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Organization

Created in the wake of 9/11 in 2002 by residents wanting to assist in their communities during emergencies, Arlington CERT is composed of 300+ Arlington community members, and more than 1,000 community members have gone through the training to become Arlington CERT volunteers.

Arlington CERT is sponsored by the Department of Public Safety Communications and Emergency Management (DPSCEM).

Arlington CERT is led by a team of passionate and dedicated CERT volunteers and DPSCEM staff.

Scroll down to meet the team and learn what we do to achieve our mission of building a more prepared and resilient community through preparedness, response, and recovery activities.

Coordinator

The coordinator role is a paid, full-time role, housed within the Department of Public Safety Communications and Emergency Management (DPSCEM).

The role serves as a:

The main representative of Arlington CERT
Liaison between Arlington County staff and Arlington CERT Leadership/volunteers
Administrator of volunteer + student records, file management, budget, reporting, risk management, compliance, and websites

The role provides program oversight to ensure:

Mission alignment to public safety priorities
Volunteer empowerment + ownership of the program
Collaboration and goodwill between public safety and volunteers

Activations Leads

The Activations Team is led by CERT volunteers.

The goal of the team is to ensure that Arlington CERT is ready to respond in the event of a scheduled or unscheduled activation.

Activities:

Emergency communications plans (and practicing them!)
NCERT map development
Proactive development of CERT roles during emergency deployments
Volunteer briefings and guidance ahead of emergency deployments
Development of Task Force and Deputy Task Force Lead cadre
After action reporting

Training Leads

The Training Team is led by CERT volunteers with support from a cadre of County and volunteer instructors.

Goals: Oversees, plans, coordinates, recruits instructors for, and implements CERT training for CERT recruits and volunteers.

Activities:

Basic Training
Basic Training Refreshers
Advanced Training
Radio communications series
And more in the works!

Outreach Leads

The Outreach Team is led by CERT volunteers.

Goal: Increase awareness of Arlington CERT within the community

Activities:

Social media
Flyers
Talking points about CERT
About CERT slide deck
Strategy for tabling at events and fairs to promote CERT
Co-develops outreach plan with CERT coordinator

Volunteers are organized into 9 neighborhood teams (NCERTs) which are led by volunteer leaders.

Each NCERT contains a set of contiguous civic associations as noted below. There is no formal command and control relationship between civic associations and CERTs.

View a map of all the NCERTs.(PDF, 4MB)

CERT teammates within an NCERT boundary have an opportunity to get to know one another, build community, stay connected, practice deploying to their staging areas, and to brainstorm how CERT can help their neighborhoods to prepare and respond to emergencies.

NCERT Team Leads (TLs) are CERT volunteers who have chosen to serve as the point of contact for their respective Neighborhood Team. Responsibilities include to coordinate neighborhood teams, including team meetings, trainings, and activations.