"New" Qualifications

A recent post mentioned having the high-bird qualification met the requirements for the air crew wings. I went looking to eServices to find the HRO qualification only to not find it, but come across a few that were new to me:

• PODC - Point of Distribution Course
• SFGC - Shelter Field Guide Course

I also noticed a couple of SAR planning course qualifications that I can't recall if they were in there before. At least I know what those are, but the above two are foreign to me. The SFGC seems to be a FEMA course on the when and how to open a community shelter during a disaster, something CAP is not involved in. The PODC also seems to be a FEMA course that is defined as "where the public goes to pick up emergency supplies following a disaster," which again is not something CAP currently does.

What's the point of creating these qualifications in eServices if we don't do this type of work? If it's a strategic direction our emergency services directorate is taking us, why not publish the vision, implementation plan, regulatory changes, and then create the qualification in eServices?

I guess the answer to my question is simply look at how CAPR 35-6 references a qualification to wear aircrew wings that doesn't exist yet...

My money? CAP CERT is finally happening. Those tasks are certainly in the wheelhouse.

Regarding POD, North Carolina Wing has conducted point of distribution training for quite a while.  Plans are to utilize personnel in the future distributing relief supplies following hurricanes.
Best use of limited personnel and cadets?  Not my decision.

POD and CERT are, and will continue,  to be random circumstantial opportunistic
happenstance.  CAP isn't going to be in either of these businesses beyond the occasional
"extra hands" situation when someone directly involved with a local agency or EMA
is either a member or otherwise hears about CAP.

It doesn't have the manpower, resources, or even the consistent logistics to be a primary agency,
and there are plenty of organizations who already do.

Municipalities of the proper scale already have organization CERT teams under their direct control,
and don't need CAP in anything but the most dire situation, and in those cases, they don't
care about whether a member has CERT on their 101 card, they just need help, and will take whoever they can get.

Municipalities can get funding and manpower directly from FEMA or their states, they don't need
CAP in the middle of it.

This is no different then the ARC relationship.  These organizations are happy enough to get CAP's
contact list for recruiting, but have no interest in its uniforms

If you want to be on a CERT team, join the one in your town, if you want to run a POD, contact your County EMA,
or Health department.

Once again, the wise and all knowing Eclipse has spoken.   

I have maintained when people were commenting that CAP ground teams were not utilized for tasks undertaken by FEMA Urban Search and Rescue Teams, we don't have teams trained or equipped to perform that function.  If you want to do that job, join the FEMA teams.  As one of their members must do to perform air search, join the CAP.

CERT is designed to be a neighbor-helping-neighbor function.  If CAP wants to expose it's members to the training, what's the harm.  To actually function on a CERT team, that requires local involvement rather than a regional involvement common to many squadrons.

NC Wing members have been asked to staff POD's in the past and will be asked to do so again in the future.  In my opinion, we don't have the manpower

I would suggest in the future that members of the forum limit their comments to CONSTRUCTIVE comments that contribute rather than snarky, critical comments that reveal a lack of ................

"POD and CERT are, and will continue,  to be random circumstantial opportunistic
happenstance."  Just like air and ground SAR!

"POD and CERT are, and will continue,  to be random circumstantial opportunistic
happenstance."  Just like air and ground SAR!

They are decidedly not the same.

Air and Ground SAR, at least in regards to Aviation, is a defined CAP mission which is tasked
directly from the Federal level and, with the exception of a few states, doesn't require or
involve any other agency to deploy.

POD and CERT are the exact opposite in that they require local relationships (something
CAP is...inconsistent...with at best) for callouts and deployment, not to mention generally
the exhaustion of local resources specially trained and intended for those tasks.

GSAR requires the same local relationships POD and CERT do. In many places, CAP's GSAR taskings are nonexistant, or almost so.

It may be that the local EM folks have decided CAP is the best resource for the POD mission in their area.

Looking at this in a positive light, if CAP develops the skills and training and manpower to carry out this mission in one wing, its use could spread. Kind of like how the AP stuff spread.

GSAR requires the same local relationships POD and CERT do. In many places, CAP's GSAR taskings are nonexistant, or almost so.

It may be that the local EM folks have decided CAP is the best resource for the POD mission in their area.

Looking at this in a positive light, if CAP develops the skills and training and manpower to carry out this mission in one wing, its use could spread. Kind of like how the AP stuff spread.

