Changes to ES Task Guides and New ES Qualifications

[Mobius1_Fox2]

Seeing that the ES task guides are now a hair under 20 years old, I'm curious to see what sort of changes you would make to the "current" (not really) guides and what new ES qualifications you would want to see. I know 60-3 makes references to some qualifications that don't exist (like Highbird Radio Operator) but it does pose an interesting question on what sort of training and qualifications would be useful in today's CAP.

[heliodoc]

Training in the real support world with a curriculum built around disaster assessment and disaster relief...POD..IS26 mere awareness needs exercising...just because we have it on our 1lone o one card does not mean CAP Nation-wide is proficient. Since we take FEMA courses and whatnot CAP needs a taskbook that supports All Hazard All Risk....theres plenty of disasters that CAP can support...its not just comms and aerial photography. Its going to take a culture change....there are more volunteers from other organizations serving in incidents...probably a culture change for the AF also....since they hold some of the mission assignment cards....

[Mobius1_Fox2]

Training in the real support world with a curriculum built around disaster assessment and disaster relief...POD..IS26 mere awareness needs exercising...just because we have it on our 1lone o one card does not mean CAP Nation-wide is proficient. Since we take FEMA courses and whatnot CAP needs a taskbook that supports All Hazard All Risk....theres plenty of disasters that CAP can support...its not just comms and aerial photography. Its going to take a culture change....there are more volunteers from other organizations serving in incidents...probably a culture change for the AF also....since they hold some of the mission assignment cards....

Not a bad suggestion at all. I was thinking the same here. We have a lot of capabilities within our reach but it's not enough to just be aware of how PODs work or being aware of shelter management. We should probably be practicing doing these as well. We should definitely be shifting towards All-Hazards training to bring us in line with the rest of FEMA.

[Fubar]

I think before we start worrying about training materials, CAP needs to decide just what is our mission scope.  We need to stop looking around and seeing what other organizations are doing, both volunteer and professional, and thinking, "hey, we should do that too!"

We instead should be looking for niches to fill. Let's focus on stuff that nobody else can do (or at the very least, can't do at our price point).

[heliodoc]

With the reduction in GT missions thru cell phone forensics and the 5 or 6 different aerial photo platforms...ARCHER, ARGUS, PHYLISS, VIRB, WALDO

All required training of sorts

What is the answer to define mission scope? Putting the AIR into CAP?, new definition/ mission scope for GTs?

Filling niches? Isn't that NHQs job to realign curriculum and mission scope?

Otherwise it seems to me, its "we can do that, too" will.be the mission statement of sorts.

Otherwise, I agree mission scope first, training materials  second

[PHall]

Well considering that we don't do the same thing everywhere. In some some states there is very little, if any, GT action and in others we get lots of GT missions. A lot depends of the state laws that govern ES in each state.
So trying to do a one size fits all solution just won't work.

[RiverAux]

These days there is a much reduced need for the sort of airborne capabilities that we have, but that isn't a dealbreaker -- the federal legislation organizing CAP says that we can respond to any sort of emergency and doesn't put any limit on what types of activities we can do while responding. 

That being said, CAP has been failing for decades to actually come up with a vision for how we respond to natural disasters that addresses anything other than airborne photography.  Now, I don't see anything wrong with us assisting other agencies in something that they specialize in.  They're probably always going to need more manpower.  Really, is that any different than a lot of what the National Guard does during disasters?  Does anyone complain that they're horning in on the Red Cross if they set up a shelter or hand out water bottles? 

[PHall]

These days there is a much reduced need for the sort of airborne capabilities that we have, but that isn't a dealbreaker -- the federal legislation organizing CAP says that we can respond to any sort of emergency and doesn't put any limit on what types of activities we can do while responding. 

