September, 2010 edition #12

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CIMS in the quake wake

One of the leaders of Canterbury's regional response to the 7.1 earthquake says the implementation of CIMS during the response phases, especially in the early days following the disastrous shake, showed the system needs continual improvement.

Jon Mitchell, Regional Emergency Management Office Manager, was a Duty CDEM Group Controller at the Regional Emergency Coordination Centre (ECC) during the response.

In his "day job" Mitch has recently been working with SARINZ on CIMS training and its compatibility with the higher level Emergency Response Co-Ordination training that Canterbury's Emergency Management Training Centre (EMTC) has been developing and delivering. Mitch is also the Local Government New Zealand representative on the National CIMS Steering Committee, so we felt he was the right person to ask about how well CIMS functioned on this occasion.

"It demonstrated that although the fundamentals of coordination were well and truly present and contributed to the success of the response, some more work is required to ensure that cross-agency coordination under the 'control' of local and regional CDEM Controllers is properly achieved."

He says the more focused CIMS training and procedures for Emergency Operations Centres (EOCs) arising from the lessons learned after the big snow in 2006 meant that people and agencies slotted in well together -- at regional and local levels in particular. This included teams arriving from local authorities and support agencies from across the entire country.

"However organisations that have not been as involved in EOC/ECC-focused training, particularly at the management level, did not integrate quite as well as they might. The integration of NZ Police, Health agencies, NZDF and Red Cross into local and regional CDEM response coordination structures and training are examples that partner agencies should follow to make future responses even more effective."

Also working against proper vertical co-ordination was the fact there were three separate declarations of emergency -- by Christchurch City, Selwyn and Waimakariri - leading some personnel within those authorities to incorrectly believe that they did not need to work within regional co-ordination. That meant initial requests for resources frequently went directly from the local to the national level, or to local authorities elsewhere in the country, when they should been routed through the regional level ECC. Such requests were typically turned back from the national to the regional level.

In the latest edition of Impact, the quarterly magazine for the civil defence emergency management sector, Mitch called for more training emphasis on the need for proven and legislatively mandated co-ordination:

"Although nobody suffered and only a few egos (were) bruised, there is clearly a need to ensure that more coordinated approaches, using the mandated local-regional-national chain of coordination, are fully embedded in the immediate future."

After three or four days following the earthquake, he says the need for such co-ordination became more apparent to more people, "... although there's still not entire acceptance of the need for regional coordination." His Impact article concluded:

"The influence of local political agendas, inter- agency disconnects, and the ill-ease within many territorial authorities with the regional model introduced by the CDEM Act itself cannot be underestimated."

So, does CIMS work?

"It does if it's modified to suit the context in which it is being applied. There is not one size or shape of CIMS that fits all. Particularly in a complex disaster, which is what we had going on here, there need to be numerous levels of incident response co-ordination mutually supporting one another... there needs to be a clearer picture of what we should be doing together.

"It is absolutely critical that all staff with response coordination responsibilities fully understand their roles, through active involvement in appropriate training for the levels of response they are likely to be involved in."

He says the current CIMS guidelines -- "the blue book" -- focuses mainly on management at the incident level, whereas a new set of guidelines in preparation will, in addition, specify the pragmatic and statutorily required interrelationship of incident management, local response management, regional coordination and national support.

He says the appropriateness of this more comprehensive approach is becoming clearer as the quake recovery phase progresses, where the principles, structures and processes of CIMS should apply as much as they do in response.

Population changes to put pressure on search & rescue

Changes to the New Zealand population over the next 20 years will present challenges for the country's SAR infrastructure, according to the report emerging from the recent SARINZ research project.

Larger and aging urban populations will increase the number of close-to-home SAR operations, including searching for people with Alzheimer's or dementia who wander. Aging populations in some provincial regions could also mean fewer volunteers available to join SAR.

The report predicts very high increases in wandering elderly incidents for many areas, particularly, Marlborough (93% increase), Northland (88%), Nelson (80%) and Auckland (104%).

