Planning Meeting 1

Met today with Mike Stonesifer and Brenda Rante to discuss some preliminary details of ATLANTIC HOPE. Some specific points discussed:

1. ATLANTIC HOPE in March and SVETLINA in May are both complex events with substantial supporting documentation that both faculty and student-participants should master as much as possible prior to attending.

2. All instructors should ensure that their materials have been cross-checked and updated with the same materials student-participants are reading! At a minimum this means, for example, that instructor powerpoints are coordinated with the "Blue Book" which is a "digest" of mission-critical information. Extra copies of the 2009 Blue Book are available. The Blue Book will be updated for February 2010 so there is some time to improve on its contents as well.

3. All major events and as many minor events as possible will be scripted in Controller-Evaluator Handbooks as prescribed by HSEEP standards. Both ATLANTIC HOPE and SVETLINA are Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program (HSEEP) compliant events as a minimum standard that we can add to but not subtract from. See https://hseep.dhs.gov

4. The role of "wounded" role-players was discussed. It was agreed that they should not only be knowledgeable about their wounds and how they got them - MOI or mechanism of injury - but also how these wounds should be treated. Following their "performance" role-players should be debriefed or given a questionnaire to fill out to provide an additional source of rescuer evaluation. The same protocol can be used for non-medical role-playing, i.e. immediate debrief of role-players following an event.

The next planning meeting will be held early in January when IRSC re-opens following the holiday break.