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Rockland’s First Community Emergency Response Team Completes Training

ROCKLAND — Fire Chief and Emergency Management Director Scott Duffey is pleased to announce that Rockland’s first Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) finished its training on Thursday night.

Rockland Fire Department
Chief Scott Duffey
360 Union St.,
Rockland, MA 02370

For Immediate Release

Monday, May 6, 2019

Contact: Benjamin Paulin
Phone: 781-428-3299
Email: ben@jgpr.net

Rockland’s First Community Emergency Response Team Completes Training

Members of Rockland’s first Community Emergency Response Team completed their training last week. Back row, from left: Chief Scott Duffey, Rich Pattison, Jake King, John Molineaux, Arthur Pelland. Middle row, from left: Barbara Papile, Daniel Crockett, Nancy Crowley, Christine Stuart, Leanne McGuiness, Dianne Molineaux, Debra Shettlesworth, Donna Shortall. Front row, from left: Charlie Amico with his service dog Harry, William Stuart, Margaret Fortuin, Michael Fortuin, Christine McGuiness. (Courtesy Photo Rockland Emergency Management Department)

ROCKLAND — Fire Chief and Emergency Management Director Scott Duffey is pleased to announce that Rockland’s first Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) finished its training on Thursday night.

The town began putting together a brand-new CERT program this February to train community volunteers to assist and support the Rockland Police and Fire departments during emergencies or large events.

For the past eight weeks, community members who volunteered to join the CERT have met every Thursday night for a three-hour training session at the Rockland Senior Center.

The team’s training was supervised by the Emergency Management Department and followed the Community Emergency Response Team Basic Training curriculum developed for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) National CERT Program. The team received instruction on disaster preparedness, fire safety, and utility controls, disaster medical operations, light search and rescue, CPR, disaster psychology, terrorism and the Incident Command System.

In the event of a disaster, their training has prepared CERT volunteers to assist others in the community should professional first responders not be immediately available to help.

A graduation ceremony was held on Thursday, May 2 after their last training session, and each of the 23 volunteer members of the team was presented with a certificate of completion for the class.

The lead instructor of the training was retired Hingham Fire Chief Robert Olsson, who is also a Rockland resident. Subject experts also taught training sessions on CPR, search and rescue and disaster psychology.

“I am extremely happy with the wide range of experience Rockland’s first CERT team brings,” Chief Duffey said. “I want to congratulate and thank the group for participating in this important program. Our town is fortunate to have volunteers who stepped up, completed this training and are ready to help in the event of an emergency.”

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