Improving ALSAR Training
One of the most heated debates at the last ALSAR conference was about training; but a recent e-mail conversation reminded me of just why training is so controversial.
Everyone wants to run their own training courses. I can understand this – seeing some courses and books I often sit there and think to myself why don’t I run/write one of those. However, from an ALSAR point of view it is a massive waste of time/effort and resources. It doesn’t give the best training nor does it help standardise training across ALSAR.
If, for example, two ALSAR members went over to the States to do a missing person behaviour instructors course, why would anyone else want to spend the money doing this? Why not just go on their missing person course and spend the time/effort/money learning to teach something else useful to ALSAR?
Here’s a vision for ALSAR training [I know it won't happen, but it would be nice to see.]
ALSAR takes over ALL “course” training. Day-to-day training is run by a Unit Training Officer (trained to ALSAR standards in doing this.) ALSAR, itself, of course, doesn’t run any of these courses but sub-contracts these out to Units to run for them.
Financially – no one wants anyone to profit from these courses, nor to lose money, so ALSAR pays the Unit running the course expenses so no one is out of pocket. ALSAR might then charge a set-price for courses; say £20 for a one day course, £50 for a two day course, £65 for a weekend course – or whatever…
ALSAR could also set the standard for the courses; Units must provide adequate training facilities, suitable accommodation, food etc.
ALSAR trains all instructors to a certain level in “training” and then expects evidence of their skill to teach the subject matter.
ALSAR Units/Instructors then “bid” or choose who will run what courses. For instance; there might be two or three regional bases for BST courses (each running the same course but in different, easy to reach locations), UKLSI might become the one provider of search controllers courses. Another Unit/Instructor might run all tracking training (maybe Shadowhawk who provide the UKLSI course), another mountain bike search and so on.
ALSAR keeps all training material, handouts, assessment papers and so on – part of the “contract” is that ALSAR retain copyright of all the material. ALSAR also regularly monitors the courses and has the power to take away its “franchise” if required.
It is made clear that only ALSAR courses are allowed and accepted and any Unit that doesn’t do this is shown clearly the door…
In my mind this would actually increase the number of courses available to ALSAR members – as each training provider at present spends a lot of time running things like BST and TL, as well as developing additional courses. Taking some of these away allows the development of specialist courses.
Some course suggestions
BST – 2/3 providers
Team Leader – 2(?) providers
Search Controller
Search Manager (?)
Missing Person Behaviour
Tracking
First Aid,
Navigation
Water Safety
and on and on…
The important point is that each one would be THE ALSAR course; run by ALSAR for ALSAR.
Let the debate begin…
November 23, 2009
· 
Robert Bradley · 
25 Comments
Tags: ALSAR, ALSAR Conference, ALSAR Instructors, ALSAR Training, BST Course, First Aid Course, Missing Person Behaviour Course, Navigation Course, Search Controllers Course, Search Managers Course, Search Training, Team Leader Course, Tracking Course, Water Safety Course · Posted in: Search Thoughts, Search Training
25 Responses
Ooh, not fair, so much to write but no time until tonight.
At least I’ll have time to gather my thoughts and hope that Jennie or Simon doesnt beat me to it
Let the debate begin indeed….
I think this is a great idea. Other people think the same thing. We need to centralise training so that an ALSAR team in one area will do exactly the same as an ALSAR team from another area. Every team needs to have the most up to date training to give our mispers the best chance of being found fast. If we all train in this same way, our provision will improve, and our ability to work together in multi-unit searches will also improve.
I quite agree that ALSAR does not have the capabilities to run these courses itself, so the idea of “contracting” units, companies or training groups to run them solves this problem, and enables the best courses to be selected.
Before any contracting can occur, ALSAR needs to formulate the courses. At the moment, ALSAR asks that each team attends/runs a course that meets it’s syllabus. This is not sufficient, as people can interpret a syllabus in many different ways, and may emphasise things differently according to own experiences, methods of teaching and understanding of search. for example, the a syllabus may call for team leaders to be taught misper behaviour in order to assess how best to search a sector. Where the course got the misper behaviour information from and how they taught it, and the emphasis and importance they placed on it may all differ from course to course, causeing wide differences between units. An ALSAR course would solve this problem, as the course would be written and instructors would teach what was written in the handbook. An ALSAR course would also have the benefit of being able to keep all SAR training up to date, as only one course would have to be reviewed ie Lowland Search Technician, is taught to 100s of people across the UK, by many different groups and units. Each individual course would need to be updated to keep it in line with current research. Same for Team Leader, etc. Which can be a huge strain on time and resources and may not get done if there’s no one within the unit who has time – completely understandable. If there was only one course, this workload would be phenomenally reduced, and the people who did have the time and ability to do this would be better able to cope.
