Camp Information

  

1. Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Training – All camp participants (including the adult sponsor) receive the full basic CERT course complete with certification.  The basic CERT program is delivered as one component of camp in an effort to educate youth about disaster preparedness and provide them the skills they need to support local first responders in an emergency situation, if needed.  This training includes lessons on fire safety, basic first aid, search and rescue, incident command system (ICS), and disaster psychology, among others.  In addition to classroom-based lessons, youth are given ample opportunity to practice their skills through hands-on activities, tabletop discussions, and exercises.  The CERT training culminates in a large full-scale exercise in which youth allocate resources, attend to live role playing victims, and interact with real first responders.  The goal of this aspect of camp was to enhance the local community response and recovery capabilities as well as educate other community members on how to prepare for local hazards.
   
2. Community Specific Action Planning – Each group will develop a community action plan aimed at preparing their local community.  This action plan is a project related to school and/or community preparedness that the group and their adult sponsor will implement in their community when they returned home from camp.  During this five day planning process, groups will develop an objective, identify what is needed to achieve that objective, define the steps needed to complete the objective, and create a presentation to summarize the main points of their plan.  The action planning component of camp ultimately facilitates preparedness activities in local communities through our youth.
   
3. Leadership Development– Camp participants also participate in leadership development activities.  These activities are aimed at empowering youth to lead preparedness in their community.  Participants will be given opportunities to present to large groups, speak publically, and lead activities throughout the five days.  Leadership development is an important aspect of camp because it prepares participants to assume a leadership role in their community, which is necessary for them to be successful in responding to a disaster situation as well implementing their community action plan.