has been repeated over and over that the real problem is that units aren't getting the word out that CAP has ground teams. So why is this not being done?

Because GSAR and getting GSAR missions is not a priority at any level of CAP. 

[SARDOC]

But it has been repeated over and over that the real problem is that units aren't getting the word out that CAP has ground teams. So why is this not being done?

Because GSAR and getting GSAR missions is not a priority at any level of CAP.

I know it's a high priority for our wing, the issue we have is that a high percentage of GSAR's are for despondent's who don't necessarily want to be found...making this more of an LE function and the Posse Comitatus rule comes into play.  Other SAR organizations respond to the state requests for those all the time however our Auxiliary status prevents it.

[RiverAux]

While I've often said here that GSAR is the biggest potential growth area for CAP ES activity, in most places that won't mean getting missions on a weekly or even monthly basis.  A while back I did a fairly detailed analysis of GSAR cases in my state using data obtained from the state EMA and newspaper accounts of searches. 

Probably 80-90% of the GSAR incidents were ones in which CAP involvement probably wouldn't have happened -- primarily because the subject was found within an hour or two and in general we wouldn't have a team together that fast (except in our home towns).  The other reason was those GSARs that were related to despondents.

Even accounting for that, I figured that if our Wing built up our GSAR capability and developed the proper relationships that it would result in 5-10 honest-to-goodness GSAR missions every year, compared to the 1 or 2 missing airplane searches we get.  At the time, there was no interest in pursuing this. 

[Ed Bos]

SARTECH recert was approved this summer:

Subject: Recertification - Fee structure will go into effect Jan 1 2016
Fee Structure:
SARTECH III: Every 3 years, recertify by retesting for $15 OR 12 hours of CE class training or documented field experience.

SARTECH II: Every 3 years, recertify by retesting written and field stations OR 30 hours of CE class training. Field experience will count 50 %. Teaching will count 2 hours for 1.

SARTECH I: Every 3 years, recertify by retesting written field stations OR 60 hours of CE class training. Field experience will count 50 %. Teaching will count 2 hours for 1.

Program details will be posted by Oct 1 2013. (NOT  This is from the board minutes.)

Mike

Excellent info, thanks for that!

[BFreemanMA]

This is admittedly a bit of a tangent, but there are use for Ground Teams outside of SAR.

For example, in MAWG, we've begun using Ground Teams as "Forward Air Control Parties" for disaster relief ops. We deploy a team to a location to take ground-based photos. The ground team then directs the aircraft to the area to take a birds-eye view of the scene. The pictures are transferred via wireless LAN-type service from air to ground and sent to our customer. If the customer needs a closer look at something, the ground team can direct the aircraft to another location or vice-versa.

We gave it a shot during our last SAREX. There were a few snags, but we accomplished the mission overall. I was the MRO for the operation and it was really neat to hear the coordination between all the elements.

I know that MAWG doesn't get a lot of GSAR missions at all due to the State Police having that market cornered, so I pleased to hear about this evolution in the wing which keeps us useful to our local EMA.

Maybe this is something other wings could look in to so their GSAR skills don't atrophy?

[Eclipse]

Ground assessment photos and recon have been included as tasks in the last two CAP-USAR evaluated exercises / GTEs in my wing.

[SARDOC]

Ground assessment photos and recon have been included as tasks in the last two CAP-USAR evaluated exercises / GTEs in my wing.

That's true here too.  While I know there are other tasks for ground teams, they are usually much more infrequent than the GSAR.  So the CAP GTM tasks are still the building blocks for building a team that would be capable of performing those other tasks.

[BFreemanMA]

They definitely should keep the GTM tasks intact, for sure. I was just offering an "outside the box" possibility for Wings where GSAR missions are few and far between. My experience is that, unfortunately, there are NO GSAR missions at all for us. Sadface.jpg