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SAR NEW INITIATIVES FUND

SAR New Initiatives Fund supports Ontario volunteer GSAR training

By Terence A. Yahn, OSARVA

Volunteer ground search and rescue groups in Ontario will be busy for the next two years getting better at what they do. A new grant recently approved under the Search and Rescue New Initiatives Fund (SARNIF) program will allow members of the Ontario Search and Rescue Volunteer Association (OSARVA) to enhance their roles as searchers, trainers and community educators in search and rescue (SAR). This all encompassing project will also assist with the acquisition of training and search equipment needed to ensure the safety, efficiency, accuracy and interoperability of member teams.

The project examines and tests best practices for search techniques from ground search and rescue (GSAR) teams in Ontario and other provinces/territories and also from published SAR standards. In addition to sharing the most relevant of this information with volunteer teams, it establishes a series of field training techniques that upgrade volunteer skills (for both team training and active searches), and provide volunteers with the tools to share their knowledge with the public as advocates of community based awareness programs. The program draws talent from across the province by using OSARVA's existing network of qualified SAR trainers to evaluate and develop the training aspect of the program and volunteer team representatives to establish and develop the public awareness programs.

GSAR searchers are activated by the Ontario Provincial Police and municipal police services. These specially trained volunteers bring a variety of skills that assist in finding lost persons. Perfecting these skills is paramount to their confidence and enthusiasm, and encourages volunteers to remain involved with GSAR longer and pass on their skills to new volunteers who are eager to get involved.

Search techniques are complex. The ability to effectively search is affected by many personal factors and outside influences as well as by environmental elements. Searching requires training, confidence, commitment, and concentration. Basic tracking skills, good equipment, leadership, teamwork, proper briefing and direction and much more, are needed to develop someone into an effective searcher. Field exercises and new search patterns must be designed to account for all hindrances to effective searching, and include training awareness of basic cognitive vision errors. The NIF project allows OSARVA to bring together seasoned SAR volunteers and trainers to pull all of these elements together, design a training program to address them, and create field exercises which will further develop volunteer skills. The end results will be a comprehensive training manual and field training exercises that will include a photo gallery of search situations.

In their roles as trainers – whether it be for the improvement of their own teams or perhaps more importantly for the education of the general public in the form of public awareness programs (PAP) within their own communities – GSAR volunteers must look at a collection of programs that will have the most impact upon those they train.

OSARVA wants to establish a unified approach to community based public awareness programming as it relates to SAR for its member teams in the province. Teams will be provided with a template for providing PAP community programs, be assisted with a library of PAP information and links through its website, be guided to best practices used by other Ontario teams, and be provided with brochures and posters with a common Ontario theme for safe PAP practices for use within their communities The program will be created by using SAR team representatives to bring together a variety of ideas that will be incorporated into a working document which will be used to establish the material and information they will then have at their disposal in their role as SAR Advocates. Initiatives such as these will further enhance the teams' profile and effectiveness within their own communities.

There are several components to this NIF project and all are very important to the support and development of GSAR volunteers. OSARVA's appreciation goes out to the members of the NIF Merit Board for recognizing the impact, importance and overall merit of this funding request.

OSARVA is a non profit organization. It operates under a Memorandum of Understanding with the Ontario Provincial Police and acts as the umbrella agency for Ontario volunteer SAR teams. OSARVA provides guidance, certification training, SAR training, identification and record keeping, and is the liaison with the OPP. OSARVA's main focus is to ensure that all volunteer teams are properly trained to do the job that they are being tasked to do – "find the lost person".

Terrence A. Yahn is the vice president of OSARVA, the administrator for the OSARVA NIF project, a certified SAR trainer in the province of Ontario, a master trainer with SARVAC's AdventureSmart program, an area commander and search manager with Lakehead Search and Rescue, and is a dedicated SAR volunteer.

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