More tourism also poses a challenge with increasing SAR incidents involving activities like tramping. These will occur in some high-adventure regions such as the West Coast who will face declining numbers of volunteers.

The report explores the possibilities of correcting age and gender imbalances in the volunteer sector, and career paths in volunteering.

The research was commissioned by SARINZ, and funded by SARINZ corporate sponsor, New Zealand Oil and Gas.

SARINZ Chief Executive David Shearer said the country needed to know if its SAR capability will cope with population changes over the next 20 years. The research hints that it may not in its present form.

"Future solutions for SAR will have to be different than in the past because of the expected changes in our population, changing demographic characteristics and the influence of technology."

To understand the SAR sector's dynamics, future demands and expectations, and hence its training requirements, research was required into how the size and composition of the New Zealand population will dictate change to its response capabilities over the next 20 years, he said.

"Pivotal to this was getting as clear a picture as possible of what lies ahead. This research is important in that it will help set the scene for the future of New Zealand's SAR operations and response to 2030.

"We owe it to New Zealanders of current and future generations to use this information to structure the country's SAR capability appropriately for future demands upon it."

Editorial

David Shearer - CEO SARINZ

A major focus for SARINZ this year has been developing our strategic plan.

It's taken a while. The process is now in its advanced stages, with drafts circulating back and forth, and key discussions due to take place with our partners LandSAR and Tai Poutini.

Formulating a plan for SAR training in New Zealand is not as straightforward as it may be for other organisations, primarily because the training environment in this country is very fluid, particularly from the perspective of funding. Whereas a decade ago, the main driver of funding was the numbers of people who underwent training, emphasis has now shifted from the quantitative to the qualitative. What drives funding today are the qualifications that trainees achieve.

With our educationalist hats on, we applaud that principle. There is, after all, little point in providing training if there is nothing to show for it at the end. Trouble is, measuring success by the quantity of qualifications generated is only part of what SARINZ does and is part of the puzzle that is SAR training.

SARINZ is all about improving operational performance. I emphasise those words because a paper qualification is only part of the picture to being recognised as operationally competent.

So the challenge for SARINZ is how to structure future training programmes and strategies that are sufficiently compliant with outcome-based funding regimes while not denying access to training to those who simply want to improve their chances of finding the lost person.

This is the main reason that formulating SARINZ's strategic plan is more than a five-minute job!

David Shearer

PS: As we were about to go to print, TPP announced that in 2011 fees will be applied to its courses. The sector has been fortunate that TPP have resisted this move for eight years, however its arrival requires us to collectively examine the value we place on training.

SARINZ's long standing position is that people who volunteer their services/time to help others should not have to pay for training. In light of TPP's letter this position is now being tested. We are committed to improving operational performance of SAR practitioners. As such we are working closely with the sector and TPP to examine the options and ensure the internationally revered, nationally consistent and high quality training NZ SAR practitioners now enjoy will not be adversely affected to save money. It is a challenge, but one a united sector can overcome.

-- Dave Shearer

2010 Training Numbers recover

he training year to date reflects our budget.

Despite some postponements late last year that resulted in lower than anticipated numbers for the first quarter, trainee numbers have recovered nicely to the extent that 2010 can now be described as being on a par with last year. These results exclude 80 students yet to be processed due to incomplete documentation. While cancellations are down from 24 last year, they continue to cause frustration.

With more than 400 trainees expected to attend courses to the end of December, we expect another record breaking year.

Rule of thumb: Confirm and attend

A lot of people -- not least the lost person -- depend on your attendance. So do the right thing and let us know if you can't make it. Your attendance saves lives -- don't miss the opportunity to enjoy training the SARINZ way.

Grant Prattley moving on

Rescue specialist Grant Prattley is finishing his full-time involvement with SARINZ in October. He is moving on to pursue new outdoor-related personal projects.

Along with Ross Gordon, Grant founded SARINZ in 2002. Through his years with SARINZ Grant has made a huge contribution as manager of the Institute's rescue training programme.

Having spent years instructing, he now wants to get away from behind a desk and back outdoors hanging from ropes. He is planning to set up his own guiding company, and we wish him well.

