Training to NASAR Standards?

[sardak]

Are these standards available online anywhere, or would it be sufficient to adapt the SAR TECH criteria since they follow ASTM standards?

At a bare minimum CAP ought to teach and conduct itself to those ATSM standards not just CAP "standards."

ASTM standards are not supposed to be free or available on the Internet (other than from ASTM). The links to the SAR TECH docs are above. Training to the SAR TECH criteria would be OK, however as noted, that doesn't make a person a SAR TECH. The ASTM standard (F2209 for entry level ground searchers, no rescue skills) is more generic and doesn't include the testing methods. The idea is that an organization uses the ASTM standard as the framework to build a training and certification program.

Since CAP is supposedly revising many of the SQTRs, including the Ground Team series, as we're discussing this, it would make incredible sense (which means it won't happen) to write them to fit the ASTM standard (or SAR TECH II, not III).

2) more recent national credentialing document (sorry, can't find it just now), something from late 2008-early 2009, listed a radio direction team (much like our UDF)...also had skill levels/equipment & personnel requirements for the various resource types...CAP GTs would probably qualify as level 3 or 4

Those are in the November 2005 FEMA resource typing document available here: http://www.fema.gov/pdf/emergency/nims/508-8_search_and_rescue_resources.pdf
The radio DF and air search typing has been dropped from the draft 2008 version. The FEMA SAR working group considers them Tier II resources, meaning that they're not resources that would be requested and deployed at a national scale through FEMA or EMAC. Face it, FEMA's correct. CAP, as requested through AFRCC or NORTHCOM, might deploy its resources nationally.

The Wilderness SAR team typing from 2005 is now Land SAR Team typing in the draft 2008 version. Team typing is getting off the topic of personnel credentialing which is what the thread, the ASTM standard and SAR TECH address. Here is what the 2006 "Wilderness Search and Rescue Technician" McLarty referenced has become in the 2008 draft:

SAR Job Title 9: Search and Rescue Technician, Land Description: A Search and Rescue Technician, Land is an entry-level position within a Land SAR Team who searches for and rescues those in distress in land-based, non-technical environments up to and including low angle and possibly scree-type evacuations. Certain specialized environments may require other endorsements,

Fulfillment of requirement(s) as stated in the following standard(s):
1. ASTM F-2209 or equivalent
2. OSHA 29 CFR 1910.120(Q)(6)(i), HazMat Awareness Training or equivalent basic instruction on responding to and operating in a CBRNE incident
3. OSHA 29 CFR 1910.120 and 1910.134(f) and (k), as related to Respiratory Protection, as applicable
Completion of the following baseline criteria:
4. First Aid and CPR
5. Basic Aviation Safety, such as Department of Interior, Aviation Management B-3 course
6. Still and Swiftwater Safety and SAR Awareness as required by the AHJ
7. Confidentiality Issues
8. For drivers: driver's safety, as required by the AHJ
9. Animal evacuations issues
10. Performing non-technical evacuations as required by the AHJ
Completion of the following courses and/or curricula:
11. ICS-100: Introduction to ICS
12. FEMA IS-700: NIMS, An Introduction
Completion of the following baseline criteria:
1. Medical requirements established by the AHJ
2. Minimum physical fitness standards as required by ASTM F2209, 5.5.12 (which says the AHJ).
AHJ = Agency or Authority Having Jurisdiction

Recommended:
1. Minimum of Wilderness First Aid or equivalent
2. ICS-200: Basic ICS
3. Minimum physical fitness standards as required by NWCG Work Capacity Test (moderate-level, NWCG PMS 307) or equivalent

Replies from the SAR WG to the stakeholders indicate that the OSHA respirator and hazmat requirements will be made more of an endorsement type requirement, i.e. SAR personnel will be ordered with these as additional requirements.

The draft 2008 versions were revised by the SAR WG based on inputs from "stakeholders." However, the Office of Management and Budget told FEMA its process was flawed so the revised versions can't be used. The draft 2008 version will have to be sent out for public comment through OMB's website http://www.regulations.gov (there's a CAP Talk thread on this).

Mike

[NavLT]

In my neck of the woods they call all of this "industry Standards".

CAP needs to decide if it wants to meet the industry standards or if they want to put the time and energy into making our standards as accepted as the industry standards.

Nobody at the federal level said (booming music and mountains full of lightning for effect) "thou shalt be NASAR certified or ye shall be cast out of the heavens of GSAR".

The problem is that like National Registry EMT, NASAR has become accepted as a standard even if not grandly endorsed.  CAP has not been so recognized. 

So you can either do NASAR or you can work to get CAP recognized like NASAR is.  Spending lots of time and energy on fussing about why not (whine whine wimper) won't change anything.

And yes some agencies running SAR in some places don't care who you are and who qualified you, but it is in these areas that Joe-Bob (sorry if you are reading this) can show up in a nifty SAR costume and tell everyone his a SAR God and be put in charge with maybee some Cub Scout supervision expereince.

It is a organizational (read National/Region) decision to want to do what it takes to play in this arena, So tell your reps to the national board you want to ante up to the game.

VR
LT J.

[RiverAux]

I'll bet you that 9/10 county sheriffs have never heard of NASAR.  Besides they have no more official standing than CAP and are not the national standard.  The closest thing to that as SARDAK said, is ASTM.

[Eclipse]

I'll bet you that 9/10 county sheriffs have never heard of NASAR.  Besides they have no more official standing than CAP and are not the national standard.  The closest thing to that as SARDAK said, is ASTM.

Yep, that's the issue - there's a a few terms which are thrown around, and a lot of people willing to throw $50 at one certification body, but that doesn't make them the standard.

What "GSAR" means is spongy, too.

The other issue is that when free, professionalized, Congressionally-recognized and funded volunteers show up and say "Where do you need me?"  You don't spend a lot of time nit-picking on their capabilities, and CAP is generally very clear about what we can and can not do.

For the most part it is people trying to turn CAP into a first-responder, technical rescue agency that waste their time about how important
these certs are.  That's not what we do, its not needed for us to do it, and there are other agencies better equipped to  do it.  I can almost guarantee you that any sort of external certification will be the result of that certifying body accepting our existing training curriculum to some level of their cert, not the other way around.

From my personal experience, in most cases of large-scale DR work, we are the more professional and prepared of the volunteer agencies that show up.  I don't personally consider the ARC a "volunteer" agency per-se, because at their level of funding and support they look at lot like a professional organization, and they have a lot of FTE's to set up the infrastructure for the local volunteers. Its not unusual for local FD & PD to ask us to step in and run the EOC and plan operations because they have no experience whatsoever.  Those are the
times when CAP shines, and economics of CAP really work.

We are what we are.  Accept that or apply elsewhere.