What about the Red Cross?

Do you think of the Red Cross only for CPR and First Aid training?

They offer a wide variety of Disaster Related training at no charge. Information can be found at

http://www.redcrossnca.org/Disaster/disaster_services.php3

In the near future, this blog will focus on some of the other disaster related services offered by the Red Cross, a Citizen Corps Council affiliate.

What about free training for your family?

You spent the time going through training yourself, but what about some
training and awareness for your friends/family.

The following FEMA website provides some suggestions:

http://www.fema.gov/about/training/individuals.shtm

Did someone say free disaster life support training?

The American Medical Association (AMA) Center for Public Health Preparedness and Disaster Response(CPHPDR) invites all interested members of the Medical Reserve Corps. to take the newly released electronic Core Disaster Life Support(tm)(eCDLS(tm)) course.

The 4-hour course was developed with funding from the Department of Homeland Security and is offered at no charge.

To access the eCDLS course, visit the following website: http://ama.learn.com/ecdls.

Thank you to Terry Akins for passing on this information.

A Long Way To A Thank You

The question came up this week, is it Citizen Corps or Citizens Corps? In response to that question, the comment was made, "We represent all citizens, not just one".

From the printed material, it becomes clear that the answer is Citizen Corps, just look at http://www.citizencorps.com/

If we look at remarks from President Bush, in a press release from the Office of the Press Secretary, we do see "Remarks by the President on Citizens Corps". Are we saying that someone in the President's office made a mistake? No!

If we look at the definitions (dictionary.com) for citizen, we see "A person...", "A resident...", "A civilian..." and for corps, we see "a group of people...", "a team...".

But does it matter? If we look at Citizen Corps, we are individuals who are a part of a group or team, such as a Neighborhood Watch Team, Community Emergency Response Team (CERT), Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) Team.

People often get bogged down in administrative activities and forget the core values of an organization - an organization based on individual volunteers who make up the Citizen Corps. While this might seem like an off the wall discussion, try having it and see what discussion comes out of it.

In Fairfax County, this was a very successful America's Safe Schools Week. We would like to thank each individual "citizen" - students, teachers, administrators, instructors, volunteers who are part of our "corps" - team and helping keep our schools safe.

Recent Drill Included in VA Emergency Management Update

Fairfax County Students Participate in Many Emergency Response Exercises and Activities

During many of the exercises, students in Fairfax County participate in emergency response exercises, along side of members of the Fairfax County CERT.

The following picture of Fire and Emergency Sciences students was taken during a Virginia Task Force One, International Urban Search and Rescue team exercise in Lorton, Virginia.

See http://www.vatf1.org/ for additional information on Task Force One. More recently, several students from this program also participated in an exercise, which included multiple CERT teams across the National Capital Region.

Fairfax County is proud to offer these and other programs and outreach open to all students in the region.

To those that coordinate the Fire and Emergency Medical Sciences, Law Enforcement Explorers, Boy Scout Emergency Preparedness programs, and other programs and outreach, we thank you.

For additional information, or to have someone speak to you or your organization, on any of our student programs, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Lights Camera Action from Cabinet Secretary Press Conference

The following link includes interviews with the students that were present at the cabinet level briefing earlier this week.

It was distributed by Medill.

http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/washington/news.aspx?id=67437

While Lauren Kovacic, our Citizen Corps Council student representative, was not speaking in the video, we did want to highlight an article about her from last year:

http://www.oaktonoutlook.com/?c=120&a=1116