SARINZ CEO David Shearer says Grant will be missed:

"Grant's unique combination of skills and talents have made him pivotal in the development of SARINZ into what it is today, and we are fortunate that he will continue to have an input through contract work he will undertake for us in the future.

"We wish Grant every success in his future ventures."

Continuation Training for LandSAR all go for 2010/11

SARINZ was granted funding from the Lottery Outdoor Safety Fund in August to provide continuation training to LandSAR volunteers around the country.

The allocation covers the "provision of training and supervision costs for refresher training". It allows SARINZ to deliver a number of training options for 2010/11 to LandSAR volunteers in local and regional areas.

This training aims to refine and improve the operational skills of LandSAR members and emergency response practitioners with an established level of competence.

There is no cost to participants - 2010/11 continuation training is sponsored. In most instances LandSAR will cover volunteer administrative costs such as transport, food and venue.

LandSAR -- specific

LandSAR has clearly identified the need for its practitioners who have established skills and competencies in caving and alpine environments, are responsible for managing and coordinating SAR operations, or who are specialists in tracking and searching for lost parties, to access structured continuation training. It also acknowledges that non-specialist practitioners in its SAR teams require training to increase and enhance their operational performance, and therefore their ability to bring lost parties home faster.

LandSAR approached SARINZ about delivering this training, in particular to:

• Improve competencies to plan and manage SAR incidents
• Develop tracking/search specialists
• Improve group competency based on local/regional needs
• Develop the skills of caving and alpine rope rescue specialists.

This initiative is broken down into a number of distinct projects all with their own objectives, demand and resource allocation, to be delivered throughout New Zealand at times and places agreed by the national body.

Additional training

SARINZ is seeking additional funding for further initiatives aimed at enabling an additional 1285 emergency response personnel to, as SARINZ Training Manager Carl McOnie so wonderfully puts it "... be touched by SARINZ training magic."

Carl says SARINZ recognises the increased specialisation occurring throughout the emergency response sector.

"We are proactive in developing courses/training where this specialist knowledge can be implemented in operational environments.

"SARINZ recognises that ER folk require training that is customised to their workplace and/or environment. Training may include modules from any of our courses or can be developed for their specialist needs."

"As a registered Private Training Establishment (PTE) we can deliver and assess against standards on the National Qualifications Framework (NQF). The point here is if people need or want continuation training let us know -- we are here to help others save lives any way we can."

More Missing stories for TV

Auckland production company Screentime Ltd has produced another eight-episode series of "The Missing".

It started screening on TV One on September 7th.

As with the 2009 series, it deals with historical missing people cases in New Zealand. The focus is to show the progress that has and is being made in finding them.

SARINZ was again contracted to provide technical advice with Development Manager, Ross Gordon, and Programme Manager Search, Tony Wells, filling this role and fronting some episodes. Several other SARINZ personnel also contributed including Julian Tovey, Terry Blumhardt, Roger Bates and Hogi Svensson.

The first episode looked at the high-profile Ron Jorgensen case; other episodes deal with the stories of June Sowerby, John Buxton, the Turner family, Peter Coop, Johnny Issinger, Jamie Herdman and Lionel Russell.

Ross says the whole undertaking is notable for the considerable time, energy, experience and commitment from various Police and LandSAR volunteers.

"They collectively gave up hundreds of days.

"The Tasman Police Region provided considerable input with Sherp Tucker and Tony Wells revisiting the Issinger case -- an elderly man missing from a rest-home.

"Tasman also supported a search for the plane containing the Turner family which went missing in the Southern Alps.

"Turangi SAR made a significant contribution with the June Sowerby case. She went missing on Christmas Eve several years ago and has never been seen since. They also supported the Lionel Russell case.

"These episodes are a powerful and respectful way of demonstrating how normal everyday people can just disappear and the improvements in methods and techniques for finding them."

Refer to SARINZ website news section for media articles relating to the missing series.

Wandering Prevention & Detection Workshop

Around 10% of SAR operations involve searching for someone with dementia. Many other cases are dealt with by rest homes and Police.

