One of the challenges of any community is how to get volunteer community leadership that have the skill sets to work collaboratively and who understand the community resources and gaps of resources. How can you train an entire community on how to work together during a time of disaster?

Our solution is a version of an already established national model. There are over 300 Project Homeless Connects taking place across America each year. These Projects are one day versions of mass disaster shelters. Communities are bringing together volunteers from business, schools, nonprofits, government agencies, faith communities, and private citizens to offer free servcies to community members who are impacted by homelessness, poverty, or personal crisis. Our version of this  event is set up almost exactly the way Red Cross mass shelters are with: medical, dental, hot meals, veterinary, vision, identification, legal, housing and utility assistance, clothing, food, financial and child servcies, and many other servcies offered for the day and post event. We also have to create a transportation system that spans over three counties to get the guest to the event.

What if the structure of event were converted to the Incident Command System? That is what we are doing this year in Central Oregon. Located in a rural area, our event draws almost three thousand guests who need help. They are assisted by over 650 volunteers. The 150 differenet services are divided up into fifteen service "areas". We have converted the area "team leaders" to ICS positions. Each person who fills a leadership position will learn the basics of the Incidient Command System, Collaboartive Leadership Skills, and community resource referral.  While working together to bring this massive event to pass over 30 community leaders will be required to receive ongoing ICS training including completing task books that identify the skills that need to be mastered for that ICS position. Since we are already working with the hospital, police, and fire departments, using the ICS system will train community leaders in segments of our population that are not familiar with disaster preparedness. They will learn to work collaboratively with commom communication and disaster response systems. By using a large event that takes several months of work, spread out over 150 agencies, we gain real leverage in helping our community gain the same skills we will need when (if) a large or small disaster hits us. Each year new leaders will join this Leadership Training program. Experienced leaders will train the new ones while both are working on a real life incident that so closely mirrors the services and systems you need at a mass shelter.