A lot of GSAR needs local relationships, but not all of it, and certainly not the traditional GTs working a
missing aircraft mission.

Where has AP "spread"? I agree it's probably the most active CAP air mission, generally,
but I don't see it as any more, or less prevalent than say 10 years ago, while
at the same time, technology is evolving to render the missions CAP still gets as obsolete.

The unfortunate nature of the current weather cycle the planet is on means there might be a few
higher-profile, larger scope missions each year, but does that qualify as "spread"?

I don't have any gripe, per se, with PODs or CERT, but its never going to be a CAP "thing",
and the existence of these unconnected qualifications and portended capabilities just leads
members to believe they will have a role they never will, and leads to retention issues.

Until there is a DR doctrine, and an updated ES doctrine in total, none of this will change.

Certainly the GT's working a missing a/c mission. Once it has been narrowed to a county or two, the responsibility for the mission shifts to the local sheriff/EM/SAR folks. Without the local contacts or relationships, CAP GTs are not a player. Keep in mind, each state has its own agreement with the AFRCC covering missing A/C missions, some of which limit CAP's involvement to air only.

AP started in one area a grew (or spread) from there.

Until there is a DR doctrine, and an updated ES doctrine in total, none of this will change.

Absolute agreement with this.

The one skill set that CAP Ground Teams have that most other ground teams lack is Electronic Search.

Certainly the GT's working a missing a/c mission. Once it has been narrowed to a county or two, the responsibility for the mission shifts to the local sheriff/EM/SAR folks.

News to me, as we both mention, Wings vary by agreement and actual operations, but certainly in my AOR(s)
GTs have never been waived off a mission just because it's been narrowed to a more localized area. CAP
works the mission until they find the objective (or they stop for lunch).

Normally we would involve local PD because walking down the street in camo carrying
what looks like the world's diciest AM radio tends to get attention, and in some neighborhoods
"attention" could wind up being composed of lead with a copper jacket, but beyond that
we don't get waved off, at least around these parts.

Missing persons is a different animal, but we touched on that already, and its due to the fact that
MP searches generally start local, while missing aircraft usually start much higher, or are even initiated
by the AFRCC.

POD and CERT are, and will continue,  to be random circumstantial opportunistic
happenstance.  CAP isn't going to be in either of these businesses beyond the occasional
"extra hands" situation when someone directly involved with a local agency or EMA
is either a member or otherwise hears about CAP.

It doesn't have the manpower, resources, or even the consistent logistics to be a primary agency,
and there are plenty of organizations who already do.

Municipalities of the proper scale already have organization CERT teams under their direct control,
and don't need CAP in anything but the most dire situation, and in those cases, they don't
care about whether a member has CERT on their 101 card, they just need help, and will take whoever they can get.

Municipalities can get funding and manpower directly from FEMA or their states, they don't need
CAP in the middle of it.

This is no different then the ARC relationship.  These organizations are happy enough to get CAP's
contact list for recruiting, but have no interest in its uniforms

If you want to be on a CERT team, join the one in your town, if you want to run a POD, contact your County EMA,
or Health department.

As a member of my community CERT team, I'd take the time to point out that you're basing your assumptions on a lack of data, but every state/local government CERT program (in spite of FEMA insisting otherwise) is different. So it may be true where you live, but it isn't everywhere. And CAP needs to be in the ground DR/USAR/CERT game.

POD and CERT are, and will continue,  to be random circumstantial opportunistic
happenstance.  CAP isn't going to be in either of these businesses beyond the occasional
"extra hands" situation when someone directly involved with a local agency or EMA
is either a member or otherwise hears about CAP.

It doesn't have the manpower, resources, or even the consistent logistics to be a primary agency,
and there are plenty of organizations who already do.

Municipalities of the proper scale already have organization CERT teams under their direct control,
and don't need CAP in anything but the most dire situation, and in those cases, they don't
care about whether a member has CERT on their 101 card, they just need help, and will take whoever they can get.

Municipalities can get funding and manpower directly from FEMA or their states, they don't need
CAP in the middle of it.

This is no different then the ARC relationship.  These organizations are happy enough to get CAP's
contact list for recruiting, but have no interest in its uniforms

If you want to be on a CERT team, join the one in your town, if you want to run a POD, contact your County EMA,
or Health department.

