“All federal, state, local, tribal, private sector and non-governmental personnel with a direct role in emergency management and response or recovery must be NIMS and ICS trained. This includes all emergency services related disciplines such as EMS, hospitals, public health, fire service, law enforcement, public works/utilities, skilled support personnel, and other emergency management response, support and volunteer personnel.” [source]
What does that mean? The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the State of Florida, require response personnel, including volunteers, to have specific courses of NIMS and ICS training.
Minimum Training Requirements
Level 1 SRQARES Member
- To be completed in first 90 days of new membership
- Level 1 members are only deployable as “assistants” to multi-member team deployments or net control stations
- SRQARES Orientation Course (local requirement)
- Requires member to have a FEMA Student ID Number (SID) that can be obtained <here>
- NIMS IS-100 Introduction to Incident Command System, IS-100
- NIMS IS-200 ICS for Single Resources and Initial Action Assessments
- Upload you completion certificates to SERC TRAC database
- Email copy of your completion certificates to admin@srqares.org
- Participation in one weekly ARES net each calendar quarter
- Participation in one exercise or drill each year
Level 2 SRQARES Members
- To be completed in first 180 days of new membership
- Level 2 members are fully deployable locally as needed
- ARRL EC-001 Emergency Communications online course
- NIMS IS-700 National Incident Management System (NIMS) An Introduction
- NIMS IS-800.b National Response Framework, An Introduction
- Upload you completion certificates to SERC TRAC database
- Email copy of your completion certificates to admin@srqares.org
- Participation in one weekly ARES net each calendar quarter
- Participation in one exercise or drill each year
- Be the Net Control Station of a weekly SRQARES net
- Use WinLink to send, receive and reply to email and ICS-213 message forms
Level 3 SRQARES Members
- Required for all team leaders, AECs and the EC
- Find and register for these classes at Florida SERT-TRAC/
- G-300 Intermediate Incident Command System for Expanding Incidents
- G-400 Advanced Incident Command System Command & General Staff: Complex Incidents
Lake County Mutual Aid Deployable:
Additional Training
Members may be interested in taking additional FEMA classes, or CERT training. NIMS/ICS classes can be taken on-line at no cost. Sarasota County also offers some instructor led NIMS/ICS classes locally to members at no cost.