All SAR volunteers and professionals know the number of wandering cases is increasing. The statistics show the number of people with dementia is expected to double over the next twenty years. That currently means around 35 extra cases in New Zealand each day -- or 240 a week!

SARINZ's SAR Development Manager Ross Gordon says there are well-proven practical systems for preventing unsafe wandering in the first place.

"We can reduce the stress and expense for all concerned."

These systems will be covered in a six-hour workshop to be held at SARINZ in Christchurch on October 30th. Ross says it is recommended for families and caregivers, rest home personnel, and other professionals and volunteers working in the sector.

The aim is to empower people to:

• reduce the likelihood of wandering from people's homes and rest homes
• use systems to locate wanderers as soon as possible
• interact with emergency services
• understand safe and unsafe wandering
• understand dementia and why wanderers act the way they do

Readers are urged to pass this information on to anyone whom they think may benefit from this workshop. They are invited to visit our website or contact Ross Gordon ross@sarinz.com for more information.

Instructor profile

André Slierendrecht

André is the founder and proprietor of Triple One Care (TOC), a Nelson-based business that partners with SARINZ to provide first aid training.

The first aid courses for emergency responders and others such as adventure tourism operators are just one facet of this business. "It does everything under the first aid umbrella, we are the only first aid business with Maritime New Zealand auditing certification" says André.

André established Triple One Care ten years ago following a 15-year career in Auckland and Nelson as a frontline advanced paramedic with St John Ambulance, including work with the Westpac Trust Rescue Helicopter. Prior to that André, who is of Dutch descent, spent six years working for NATO forces in Germany in ski patrol (he is also a qualified ski instructor) and teaching first aid, white water kayaking and snow survival.

In 1995 the family, on the birth of their second child, sought a lifestyle change and moved to Nelson. There, André set up Triple One Care in 2000.

The company has recently reaffirmed its partnership with SARINZ that will see it being the provider for SARINZ of all its first aid-related training. André says this arrangement grew out of Triple One's work with Tai Poutini: "We developed a relationship with them about three years ago to develop their outdoor first aid training programme with SARINZ."

"One of the new courses we are developing in partnership with SARINZ is an Advanced Wilderness course that will be quite significant as nobody offers anything else like it in New Zealand. It is a high-level course targeting those who take others into the outdoors -- we hope to have suturing in it, and some kind of radio comms very similar to Sea Medic -- targeted at emergency responders right around the country."

"We have a lot of different training programmes but with SARINZ our courses are specifically for emergency response people, and with them we want to develop similar training services with Civil Defence, and the maritime sector with Sea Medic courses."

Triple One Care employs 20 people, many of them part-time tutors but six are full-time.

Visit Triple One Care online at www.tripleonecare.co.nz

Five-Day Tracking Course: A Great Success!

The evaluations summed it up: 10, 10,10,10, 10, 10. It had been a great five days, with the debrief a brilliant chance for participants to contribute ideas for moving forward.

The training was run at Wakarara Camp in southern Hawkes Bay in early August. Fourteen talented and keen Police and LandSAR tracking practitioners from around the country were there for instruction from the SARINZ team of Tony Wells, Ross Gordon and Carl McOnie. Training support was provided by Paul Kelly and Nick Coyne from SARINZ Ltd and LandSAR NTC Ross Browne and FSO's Ian Newman, Iain Watson and Pete Zimmer.

The event was made possible through the SARINZ Trust Outdoor Safety Lotteries Continuation Funds funding the delivery and the Mazda Foundation funding the participant's travel and associated costs. SARINZ Ltd and LandSAR NZ funded their respective support personnel.

The first day concentrated on consolidating core skills such as identifying sign, step-by-step and vehicle site processing. New topics on identifying and tracking mountain bikes and vehicles challenged participants' thinking. Day two concentrated on extending existing tracking and sign-cutting skills by adding environmental evaluation, leap-frog, accordion sign-cutting and the fact that tracking and trailing skills exist on a continuum.

