SQTR Substantiation

[Eclipse]

The process seems pretty simple to me.

1) Get evaluated by a qualified SET (mission or task).

2) SET signs a physical SQTR (or field expedient form).

3) Member uploads the completed SQTR to Ops Quals along with completing the eSQTR.

4) Request for approval or renewal is considered by the chain of command by reviewing the uploaded documentation.

We've been tied in knots with some members who argue that CAP is now "paperless" and this is no longer required.
"Just enter the SET number and approve." No paper SQTR or signatures required.

My contention is that we may be working towards "paperless", but we are far from "documentless", and that absent
this substantiation, there is no way an approver would even know that a given member ever met the SET, let alone
was successfully evaluated.

My read of 60-3 says its clear that the documentation has to be uploaded at least until the qualification is approved,
and "should" be stored in a 114 (all of which could absolutely be electronic).

Bearing in mind that there is currently no system-level validation of a CAPID's entry in the evaluator field (we've had
member fat-finger an ID and show a cadet not even involved in ES as SET for FASC,m etc.) how does the "paperless"
argument have any validity?

One response is "Well we're all honorable officers, and any fraud would be met with disciplinary action."  That sounds great on
paper, but would not stand up to an inspection or investigation, and if we're "all trustworthy" then we don't really need the
system to start with.

My contention is that when you enter someone's CAPID in the evaluator field, you are indicating that the SET is personally
responsible for that member's training and ability in the respective Qualification, and further, those who approve that
sign-off are indicating they believe the person is at least base-level competent in those skills.  Without the bare-minimum
of a signature somewhere, email validation (still in development), or a practical contact to the SET (which opens up a whole
separate kettle of logs and cross-checks), how can we have any confidence that the evaluations were done properly?

Unit CC's may well trust and verify at their level, but things start scaling quickly as you move up the chain.

[Eclipse]

One place this is an issue - real world.

A member exhibits repeated poor performance as an Observer, though he is fully qualified and has been for a number of years (sound familiar?)

The first thing we do is check the records to see who evaluated him last. (In some cases we find a blank SQTR and no uploaded docs, which is a
tangential but related issue - he never properly transitioned from the WMU, and since then someone has just been bumping his dates).

We then contact the member who is indicated as SET.

He says "I have no memory of ever evaluating him for anything." (etc.)

Maybe he did, maybe he didn't, or maybe he forgot. (my wing has 500(ish) people in ES, is heavily involved with NESA, and attracts a fair number of people from other wings for training, so it's not unreasonable to forget an evaluation from 3 years ago.)

So now what?  We can send the member for remedial training, but we can't, with certainty, "fix" whomever is either whipping or improperly evaluating
members.  At least with a scanned SQTR on file we'd have some certainty of who did the evaluation(s).

[lordmonar]

Work it this way.

Member uploads data in Eservices.
It goes to the SET evaluator who appoves each task he evluated.
It then goes to Squadron CC for final sign off
Then goes to wing for sign off.

Eliminates the "just put in someones CAP ID" issue.

[Eclipse]

That doesn't provide anything to substantiate things at higher echelons or down the road if questions are raised.

Another example - I need to re-up my MRO, haven't thought about it in ages, and found my own SQTR to be 2/3rd's blank.
But since I saved my WMU SQTRs, I just need to back-fill the dates.

[SARDOC]

I do have a question about the Commander Approval process in Emergency Services.  If the Commander authorizes the Member to train in a particular specialty, why are there separate Commander Approvals for the rest of the process? For example, The Commander has to approve stating the member meets the prerequisites, then again when the Fam and Prep is done and then again when all of the advanced training is completed.  This process seems like it can be streamlined a little bit.

Once the member is approved to participate in that specialty then it should just be a function of the Emergency Services Training department to train and submit to Wing ES training for validation and approval.  It just seems the process is unnecessarily complicated.

[Pylon]

It just seems the process is unnecessarily complicated.

That's because it is.

[JeffDG]

I do have a question about the Commander Approval process in Emergency Services.  If the Commander authorizes the Member to train in a particular specialty, why are there separate Commander Approvals for the rest of the process? For example, The Commander has to approve stating the member meets the prerequisites, then again when the Fam and Prep is done and then again when all of the advanced training is completed.  This process seems like it can be streamlined a little bit.

Once the member is approved to participate in that specialty then it should just be a function of the Emergency Services Training department to train and submit to Wing ES training for validation and approval.  It just seems the process is unnecessarily complicated.

I would drop the "Commander Approval for Prerequisites" part...they either do or they do not, it's not really a discretion thing.

The Fam/Prep I would keep....it's what makes the member a "supervised trainee".

Then the final signoff on completion is, IMHO, a good thing.

The Commander can delegate approval for all of these to his ES department if he/she so chooses.

[Eclipse]

It just seems the process is unnecessarily complicated.

That's because it is.

I agree to an extent, however being "ready" to train, is different then being ready to move onto advanced tasks or being fully qualified.

For starters, until you are approved by your commander, you're can't be signed into a mission, or receive mission credit in that qualification.
I think that's reasonable.

[Walkman]

I advise my ES people to make a binder with all their ES paperwork and to always have the paper SQTR with them when they are training. The problem comes when they get some training outside the unit. It's happened that the SETs running the training event either neglect to sign the paper or said they would send the paper at a later date and never did. Unfortunately for a handful of my cadets, these things happened prior to me joining the unit and they have no proof of training even in e-services, so they are starting over.

[lordmonar]

One place this is an issue - real world.