That being said, CAP has been failing for decades to actually come up with a vision for how we respond to natural disasters that addresses anything other than airborne photography.  Now, I don't see anything wrong with us assisting other agencies in something that they specialize in.  They're probably always going to need more manpower.  Really, is that any different than a lot of what the National Guard does during disasters?  Does anyone complain that they're horning in on the Red Cross if they set up a shelter or hand out water bottles? 

Helping the Red Cross hand out water/meals is what we have done in the past in California Wing.
Something a 16 year old cadet with a GES can do.

[Fubar]

Does anyone complain that they're horning in on the Red Cross if they set up a shelter or hand out water bottles?

No, because they're not worried about remaining relevant in today's world of disaster response. They get paid either way. I'm saying we should focus on missions that nobody else does or does well to ensure we remain relevant. Because after awhile, if all we do is help the Red Cross then eventually people will realize they just need to join the Red Cross.

[RiverAux]

There is nothing that we can do that other agencies can't do though there are things that we can probably do at lower cost, which generally isn't a factor these days. 

The simple fact is that even if we find a niche that we can dominate, it is extremely likely that it is only going to be relevant for a small portion of the membership.  For example, aerial damage assessment leaves a whole lot of CAP members with nothing to do, so we need to evaluate what we might be able to do with everyone else.  If it is helping the Red Cross or some other agency, whats the problem? 

We need to evaluate what we can do with as many members as we have interested in helping whether it is a CAP-niche task or something else. 

[heliodoc]

I'd have to agree with RiverAux

Since CAP is considered a SUPPORTING agency in more realms than not.......

What would it hurt if CAP worked with other groups?  We have no leading edge on disaster relief unless someone here can prove to me that we are the primary source for SAR

Seems like there's plenty o SAR groups other than NASAR and whatnot...look on Facebook...plenty of SAR types in locales probably with a CAP Sqdn within 50-200 miles from them

My AOR CERT seems to poach some members...I held a UTM about 4 yrs ago and a contingent of 6-8 CAPers didn't stick around the whole day claiming 'we's got a CERT mission, the EM called us." More like it was already planned

So to think CAP is its own game in the All Risk/All Hazard DR world...about 2001 we ought to have been buddying up with EMs and FEMA and probably even before when the Office of Civil Defense existed....The loss during the age of of Aerial Radiological Monitoring and the associated Radiological Monitoring Handbook from 1974 that us cadets chased around in a downtown armory for the 47th MP Company with CDV700 series Geiger Counter looking for hidden nuke casks located in various areas... I'm sure a small shock to CAP when things changed politically and OCD being relegated to FEMA and the rework seemingly did not include CAP as such

I do remember in 1975 ARC requested a MNWG Sqdn...my self and another more adult cadet one C/TSGT and one cadet C/WO sat in the ARC EOC til 0200-0330 for an overnite of monitoring CAP, ARC, and ham during a tornado touchdown in a near the Twin Cities

ONCE AGAIN  we were a SUPPORT function to a requesting agency and not the Primary EOC/EOF DR function

SO again, what is the problem of CAP helping another agency...we sure as hell aint getting the 121.5 bells las once we did so it's about time CAP get a culture change and find a way to employ us more ...but again we can't force ourselves on EMs even if they KNOW about us already...heck I'm out here as a few are..."begging" for missions on occasion with all our "showoff" of capabilities and our $500- 750K Cessnas

[Fubar]

The simple fact is that even if we find a niche that we can dominate, it is extremely likely that it is only going to be relevant for a small portion of the membership.

I wholeheartedly agree and it's a situation that's been building for 80 years. We started as an organization where pilots could utilize their flying skills in support of their nation. Obviously lots of non-pilots wanted in on the fun and we've been trying to figure out what to do with them ever since.

If we're really down to either you're a pilot or you'll put on your spiffy uniform and go work for another organization (Red Cross primarily) then eventually everyone will learn to just join the Red Cross. They have some decent bureaucracy over there, but at least they're very active, federally tasked to support ESF, and extremely well funded. No point going through CAP bureaucracy & the ARC red tape.