The NERAC Council has recently formed an Incident Command System (ICS) Working Group to increase opportunities for ICS training and help standardize ICS implementation throughout the region.  The group, which is made up of NERAC Council members from various disciplines, as well as other stakeholders from across the region representing critical response agencies, will be meeting on the 2nd Thursday of each month from 11:00 AM-12:00 PM in the Burlington Town Hall Main Hearing Room.  All interested stakeholders from the region are encouraged to attend.

The three main issues that this group will be working to address are ensuring that municipalities and the specialized response teams that serve the region (tactical law enforcement teams, technical rescue teams, etc.) all have adequate staff trained to the ICS-300 and ICS-400 levels, developing a position specific training program that meets the needs of the region, and determining what type of Incident Management Team (IMT) capabilities are needed in the region and how to develop them.  The goal of addressing these three areas is to increase the number of individuals with advanced ICS skills that are available in order to enhance inter-jurisdictional and interdisciplinary incident management across the region, and ensure that communities engaged in response to a major or long-term event always have access to highly-capable individuals.

NERAC’s longstanding commitment to ICS has been demonstrated by providing backfill and overtime support for departments to send personnel to ICS-300 and ICS-400 classes since 2004, and sponsoring position-specific courses such as Operations Section Chief, Public Information Officer, and numerous others.  To learn more about the Incident Command System and for links to the FEMA Emergency Management Institute’s free online ICS courses, visit the Independent Study page on NERAC’s website here.