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. i AUE COPY dERTIFICATION ON LAST PAGI IR. SMITH, CLERK organizational priorities, the CERT program unfortunately lost its momentum and became dormant in Indian River County. The CERT revitalization program builds on the basic CERT training foundations and then expands the focus of volunteer efforts toward motivating, empowering, and engaging all residents of their own neighborhoods with the education and training they need to better prepare themselves for disasters and emergency situations. At the same time, this revamped program plans to increase participation of Indian River County neighborhoods in the CERT volunteer training program such that Targe neighborhoods, as well as, clusters of small neighborhoods, are encouraged to maintain a cadre of CERT volunteers that can offer additional and immediate assistance before, during, and after a disaster or emergency situations. In addition, with increased emphasis on communications, CERT volunteers will become the eyes and ears of Indian River County's Department of Emergency Services both prior to, and immediately after, a disaster situation so that IRCES can better prioritize its own scarce resources in support of the areas of greatest need. As a supplement to basic CERT training, neighborhood CERT members will have opportunities for more advanced training in communications, first aid, organizing community awareness and education efforts, and managing spontaneous volunteers. Guiding this effort will be a partnership of community leaders from around the county with extensive emergency preparedness and disaster readiness experience. This group may include representatives from Indian River County Department of Emergency Services (IRCES), the Support Alliance for Emergency Resilience (SAFER) of Indian River County, emergency response organizations, local law enforcement officials and first responder organizations, and training and communications experts, all with experience in program management, training development, volunteer coordination, and emergency management. In addition, the group will have access to other key officials and expertise at the local, state, regional, and federal levels with experience in the various aspects of emergency planning.• All this combined will empower CERT members of Indian River County to become Ambassadors of Preparedness to the neighborhoods in which they live, and will move our community closer to the vision of having prepared and resilient Indian River County neighborhoods. Implementation As with any new program, plans for implantation are just as important as the activities they support. The mission statement, strategic imperatives and priorities stated in the overview above begin to speak to the specifics of how the CERT program in Indian River County will be reinvigorated. And the vision statement — Prepared and Resilient Indian River County Neighborhoods — lays out the outcome we are seeking from this program. By recruiting, training and using CERT volunteer members in the role of Ambassadors of Preparedness, we will ultimately infuse each Indian River County neighborhood with the knowledge, training and empowerment they need to be ready for all -likely hazards and emergencies and to be able to recover quickly from disasters. When developing program plans, we will take a whole -community approach to implementation by working closely withcounty residents, community leaders, first responders and. emergency personnel, as well as local stakeholders and resources to create•a preparedness._