This concept would allow ALSAR to keep track of what teams are doing, and would enable a much higher skill level and coordinated response to be made to a SAR incident. ALSAR as a whole group of units would appear more professional, and police forces may be more likely to use teams without doubts as to what they can offer, as it will be explicitly stated by ALSAR what every team will have learnt.
I completely agree that ALSAR need to take the lead on this and revoke membership for any team who didn’t take part in the new training. If this proposal was implemeted, the best courses in the country would be taken by ALSAR and made available to all teams. Therefore any team not including itself in this would be demonstrating that they did not want to ensure that their members had the best training, which is dangerous to the whole of ALSAR, and is completely counter productive to the common cause of finding mispers fast.
Some questions:
1. Have the separate organisations what would be used to provide some of the courses e.g. UKLSI and Shadowhawk been approached as to their thoughts on being included in ALSAR courses?
2. Could you clarifiy how it would be presented – would people attend “The ALSAR Lowland Search Tracking Course” or would it be “The ALSAR Search Tracking Course, provided by Shadowhawk”, for example?
3. Who would present this to ALSAR and would it be sensible to aim for presentation at the next committee meeting early next year?
4. Do you want any help in getting this ready to be a proposal?
Lets finish have the debate before we start talking about proposals. I’m on a customer site at the moment and wont be able to post my thoughts until im back at the hotel tonight.
Needless to say I agree with some points and not with others.
Kris
Sorry, Jennie,
Just re-read that and it sounds a little harsh. Sorry, didnt mean to be.
Kris
That’s ok, I suppose I got a little over excited to see someone post stuff I’ve been hearing others talk about for a while. I do get too keen sometimes.
Look forward to seeing your ideas.
I’ts good to disagree – then stuff gets improved as we all think about it more. Disagreement feeds discussion and re-thinks and it’s unhealthy to just say “that’s a good idea” and all go along with it without considering all the angles.
I feel sorry for poor Kris – desperate to add his thoughts but without the time until this evening; the internet and web 2.0 makes us all feel we need to be in contact 24/7 and be able to respond immediately to everything.
In truth, taking some time to really think about things often helps sort it out in our minds better. [I know, between writing this post and now certain ideas become clearer, certain problems more problematic and so on...]
I should clarify something though. These are not, nor were they ever intended to be proposals! They were my [probably drug induced based on the amount of flu medication I have taken] vision of a unified, working ALSAR training arm.
I am, and always have been, a supporter of ALSAR, its work and its aims. With that said, I am, and again always have been, one of its biggest critics. Whilst I have always said I will do everything I can to support and assist ALSAR, this often doesn’t result in anything happening because of the “issues” and “politics” within ALSAR.
In the past I have tried to believe that I could somehow achieve something without getting involved in these; but as I read a while back in a Tom Peter’s book
“Don’t be a JERK! Or rather, Don’t pretend you are “above politics” or “not into power”. No one who accomplishes anything worthy of note is “above politics” or oblivious to the ebb and flow of power”
I can honestly say that I haven’t decided yet whether I have any desire to influence ALSAR at the moment [been there, tried that, wore out the T-shirt and myself trying...] I am happy doing my own thing, writing and presenting my thoughts to those willing to listen, and “throwing the odd hand grenade” when I feel like it to liven up the debate. Whether this has moved ALSAR forward, I don’t know; for some maybe…
I agree with Jennie though when she says its good to disagree. Healthy.
But as to answering her questions; that would assume that I thought this vision should be turned into a proposal!
Sorry Rob, shouldn’t have assumed.
Now you’re just winding me up lolol
Still going to be a couple of hours before I can post properly. Still, plenty of thinking time
Keep taking the medication, we’ll debate later.
I agree with your proposals to a certain extent, and standardising courses and training does have some benefits. Having a common baseline for training, as well as the efficiencies are beneficial.
I do however see that there are some major problems that can occur when training is standardised, although well managed they don’t necessarily have to occur.
Standardised training does level the playing field. It brings those that are struggling in an area up to a common level, but equally it can bring the best down. Imagine a team, world renowned in one specific discipline, but without the resources or skills to teach the discipline. All new recruits into that team would have to undergo the standardised training. In the ideal world it wouldn’t affect the teams skills in there specialist discipline, but I have seen teams being brought down by standardised training almost as often as I have seen teams brought up.
I think that any system of standardisation has to recognise those teams that are outstanding, but who don’t necessarily follow the same path as everyone else. You need to give these teams support on some disciplines, but you need to give them the opportunity to bloom, because just occasionally the way they work, the skills they bring or just the new way of looking at a discipline that they bring changes the entire community for the better.
I so want to comment on this but i’m going to let it stew for a day or so. It raises some good points and some not so good. Discussion is good.
