Archive for the ‘Search Courses’ category

Qualified Search Controllers, Search Managers and Search Trainers

January 24th, 2010

One of the comments made following my piece on getting the search controllers assignment right was that a database of qualified search controllers and managers would be useful to “trainees” [for want of a better word...]

In truth what Johnnie Walker actually said was;

Rob, could you collate and list the qualified Search Controllers within ALSAR, so that people know who to speak to for help? (let’s not discuss whether this is an ALSAR function rather than a Re-search issue; JFDI!) [Read it here ...]

Unfortunately I do not have the time to find e-mail addresses for all the teams and waste time discussing with any of them whether this is a suitable activity, whether this comes under data protection and so on. This is not to say I’m adverse to collating such information – which let’s face it would be extremely useful to so many people and organisations.

So, from today, I will be keeping a database of search controllers, search managers and search trainers/instructors within the UK (or I suppose available in the UK).

If you as an individual wish to be on this database, (or if your team/unit wishes all its qualified members to be on the database), drop me an e-mail with details of your qualifications, courses taken and/or courses you can teach. If you include your contact details (along with which way you prefer to be contacted!) that would be helpful too!

I promise that this information will be kept in the strictest confidence and only released to members of recognised SAR teams/organisations and/or police forces if you agree.

It has been pointed out that my e-mail address is not published on the website anywhere – and I intend it to stay that way! If you do not have my e-mail address, put a comment asking for it and I’ll e-mail you! Anything else?

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SEBEV Basic Search Techniques Course – Powerpoint Slides

November 16th, 2009

Ever wonder where lowland search started in the UK?

The first Basic Search Techniques course was written by Kris Manning, and a couple of others whose names I can’t remember whilst writing this but Kris will, I’m sure, comment on. Kris gave me permission years back for the slides  to be put on the old UKLSI website but they were taken down when the website was edited a while back and cannot now be found online. Well, until today that is!

SEBEV [read Kris Manning] have just published the original basic search techniques course powerpoint slides on their new website. They can be found at;

http://www.sebev.org.uk/resources

For many these slides will be very familiar; many ALSAR Units just adopted these slides [well, changed the background, added their logo and claimed them as their own!] for their basic search techniques courses. In many cases these Units are still using the same slides and have not moved on in the last 8 years.

Those that use UKLSI for training will still recognise much of the content; after all these were the starting point for their courses as UKLSI developed from the old SEBEV training course and team. It is a credit that so much of the original content still remains applicable today.

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Search Management Training Courses

November 16th, 2009

I’m often asked about the variety of Search Management and Search Controller courses that are available; what are they like? what is the difference? etc.

Before I include a couple of links to some Search Management/Controller courses I have found on the Internet I wanted to explain how I see the difference in the wordings.

A Search Controllers Course, is one that teaches the practicalities of managing the initial response to an incident – mapping, reflex tasking, bike wheel model and so on. Whilst it may touch on the science and mathematics that lie behind search, it does not try to teach these.

A Search Managers Course, is one that teaches how to use the mathematics of search theory to optimally allocate search resources. Very few police forces in the UK require the use of these mathematics in the initial or first operational period. After this time however, I would expect someone to take over, who whilst they might not use them fully understands the search theory underpinning the search effort.

The person running your search might have either of these types of qualification, and may in many cases use the terms interchangeable [especially search controllers wanting to be search managers, although many so-called search management courses do not teach the mathematics]. However, I would tend to refer to the Search Management/Control/Coordination TEAM managing a search as I would not expect to see one individual running any search – however small [despite the fact I know it happens]. In my mind they are not running the search efficiently or as well as possible, whatever they think!

UKLSI Search Controllers Course;

Obviously one of the best UK search courses [because I teach on it!]. The UKLSI course is a very practical course, all about running the initial search – getting hands-on with maps, sectoring and allocating resources. Used by many ALSAR and Police forces to teach those practical skills often missing in other courses.

International Rescue Training Centre Wales;

This five day Course teaches the principles of effective management of searching for lost persons. Whilst the emphasis is placed on open country search the principles are applicable to a much wider field of search operations. Considerable success has been achieved in the United Kingdom and Eire in finding missing persons quicker, with fewer resources and in a better state of health.

