Building Neighborhood Resilience and Community Readiness Across Salem.
An operational guide for Salem CERT Team Leaders, detailing leadership standards, field protocols, and volunteer administration to support neighborhood disaster resilience.
This guidebook provides suggestions on how to build and lead a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT), drawing from the collective experience of seasoned Team Leaders. This work is adapted and expanded from the original guidebook developed by Portland NET, authored by NET members Laura Hall, Kathy Reese, and Robert Fischer with input from various Portland NET Team Leaders.
A Team Leader is a trained Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) member who coordinates team activities during preparedness, response, and recovery operations. They direct CERT volunteers, prioritize tasks, maintain communication with incident command or emergency management personnel, and help ensure the safety and effectiveness of team operations.
This text is not intended to be an exhaustive checklist of everything a Team Leader should do. We encourage you to focus on the guidance, strategies, and practices that make the most sense for your specific team and community.
CERT Team Leader training is an in-person class presented twice a year in the Spring and Autumn. During that class we will discuss all of the material in this guidebook, but you may feel free to download and review this material at any time.