Righty ho,
Fed, watered, and ready to type.
So first off I have to say that I agree with much of what you (Rob and Jennie) have written. ALSAR needs to drive forward standards and content of training, after all it is our national umbrella organisation and it needs to be operating at that level.
However, where I dont agree is ALSAR having sole ownership of courses and course content. ALSAR should set its required standards, which should be more rigorous that the current ones in my opinion, and then it should say which courses are recognised by ALSAR as meeting that standard. It should assess courses and lay down the criteria for continued assessment and then it should ensure it monitors this.
I dont think that ALSAR should have anything to do with owning courses, course content or materials.
I dont have a problem with there being a plethora of training providors in our industry as long as what they are offering meets the requirements and that somebody (in this case ALSAR) has laid out those requirements and listed those organisations that meet them.
I have to say I was a bit taken aback about the comment concerning the 2 ALSAR team members (not members of ALSAR) I wasnt (and am still not) sure how to take that. Perhaps it’s the hand grenade
Are we saying that since 2 people have done an instructors course then nobody else needs to? What about personal development? What about breadth and depth of instructors? What about networking, knowledge and a first hand look at the international picture? What if the two instructors decide not to develop/run a course? What if I, we , ALSAR etc decide that we dont like the format, content, style of their course? What if ALSAR say “we dont like that course and therefore we dont recognise it?” – All of this is unlikely but you get the point.
Rigourous standardisation and monitoring is good, it’s needed and ALSAR needs to step up here as it’s all a bit loose and woolly at the moment, however, overdo it and you will stifle the very creativity that got us all here in the first place.
Of course ALSAR can develop a course of it’s own, but not to the exclusion of all else.
Ian raises an interesting point about baseline standards and ‘dragging teams down’ that I hadn’t thought about before.
Therefore please insert the word ‘minimum’ before any occurence of the word ‘standard’ or ‘requirements’ in my post above.
It wasn’t meant to be a hand grenade (although it obviously was!)
It was actually the inspiration!
It perfectly illustrates the issue of the lack of cohesive planning for training within ALSAR as a whole.
A company planning its future training takes a look at its existing skill base, its future skills needs and plans accordingly. This doesn’t stop people’s self-development, or succession planning, but it does take a good hard look at what is needed by the company as a whole.
The trouble is ALSAR is made up of Units and individuals. What is more, a lot of the training is undertaken at the individuals’ own expense. This means that the training priorities are not the same as ALSAR’s.
This will probably always be the way – working as we do with separate charitable Units and volunteers. Hence my comments that it will never happen!
I cannot see too many problems with different providers “competing” with their own material as Kris as suggested; if, as he says, ALSAR is verifying its content / standards / assessment. Again, can’t see that happening anytime soon either.
Finally, with regard to bringing specialisations down; the benefits of the original vision is that the “best” in each area would be running the courses. Everyone would be learning from the best at each subject – and the best would be driving the standards up. [or maybe I'm just an idealist at heart!]
Right my turn,
As a young team setting up it was hard to find where to get our training from. Having come from a team that trains in-house and pretty much in isolation, I felt this was something we needed to move away from.
We looked to ALSAR for inspiration, which I found left me very confused and frustrated, there is a course syllabus but who teaches it and how do I access it? Once we found out who taught the courses the next question was which is the best course? or rather which will give us as a new team the best training to build on?
As a new team a list of courses and trainers would have been a god send, mainly so I knew I was providing the best reconised training for my unit, so we could start on the right foot.
Having units within an orgainisation running courses based on a set syllabus clearly works but how on earth do you then get the latest research and developments to every team, so they can decided if it’s relevent?
Finally as I said earlier, having come from a team that trains in isolation and in my opinion with it’s eyes shut to the rest of the UK’s ‘SAR world’ I am very keen for training to be across as many units as possible, so we can benifit from (and steal) all of each others good ideas??
I found myself in a similar position to Steve when I inherited HANTSAR. Although the unit had been running its own training courses before then which I was involved in the delivery. I sought guidance from ALSAR on the best practice / way forward to find out that as long as I follow the syllabus, our instructors were approved by the committee and details of which provided to the ALSAR training officer, had someone attend as an assessor from another team we like all other units are free to run our own courses and other units are invited to attend and regularly do. However I’m willing to accept if I’m doing something and I just need someone to play “wife” and tell me what I’m doing wrong. If you’ve met my wife she’s doing it.
Whilst this keeps costs down for units there is no mechanism for getting the latest information unless you were prepared to do the research yourself. But thanks to Rob’s recent openness I think things are definitely heading in the right direction.
