When you are planning your event, you will need to identify these major players:

1. On-site staff: On-site staff may range from one to all of your staff members. If you are hosting an overnight camp, you will need to have at least one person staying overnight to handle any middle-of-the-night emergencies. While your trainers should be able to handle facilitating activities and moving the agenda along, you will need staff members handling location issues, dealing with logistics, and trouble-shooting any problems.

2. Funders: If your agency does not have the ability to fully fund camp, you might consider one of three options:

   • Community partnerships: Will a local café donate lunch? Will the grocery store provide snacks? Is the civic center willing to waive the fee for the space?
   • Donations: Are there groups or individuals willing to help off-set the cost with cash donations? Is there a local foundation you can ask for assistance?
   • Registration Fee: While this may be a deterrent for some students to be able to participate, it is also the quickest and easiest way to cover the cost of camp.

3. Trainers: Your trainers will make or break camp. They are easily the most important part of your team. Since they are the faces that your participants will see the most during CERT training segments, exercises, and the hands-on activities, it is critical that you identify a team of trainers that is dynamic, excited about emergency preparedness and can easily handle a classroom of students. Your training team should consist of at least three trainers so they can rotate through the sessions and keep the agenda moving. If you can bring in local experts for certain sections of the agenda (fire suppression, basic first aid, etc.) it helps keep the students engaged so that they are not listening to the same voices the entire time.

4. Mentors: These are your student leaders. If you’ve hosted camp before, they can be participants from the past year; if not, they can be identified from among an existing group of youth leaders. This team is responsible for leading the team-building exercises related to action planning. They can also assist with setting up activities and exercises for the trainers.