Training courses further enhance rescue capabilities of Team Rubicon

When they aren’t battling floods or other disasters Mother Nature throws at us, members of Team Rubicon participate in courses. These courses are designed to further enhance their capabilities as a disaster relief team.

“The courses that we’re offering right now are for us to engage our volunteers in between disaster responses. The courses that we offer to our volunteers have some sort of direct correlation to the core capabilities that we offer,” said Justin Wright, launch manager for Team Rubicon.

The content of the Core Ops training they offered the weekend of July 20 to 22, 2018, fell in line with their speedy home repair. Afterwards, volunteers begin to look at disaster assessment and disaster mapping capabilities within the Team Rubicon organization.

“These courses are going to be the way we funnel people into those specific types of roles when we respond to a disaster,” Wright added.

In the coming months, Team Rubicon will offer a chainsaw course, which would fall in line with their debris management capability and helps volunteers to better understand, know, and use the tools they are given.

“That course will teach them proper safe handling of a chainsaw and as we keep going up the career progression, then we start getting into more complicated stuff after volunteers have an opportunity to get more hours behind a saw and more confident, and then there are opportunities for them to improve and increase their skill sets,” said Wright.

All of the courses offered are offered on a voluntary basis and offered as more of a way for volunteers to gain more opportunities within the team. They may also be refresher courses for some and a brand-new skill set for others.

“We try and create as many opportunities as we possibly can, hopefully,we’ll get as many people as we possibly can out to these events,” said Wright. “We want to keep them engaged in steady engagement, so that’s where we start getting into almost a career progression of sorts within our curriculum.”

Members of Team Rubicon are spread out all over the country, so in an effort to include all members and ensure everyone has access to the courses, Wright said they make the necessary investments to bring in the out-of-town volunteers.

Wright encourages all interested parties to check out their website here to see what skills you may bring to the table for Team Rubicon.