Community Emergency Response Team (CERT)

The Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Program educated the campus about disaster preparedness for hazards that may impact their work or living area. It also trained members in basic disaster response skills such as fire safety, light search and rescue, team organization and disaster medical operations.

Using classroom training and hands-on exercises, CERT members could assist others on their campus and in their neighborhood in the event of an emergency when professional responders were not immediately available for help. As CERT volunteers, members could also assist with various drills, exercises and preparedness activities on campus.

More information regarding future CERT class dates or details on how to sign up for a future CERT class was posted as it became available.

Program Archive

• CERT Mission Statement

  Mission Statement

  The Community Emergency Response Team is committed to providing leadership and service to the campus community we serve in the event of a disaster or other emergencies. We will strive to provide training and support to our campus community by doing the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

  Goals

  1. To build an on-call, forty member team of certified, on-campus volunteers, with distinguishing uniform items equipped to respond to disasters in the realms of Basic Fire Suppression, Medical Triage, and light Search and Rescue.
  2. CERT will have the complete capacity and ability to raise the EOC under general directive.
  3. To augment the personnel needs of the Cal Poly Maritime Academy Police Department during high population events.
  4. To make cadets more prepared and experienced when emergency response and safety are a concern, thus given a competitive edge for future employment.
  5. To be good stewards of the greater bay area by existing as a resource for neighboring communities to request and draw upon.

  Principles of Leadership Structure

  Decisive Accountability

  The principle of decisive accountability represents CERT leadership's aspiration to strike a balance between being sensitive to the needs of its members. Whilst also having command authority to make command decisions with autonomy.

  This principle manifests itself in the fact that the Commanding Officer position is partially elected, making him/her accountable to CERT members, but also as being an appointed Commanding Officer, has ultimate authority on decisions relating to how CERT is run and its activities during an emergency.

  Specialization

  CERT has multiple realms of responsibilities as they relate to disaster response. In order to ensure that CERT Training is sufficient in all of these realms, there is a CERT Training Officer for every realm of disaster responsibility. This allows for offering specialized classes in Basic Fire Suppression, light Search and Rescue, Medical Aid, and Radio Communications.

  Use goals to obtain resources; do not let resources constrain goals

  This guiding principles allows CERT goals to be lofty and ambitious, whilst also giving focus to these aspirations without allowing outside constraints to distract from the CERT Purpose and Mission Statement.

  Year-End Objectives

  1. To host a CERT event in place of normal stewardship during Orientation Week for the purpose of recruitment. Currently, CERT membership is at 16 members, thus there are 24 positions left to reach our goal.
  2. To complete last year's goal to activate CERT by mass notification. Currently, CERT Leadership has experimented with Mozeo Marketing Solutions, a mass notification software, mostly with success, but the system has some constraints. CERT Leadership will evaluate whether or not these constraints are tolerable or not in comparison to other systems.
  3. To continue to host our yearly CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) class which certifies cadets in Basic Disaster Response. This is useful to Global Studies students who, until the Marine Spatial Planning Certificate becomes available, have no certifications as part of their academic program.
  4. To continue to build on last year's partnership with Concord CERT in regard to mutual aid and training.
  5. To host four separate advanced training sessions for our returning members in the areas of Fire Suppression, Medical Aid, light Search and Rescue, and Radio Communication.

Related Information

• Maritime Academy Emergency Procedures
• Emergency Resources