As a member of my community CERT team, I'd take the time to point out that you're basing your assumptions on a lack of data, but every state/local government CERT program (in spite of FEMA insisting otherwise) is different. So it may be true where you live, but it isn't everywhere. And CAP needs to be in the ground DR/USAR/CERT game.

Agreed.

As a member of my community CERT team, I'd take the time to point out that you're basing your assumptions on a lack of data, but every state/local government CERT program (in spite of FEMA insisting otherwise) is different. So it may be true where you live, but it isn't everywhere. And CAP needs to be in the ground DR/USAR/CERT game.

Yes, they are all different, and few, if any, are looking for CAP members to respond in uniform.
Why would they?  If they go to the trouble and expense of training people to their standards and
ops rules, that person should just show up in the local golf shirt or vest, sans any CAP affiliation,
and if they aren't both locally present and locally trained, they could be as much trouble as they are
worth.

The literal point of CERT is "community" - you help your neighbor, not deploy elsewhere to do that.

Local authorities may need and want CAP's DR help, but it's not "CERT".

FWIW. I don't speak from keyboard experience, I speak from actual experience.  As a wing ESO for
nearly three years (appeals to authority) I was directly involved in conversations with the ARC, PODs,
local CERT teams, and local SAR teams.

They are all excited about CAP coming to help, until the hear about the rules, potential expense, and indirect
control.  These orgs want and need direct control over their volunteers, not second layer, and in most cases
considering their funding and manning, they literally don't need CAP's help.

Certainly there are exceptions, anecdotal successes, and rural areas where CAP can assist, but this is by no means
the norm.

Always right, Eclipse.

"You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy."

https://www.ncwgcap.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=page.display&pageID=438

In California, after the Northridge quake, we did a good bit of "Point of Distribution" activities. One weekend, I drove a forklift at a previously unused Sears warehouse where the Red Cross was staging supply distribution. Other weekends, I was slinging supplies by hand.

Probably wouldn't hurt to have a course familiarizing  our people with those operations.

In California, after the Northridge quake, we did a good bit of "Point of Distribution" activities. One weekend, I drove a forklift at a previously unused Sears warehouse where the Red Cross was staging supply distribution. Other weekends, I was slinging supplies by hand.

Probably wouldn't hurt to have a course familiarizing  our people with those operations.

This supports my point (made not just here, but in other related threads).

Northridge was nearly 25 years ago, but it's being used to support a that a given random, circumstantial success
is actually a CAP "mission".

After Katrina it was door-knocker well-being checks, Challenger wreckage searches, flooding - structure evaluation, etc., etc.

These are all missions of other agencies that CAP occasionally, and randomly has helped with through zero design
or planning, which is fine, I suppose, in the Grande Scheme of being a community help, but you could have driven
that forklift w/o a CAP uniform on (the ARC probably would have liked that more, as would have NHQ if they
knew you were driving a forklift in uniform), and that doesn't make it a CAP "mission", or capability.

To be a mission requires canonization at the highest, non-random, doctrinal level, including all the
BS administrivia, rules, and approvals required to garner 1AF support, insurance, and money.

CAP ES is as scatter-shot as it's uniform and other missions, a lot of well-intentioned people wanting to "help",
not managed as a team, or brought into the fold under "one CAP", and in fact, in many cases people
hoping "their" mission or "cool thing" doesn't get too much attention because they know they are on the
hairy edge of being told to "knock it off" when word gets out about how they are "helping".

It was under a mission umbrella, for lack of better terminology. Myself, and a guy from Fresno both knew how to drive forklift. We called Wing, asked if that was a problem. Wing deputy commander gave us the go ahead after asking us about our experience level with it.

We had about a dozen cadets that were there with nothing to do. Posted them at the cross lanes, told them to keep anyone from walking by while we were unloading supply trucks. Got it done fairly expediently, efficiently, and safely.

Wing deputy commander grilled us a bit when we got back to Wing HQ. Apparently, he had advocated that CAP Ground Team members in Cali receive training on forklifts because the Wing had been responding to earthquake aftermath in the past, I think the most recent one prior to Northridge had only been a few years before.

I should probably state that not every single person, or even a large group needs such training, but it should probably be available in those areas that see them stood up where CAP participates in the operation. In Cali, because of quakes, for example, but also in states bordering the Gulf of Mexico because of hurricanes.