The MREW Courses use the well-tested Search Actions Outline (SAO), which was developed specifically for MREW by one of the world’s leading authorities in the application of search theory to land search…

Emergency Response UK;

Just like good, down to earth, detective work is sometimes required to solve a difficult crime, good investigation and the application of basic ‘search theory’ principles can make the difference on a difficult search…

I also found this interesting search management course for non-search trained persons,

Green Man, Missing Person Management Course;

It is aimed at anyone who works with young people – outdoor centres, schools, youth clubs, Scouts and Guides, cadets etc.  It equips organisations with key skills in effective management of immediate search techniques, which will crucially speed up finding a missing person. ..

Personally, looking at the course content, I believe this course tries to cover way too much ground and will only give the very barest detail on search techniques and search “management” [a little knowledge is a dangerous thing!] but then I suppose that is what they are hoping to achieve!

Feel free to write your own review of any of the courses, or add links to any others you know about, below:

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Instructor Training for Emergency Response & Search & Rescue

November 13th, 2009

Gary is running an Instructors course based around his book “Emergency Response & Search & Rescue”.

UK – INSTRUCTOR 
We have some Level 3i – Instructor / Leader courses are planned from the book and at the present time all three offered days are popular: Wed 25, Fri 27 and Sat 28 Nov 2009. If you are interested in attending, please get in touch at info@black-badge.co.uk 

This Generalist broad based course qualifies you to teach and manage / lead from the book at level one and is not specific to one SAR discipline or region so would be useful to you if you are a water rescue team or ground SAR or USAR etc.  

The course summary includes;

  • SAR Flow Cycle
  • Incident Management
  • Co-ordination
  • Briefing and de-briefing
  • Advancing from basic theory to practicals
  • Presenting and teaching
  • and lots more…

I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it, but I’d love to hear from anyone who does.

See also my Review of Gary Foo’s Emergency Response & Search & Rescue

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UKLSI Team Leader Training Course

October 6th, 2009

*Equivalent to a Party Leader to MR personnel.

I’m off to the new, updated and re-written UKLSI Team Leader Course this weekend. It is an exciting time really, having spent several months working on the new course it’s time to put it into practice. The Team Leader Course is the second course to get this major revision this year. The Basic Search Technician’s course had this treatment over our Christmas break, and all the instructors were briefed on it at the UKLSI Instructor Development Training sometime in February.

During the re-writing of the courses, however, it did get me thinking about how other ALSAR trainers manage. UKLSI has constantly been updating it’s courses since 2003 and it takes a lot of time and effort. For instance, for this last revision which was quite a large revision I have to admit, but the principle is the same for all revisions; I re-wrote all the slides for the powerpoint sessions in the classroom, I also re-wrote the delegates notes (UKLSI is moving away from giving copies of the slides to a more readable notes book). All UKLSI courses have instructors briefing notes, containing additional information and handouts, the exercises, objectives, key learning points and so on. This was updated. Of course, all ALSAR courses are assessed so an assessment had to be written. Not to mention handouts, maps and exercise planning.

Writing the stuff isn’t the end of it, however.

I could, and probably did, write some rubbish in some (or all) of the documents; so they are shared around the senior instructors who all read, comment and make changes to the material. Once everyone is happy the whole lot are then proofread and “made pretty” ready for testing. So other UKLSI instructors are given the material to read (or in the case of the assessment take) to once again find errors and issues.

Hopefully all the instructors by now have a good feel for the material to be presented, but briefings and training has to be held to ensure that everyone is teaching the “correct” new material.

Only then is it all ready to be taught. For me, that is two months pretty intensive work – alongside probably the same amount of time for two or three of UKLSI‘s other senior instructors and several weeks for the other instructors.

UKLSI has, undoubtedly, some of the best lowland search instructors in the country. They have spent countless hours with their own countinuing professional development – taking other courses, reading search journals and materials and so on. Not only this they have all had search training development – learning about new search techniques and tactics and how to best teach these. On top of this, the majority of them do teach on at least three or four search training courses a year with delegates from around the country’s ALSAR Units.

Why then, do other ALSAR Unit’s prefer to do their own training?

UKLSI has a search training course that is ahead of every ALSAR Unit’s, its instructors are trained better than anywhere else, and what is more it is available to any ALSAR Unit to use.

Why would you want to continue to teach your own course? Re-do all that work (talk about re-inventing the wheel – its done every time in most Units – if they ever update their courses?), in isolation from other views and the latest research.

Obviously I’m biased – but why more Units do not use, participate and send their instructors to UKLSI I will never understand?

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