First Aid training – just to open another can of worms. I tried to find out which courses were accepted by ALSAR to be met again with vagueness. A number of our members have qualifications for first aid through work or through being involved as Mountain Leaders or DofE / Scouts trainers. But which ones’s are suitable? Plus actually the foundation level can be taught in house by someone who is first aid trained.
We’re all looking to ALSAR as our ‘umbrella organisation’ for answers – which I will remind everyone is not just one person but representatives from all units nationally so actually it’s up to us. When you’re car breaks down you call the RAC…
I thought the training document was reviewed recently but I only have a draft copy of v1.1 (2005)
Wow – what a response?!
So many valid points, some disagreement but I think it is fair to say total agreement that ALSAR training could be much better.
Sorry, not the training itself, but the coordination of the training across ALSAR; the dissemination of information (both new research, techniques and tactics, but also course dates, instructors etc.) the moderation of material and so on.
If we “are” ALSAR [and at this point I'd say if YOU ARE ALSAR, rather than me!] then what can be done?
Whilst it is better for it to come from ALSAR; if we act unilaterally we can start to change ALSAR by everyone seeing what we are doing.
What does need doing?
A list of courses? I could knock one up and keep people informed of dates on here.
A list of instructors? Jim Campbell supposedly has this, but again I could get one together and publish it.
What else?
The ALSAR website does have a diary feature in the members area if that helps.
Talking of which, any idea when I’ll get an account? Pauls approved the request but I’ve not had any login details as yet.
Check your junk mail folder
I gottit last night, thanks Simon.
I think the new research needs to be communicated to all ALSAR teams and at the very least the syllabus needs to be updated to ensure that teams are teaching it. That would be a “quick fix” as opposed to changing the whole structure. Saying quick, I understand that it will probably still take months if it even went through the committee.
Do people think that there is any chance of anything going through the ALSAR committee or is this debate lacking any real chance to change things? I’m not talking about Rob making a proposal, now or in the future, I’m saying that so many of us think that things would be better if they were different, so what, if anything, can we do?
I think a list of courses that meet the minimum standard would be very useful to teams. Especially teams who are setting up.
It would also be good if the minimum standards were looked at with a veiw to potential updating as I don’t know how old the syllabus is, and it should probably be looked at. However, this would again need to be dealt with at the ALSAR committee level, which may be difficult.
Changing the syllabus wont ensure that teams are teaching it, only monitoring will ensure that.
I would encourage teams to send their reps to the ALSAR meetings with a list of things to discuss, that’s how changes get made. “Decisions are made by those who show up” (not my quote but relevant)
It would be useful to see the minutes of the ALSAR meetings also (last meeting minutes on website are from 2005) so that we know whats being talked about/decided and this saves us from reinventing the wheel. After all we could easily be debating that which has already been debated, who knows.
I think a role of ALSAR is to evaluate new research and decide whether it needs including in the minimum syllabus, after all who’s to say that just because it’s ‘new’ that it is good for everyone?
I think that anyone involved in SAR research and development needs to publish their work (a’la Perkins, Roberts, Bradley etc) otherwise how do we learn about new ideas and (possibly) adopt them?
I firmly believe that ALSAR needs to stick to mandating and maintaining the *minimum* syllabus.
Re Training.
Itis good to see that people are now taking an interest in ALSAR training.
Sadly over the recent years training has been a very emotive issue at Committee meetings with much heated debate.
I personnaly would love to see a greater stance taken on this by ALSAR but first we must ask the question, what do people see ALSAR as being.
To my mind, ALSAR is an amalgam of all the teams who must decide what is discussed and what happens. The use of the phrase”the committee” is relevant as it is this group that makes the decisions on behalf of the member teams.
As I said at the conference, my role as chair is merely to represent the views of the committee at various external meetings. I have nor wish to have any “power” or authority. I am in effect a facilitator without even a vote at meetings.
So I feel that the members of teams must ask their representaives what is discussed, how they voted and what they said.
As Kris has said ” Decisions are made by those who show up” so maybe if those on the fringes who comment and don’t show did appear, things would move more quickly.
The sharing of ideas and developments is crucial to what we do and the place to so is I feel at the meetings. So please bring your ideas forward.
Hi Adrian,
Good to see somebody from ALSAR committee on here.
Could I suggest as a ‘quick win’ that the website be updated to show the recent committee meeting minutes please? At least we’d know what was already being talked about and may prevent ALSAR from coming into unfair criticism.
I’ve got plenty of idea’s but unfortunately they will have to wait until tonight, but I’ll definitely be trying to make the next ALSAR meeting as a team rep.
Kris
Great to see a prompt reply. if only all communication was so quick.
Could I just say to all those contributing to remember that ALSAR is each and every member of every team. The passion and will to drive forward has to come from within.
So let us all take on board what has been said, support the development of ALSAR and leave our parochial thoughts for another day.
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