A member exhibits repeated poor performance as an Observer, though he is fully qualified and has been for a number of years (sound familiar?)

The first thing we do is check the records to see who evaluated him last. (In some cases we find a blank SQTR and no uploaded docs, which is a
tangential but related issue - he never properly transitioned from the WMU, and since then someone has just been bumping his dates).

We then contact the member who is indicated as SET.

He says "I have no memory of ever evaluating him for anything." (etc.)

Maybe he did, maybe he didn't, or maybe he forgot. (my wing has 500(ish) people in ES, is heavily involved with NESA, and attracts a fair number of people from other wings for training, so it's not unreasonable to forget an evaluation from 3 years ago.)

So now what?  We can send the member for remedial training, but we can't, with certainty, "fix" whomever is either whipping or improperly evaluating
members.  At least with a scanned SQTR on file we'd have some certainty of who did the evaluation(s).

What you need then is what in the USAF maintenance world an MSEP program.

Maitenance Standardisation Evlaution Program.

The way it works is that the Qaulaity Assurance office spot checks each technicians on a number of tasks (10% or so).  The QA evaluator is not just evaluting the technician but also his trainer.

If a particular trainer is having a lot of people fail their MSEPs then leadership steps in and finds where the holes in the training program are.
I got MSEPed every year.

The problem with this....is now we need a ton of QA types and we have to spend time and money evaluating tasks.  Add to that people with multiple qualificaitons......it will take a lot of time and man power.

A compromise program would be to evaluate several trainess of one SETs evalulator..... and back check them.   It will reduced the number of MSEP evluations you would have to do and it would cross check that the SET evaluators are not just pencile whipping evaluations.

[Garibaldi]

This may be way obvious or maybe overkill...but what about having to complete a train the trainer course as part of SET?

[Eclipse]

This may be way obvious or maybe overkill...but what about having to complete a train the trainer course as part of SET?

Its not the training, its the tracking.

[RiverAux]

Well, they had such a requirement in the early 2000s.  The course was actually a pretty short course on teaching classes, which would actually be helpful for CAP members.  However, it had zero to do with really evaluating people.  There is a difference between a trainer and an evaluator. 

[arajca]

It was also mis-managed. One class per year with 15 folks? Didn't go over well, especially when they tried enforcing the "only TTT grads can sign off quals" and all the grads were pilots!

[sarmed1]

Just saying.....I was a TTT, and I am not a pilot.....

Again in USAF land our training file (at least for medical) all online, has designated supervisors and designated trainees.  Only supervisory personnel (data based by unit) can sign off on (as in enter completion dates) for tasks. CAP just needs a better program, thats all.

mk

[SarDragon]

TTT was a farce. I spent 4 years as a military instructor (trainer), and a month at the front end learning how to do it. A 1 day class focused on the wrong things did very little to turn out trainers, good or otherwise.

I sent a copy of the USNR weekend instructor training course up the chain a while back, and it went nowhere. The only thing that really needed to be done with it is change a little USN terminology to USAF, and format the lesson guides according to USAF style.

[SJFedor]

Eclipse, I don't say this often, but I do totally agree with you here. Back in the long ago, when I was a Group DO/DOS, I had the job of validating the quals for the group level, and this was before there was a way to upload the paper SQTR with the eSQTR entry. I noticed that once I started asking questions, visiting a few units to review their files, and did a few spot checks, that there was absolutely rampant pencil whipping of stuff. Some people were using CAPIDs of people who held nothing more than GES. It's like some people just went absolutely click-happy in the Ops Quals.

It was something just shy of a riot, but we ended up implementing a process where nothing got approved until it went to a Group email address, which the CC, CD, DO, DOS, and DOV had access to, where the scanned paper copies were validated (used it for F5 stuff as well).

There's nothing wrong with having paper to back up electronic, because all it takes is one massive hiccup to wipe everything out. There's still paperwork involved with all my professional licensure and credentialing, so why do people think that these 101 quals are so special that they shouldn't have to. In an ideal world, these qualifications would actually mean something, and would be recognized as a credentialing process to provide truly qualified, educated, and trained people for a specific task. Perhaps because there's a select few out there that just like to play the "I have more crap than you on my 101!" game, and don't have any real interest in truly learning how to perform their job.

[Woodsy]

As far as "commanders approval" goes...  let's be honest here.... 


In the majority of composite squadrons, and almost all cadet squadrons, the CC doesn't know the first thing about ES. They delegate. 

ES qualifications should be approved at the wing level.  ES operational personnel do not report to their squadron CC while on a mission, they report to the IC. 

[Garibaldi]

As far as "commanders approval" goes...  let's be honest here.... 


In the majority of composite squadrons, and almost all cadet squadrons, the CC doesn't know the first thing about ES. They delegate. 

ES qualifications should be approved at the wing level.  ES operational personnel do not report to their squadron CC while on a mission, they report to the IC.

Anything above GES goes to Wing in Arkansas. I submitted several people for GTM3 before I left and every single one went to Wing. All approved thanks to the OCD of our DCS who insisted on making sure all the steps that needed to be done were done before we sent everything off.

[SJFedor]

As far as "commanders approval" goes...  let's be honest here.... 


In the majority of composite squadrons, and almost all cadet squadrons, the CC doesn't know the first thing about ES. They delegate. 

ES qualifications should be approved at the wing level.  ES operational personnel do not report to their squadron CC while on a mission, they report to the IC.

ALL qualifications go through unit, group, and wing validation levels before they go active, with wing being the "final word". This task, at least at the Wing level, is delegated to the DOS.