The crux of the course was the final exercise where everyone wanted to get some distance tracking and trailing in. Two pairs of tracklayers, Ian Newman and Paul Kelly, and Iain Watson and Nick Coyne, took off into the Ruahines for thirty hours tramping. A day later the course was split into two teams and they were sent to track them down. The chase was on!

Both teams did a great job using their existing and newly acquired skills and enthusiasm. The tracking teams successfully tracked their subjects to the exit point over millions of square metres of rugged country. It was impressive.

Watching this display of skill and commitment was further confirmation that tracking is a vital SAR resource and there was unanimous support for the continual upgrading of the skills.

The participants made the following recommendations at the debrief and these are presently under consideration by LandSAR:

• An annual five-day workshop
• One training weekend in each island annually
• Providing technical tracking advice to Incident Management teams so trackers are deployed to maximum effect
• Integrated training with search dogs

On site it was a team effort combining skills, enthusiasm and willingness to learn by a dedicated bunch of instructors and participants. The 10 had been earned and deserved by all involved.

CIMS: addressing a disconnect

SARINZ is currently attempting to address an issue with CIMS training in New Zealand that was identified during a situational analysis conducted earlier this year: in that it is not being applied on the ground.

The organisation's SAR Leadership & Management Programme Manager, Pete Corbett, says there has been a clear message from industry that indicates there is a "disconnect" between theory and application of CIMS principles.

"Practitioners are attending training and receiving knowledge in the theory of CIMS but it's not actually being driven down onto the ground where it's required to enhance operational effectiveness.

"The knowledge is not being used operationally as well as it could."

One of the ways this is being addressed in the multi-agency CIMS training that SARINZ has been rolling out this year is to challenge course participants to answer three questions:

1. How does this apply to me as a responder?
2. How does this apply to the organisation or agency I'm affiliated with?
3. How does this apply to the way in which my organisation interrelates or works with others?

"Being able to answer those questions, in the context of where the theory will be applied, goes a long way towards providing the relevance that is essential for adult learners to identify why they need to know this stuff," says Pete.

One of the factors contributing to this apparent disconnect is the difficulty (alluded to in previous issues of Heads Up) that volunteers have in retaining the knowledge when they have little opportunity to apply it until their next callout, which might be many months later.

"So the use of this knowledge is very much on an intermittent basis, and retrieving it in the heat of the moment, particularly in the chaos of initial response, can be difficult. So as a training provider it's incumbent on us to find ways to ensure that students are able to take that knowledge and actually apply it when required to become more operationally effective."

Pete says this may mean adopting a more rules-based approach to emergency response, with students being provided with memory-prompting materials that help them to quickly reacquaint themselves with CIMS procedures in the heat of the moment. When faced with an emergency, people tend to take an intuitive approach which is not always in keeping with CIMS best practice.

No matter how the issue is approached, Pete says it's going to take time.

Another line of attack is revising courses to include more practical application of the theory during the training - and letting the operational needs of industry drive the training rather than the academic requirements of unit standards which have largely been the focus in the past - and if the unit standards fall out of that training then all well and good.

"This is going to be a strong focus for future CIMS, team leader and search management training which includes the recently introduced series of Incident Management Training Exercises (IMTEXs) - a collaborative effort between SARINZ, LandSAR and Police - which are facilitated using CIMS. "It is important that we are also able to walk the talk."

Office Update

Love is like an earthquake-unpredictable, a little scary, but when the hard part is over you realise how lucky you truly are.

The earthquake gave us all a bit of a jolt (literally) and we have all been affected in one way or another. The work has continued though and the second half of the year had been a busy one.

It is exciting times here at SARINZ and we are now on to Stage 2 of our database. From next year all students will be required to enrol online on the SARINZ website. Some courses will also be available via our online campus.

It has been our core focus to make it easier for everyone and this is a big step up from the current system. Once students are enrolled they will be automatically added to the course participants list. Course coordinators will no longer have to supply student details or send in a course participant's list.

The course participants list will be available for the course coordinators to view at any time to monitor who is enrolled. We will be testing this system over the next few months and will have it up and running by January 2011.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact Lynne, Toni or Margie.