There was an interesting and provocative post yesterday by Mark Chubb in the Homeland Security Watch blog, “Volunteer Does Not Equal Free.” Chubb, a senior civil servant in an emergency management agency, writes about a recent meeting in which he heard feedback from local Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) volunteer team leaders. He was struck by some of the frustration and even anger about the lack of support, guidance and gratitude that some of the participants expressed:
As a result of my reporting as well as first person experience here in New York, the need to reexamine the CERT program has been a regular theme of this blog. Though the CERT is good idea and members have made a definite impact in their communities, it is a resource not being used to its potential. Doing so, however, will not be easy. But in this the 25th year since the program was first conceived by the Los Angeles Fire Department it would seem to be an appropriate moment to take a new look at the program.
In his post, Chubb lays out both the possibilities and the challenges of CERT:
…teams have largely been left to organize and administer themselves. Team leaders receive little additional training and no formal mentoring. Anyone who receives training is welcome to play or not play according to their individual willingness to do so. No one is excluded from training due to age, physical ability, prior criminal history, or other limitations or associations. As such, our volunteer corps, although quite diverse, is not necessarily representative of all segments of our community, nor organized to instill confidence in those who do not participate.
From the outset, program managers and volunteers alike have assumed that in the event of a serious emergency, such as a major earthquake, the teams would deploy themselves without need of instructions or assignments from a central command authority. Their training would dictate the priorities and rules of engagement as situations warranted: Assess damage, identify and isolate hazards, organize bystanders and others, render assistance when able, communicate conditions and resource requirements to the nearest fire station, and follow the instructions of emergency responders when they arrive. Until recently, the system managed to get along in spite of itself.
But recently, as the community responded to the H1N1 pandemic by establishing community vaccination clinics, it became evident that things were not working as well as some of us had assumed or perhaps simply hoped.
Chubb says the pushback on the pandemic disclosed other more general concerns from the CERT volunteers:
For starters, people were reluctant to step forward. This sort of mission was not what they had in mind when they signed up for training. Others expressed concern that they would be exposed to the disease and might become ill themselves or transmit the illness to someone in their household who was otherwise vulnerable. And still others found it difficult to accommodate the commitment in already busy schedules crowded with other obligations.
All of these explanations seemed reasonable enough and were little cause for concern. What we did not expect was a backlash from some quarters that suggested we were taking advantage of our volunteers to provide free labor for something that the government had not adequately prepared for and which they considered could hardly be called an emergency. Others complained that they were being asked to come to the aid of others besides their neighbors since most clinics were organized in poor communities with inadequate access to health care and a high number of uninsured residents. And still others questioned whether we knew what we were doing at all since no one had prepared them for such responsibilities much less organized them to respond to such situations beforehand.
Chubb concludes:
…we as a larger community of emergency management and homeland security professionals and policy-makers have assumed for far too long that volunteer means free. This can be taken one or both of two ways: 1) free as in without cost and 2) without responsibility or accountability. As it turns out, neither assumption is correct.
The opportunity cost of ignoring volunteers in exchange for making investments in hardware and software rears its ugly head sooner or later. Eventually, disgruntled if not disorganized volunteers will, as ours did Monday night, remind you that the liveware — the people and relationships that make up a community — are assets to be invested in not just protected or neglected.
I think Chubb’s post helps explain both the promise of and problems with CERT. Government officials have promoted the program to tap the interest of the public to contribute and assist the authorities, particularly in emergencies. And in a number of ways, it has been successful as teams have been set up in communities across the U.S. But, as Chubb’s report helps show, there is a need to better elucidate what is the role of CERT, and what are the resources, training and management necessary to accomplish that. FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate has repeatedly expressed his enthusiasm for the CERT program. As CERT marks its 25th year, it is time for the Agency along with local partners to take a new look at the program for its next quarter century.
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