I still think hurricanes are worse than quakes. But, both need responders/staff(?) that are familiar with those kind of operations.

FYI.
A FEMA train-the-trainer course was held in 2014 and about a dozen or more CAP members attended and were certified by CAP and FEMA to be able to teach the PODS and the Shelter courses. 


A year prior to the hurricane, two of us (and two FEMA and Red Cross instructors) went to Puerto Rico and taught a LOT of seniors and cadets both courses.  It was interesting having two CAP folk (a wing commander and a prior wing commander) from Utah (i.e. desert area) teach hurricane prep... but it was a fun course and the year after a lot of CAP members assisted in their communities in Puerto Rico with shelters and with points of distribution. 


So...first hand, the courses are being taught and skills are being used by CAP members on real events. It's a real deal. 


And, the courses we taught resulted in FEMA certificates sent to PR Wing attendees.   And, it was a blast hanging out with PR CAP members!  While we were there, one evening the wing had an Army two-star award TWO Spaatz awards (brother and sister).

.... and the year after a lot of CAP members assisted in their communities in Puerto Rico with shelters and with points of distribution. 

As uniformed CAP members on CAP missions ... or do you mean they learned skills so they could go volunteer at other agencies as plain clothes civilian volunteers? Which is a great and wonderful thing either way.

If it was for CAP missions, I'd like to know more about how that was done.

.... and the year after a lot of CAP members assisted in their communities in Puerto Rico with shelters and with points of distribution. 

As uniformed CAP members on CAP missions ... or do you mean they learned skills so they could go volunteer at other agencies as plain clothes civilian volunteers? Which is a great and wonderful thing either way.

If it was for CAP missions, I'd like to know more about how that was done.

https://www.ncwgcap.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=page.display&pageID=438

.... and the year after a lot of CAP members assisted in their communities in Puerto Rico with shelters and with points of distribution. 

As uniformed CAP members on CAP missions ... or do you mean they learned skills so they could go volunteer at other agencies as plain clothes civilian volunteers? Which is a great and wonderful thing either way.

If it was for CAP missions, I'd like to know more about how that was done.

https://www.ncwgcap.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=page.display&pageID=438

Wow, thats great.  Is this being rolled out to other Wings? For all Wings in tornado/hurricane/flood prone areas this would be perfect. Give ground teams new areas of work.

I am hoping that its appearance on the 101 card means national rollout.

I've sent a request up my chain to get the ball rolling.

I suggest everyone interested send a request up the chain too.

A few more "new" qualifications:

--Chaplain Support Specialist (CAP Support Rating)
--Chaplain Support Specialist (Disaster Support Rating)
--Mission Chaplain (CAP Support Rating)
--Mission Chaplain (Disaster Support Rating)

Others:
--DAARTO finally has a SQTR
--DAARTU finally has a SQTR

SEMPER NORDO!

(I really wish some official guidance would start coming down the pipeline!)

*bump*

WRT to CAP & PODS

https://civilairpatrol.smugmug.com/National-HQ/Operations/Hurricane-Florence/North-Carolina-Wing/

(the photography here is *outstanding* by the way)

What is the latest on this training?

After looking at North Carolina's photos on the URL, I looked for the requirement in Ops Qual. So it states that "updating the following entry updates the qualification."

So how can I be qualified? How can I schedule my squadron - and others - to take the Ops Qual class? And how do we get credit for the class in Ops Qual? I checked for SETs in three states - will not mention them - and there were no SETs listed for PODC.

I have FEMA POD certificate - IS 00026, and considering showing the video then asking my members to take the test. Is this all there is at this time?   

Take the test, upload the certificate, and that's pretty much it for POD.

I have taken the test.

To whom do I upload the certificate? To my Wing ES person?

To ops quals, like any other ICS certificate.

Then submit the task in the POD SQTR and it makes its way up the chain. Like any other qualifications.

the NC wing site mentions an actual in-residence class to go with the course.

What does the documentation from NHQ say is the requirements for this SQTR?

Oh, right.

the NC wing site mentions an actual in-residence class to go with the course.

I believe there is a facilitator guide for IS-26 in case an instructor would like to offer an in-person class. 

Edit:  Now that FEMA's website is back from maintenance, here is the facilitator guide for the course:
https://training.fema.gov/emiweb/is/is26/facilitator%20manual_is26_weathers.pdf