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During its Tuesday, June 13 meeting, the City Council recognized 15 community members for passing the advanced Spanish language community emergency response team academy.
The Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) program educates community members about disaster preparedness for the hazards that may impact their area and trains them in basic disaster response skills, such as fire safety, light search and rescue, team organization, and disaster medical operations.
The Santa Barbara City Fire Department has a robust CERT program which offers courses in both English and Spanish languages. We offer two courses in Spanish and two courses in English yearly and graduate an average of 20 participants per course.
Over the past 10 weeks, the Fire Department conducted a Spanish language CERT Advanced Academy in partnership with Immigrant Hope Santa Barbara, a local faith-based community organization that provides English and Civics classes for adults who want to naturalize or become U.S. citizens. It also provides legal representation to immigrants applying for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
This Spanish Advanced CERT Academy curriculum was taught, translated, and customized by the City of Santa Barbara Fire Bilingual Public Outreach Coordinator.
The curriculum includes both new material and advanced versions of information taught in the basic CERT course. The topics covered during this first all-Spanish CERT Academy include Tools for Leadership Success, Psychological First Aid, Navigating Language and Cultural Barriers in Preparedness and Response, Working with People with Access, and Functional Needs, Animal Response I, Assistance in Evacuation Centers and with spontaneous volunteers. Participants were also required to complete the 24-hour CERT basic curriculum and online FEMA courses ICS 100, 200 and 700.
After completing the 24-hour Basic Cert Class in 2022, a group of 15 community members have met weekly on Thursday evenings to enhance their skills as CERT members and become a team of trained individuals that can assist their organization, Immigrant Hope, and the surrounding community, in disaster response for the City of Santa Barbara.
The following 15 individuals completed the course:
Maria Salgado, Romelia Reyes, Lila Luna Hernandez, Feliciana Moran, Juan Sanchez, Vicky Estrada, Marcelo Silva, Alma Rosa Serrano, Isabel Beveridge, Lizbeth Zamora, Monica Gastelum, Lidia Cordero, Johana Garzon. Isael Castellano and Catalina Moreno.
We are extremely proud to add this cadre of trained community members to our disaster preparedness and response efforts and extend our gratitude to Immigrant Hope for their outstanding commitment to the community. Join us in recognizing this first of its kind accomplishment.
