"Volunteer Training" Discussion

[mycrofft]

Stay on thread, Red Lader, stay on thread....

There is a wealth of stuff on this forum about training. I reiterate: make it fun as well as serious!!

 

[Mountain Res-Q]

Our Team schedule is pretty full with training and community events for a 10 day stretch here.

Last Thur: 1 Hour training on UTMs followed by the 2 hours business meeting.
Friday: Memorial for the first CALFIRE female firefighter to die in teh line of duty (they are dedicating the portion of the highway near where SAR locarted her remains). Followed by set up for the 2nd largest Parade in CA... we count setup and the parade as ICS training, EVOC/Trailering training, Mounted Training, ATV Training, and Canine Training.
Saturday (yesterday): Parade from 0800 to 1430. Again we count it as training considerng the scope of the deal.
Monday (tomarrow): Several hours of ropes practice (especially for the newbies) in anticipation of the upcoming drill.
Tuesday: 2 hour MCI class, 1 hour class on the ambulances new IV pumps, 1 hour socialization with the Ambulance folks, and a 2 hour FACEP Wilderness EMS class.
Wednessday: Californias Fallen Peace Officers Memorial and a special appearence at a "womens group".
Saturday: A full 8-10 hours rope rescue drill. Full deal. Patients placed at the bottom of a gorge. We get paged out early in the am, repspond as we noramally would, and run a full "real" drill. My focus on this deal as MEdical Team Leader is: Making sure triage is preformed by first person over the bank, correct resources are requested (additional gear, helos, etc..), correct assessment and treatemnt is initiated by the rope rescue guys, that the people who go over the embankment have a minimally correct amount of medical gear in their personal packs (gloves, dresssings, etc...) so that they can start to assess/treat before the next folks get down with a full trauma bag), that patients are braught up in the correct order, that med nets are preformed to inform the waiting "ambulance" of what we got, etc... We are also getting evaluated by an independant source; a Battalion Chief/Fire Academy instructor who also happens to be a Chief for one of the FEMA USAR Teams.

Busy week, packed with training and events. Should be fun.

Based on my 4 months as a teamleader, trying to arrange training and classes to get the team as much knowledge and training is possible is to search out every source in the area. The various other (paid) agencies in the county all organize and run their own trainings and classes. See if you can get in on them. If a strong team spirit exists between the Emergency Services Family, then it shouldn't be a problem. In addition to the work I am doin trying to involve us SAR folks with the Ambulance folk's training, we also have training set up with Animal Control on large animal rope rescue techniques, helo training (hot loading, rappelling, etc...), and I am going to try to hook up with the local ER and the Fire/Rescue folks. The more training I can arrange, the better equipped we are to respond and deal with whatever challenges we are presented with... and it is one more rebuttal for the people who look down on volunteers!

 

[Coptrainer]

As a VFD volunteer, I found I wasn't using my EMS skills as much as I'd hoped. So, I went to work with an ambulance company. Now, I work there and do the medical training for the two VFDs I volunteer with. All that keeps me sharp AND helps my fellow VFD members sharp through my training.