CERT Basic Training (September 18-20, 2026)

Do you know what the first steps should be when a disaster occurs? Do you know how to prepare for when emergency services will arrive? If there is a delay in the arrival of emergency services, do you know what to do?

The CERT Basic Training course is designed to teach these skills that will prepare you to be an asset to your neighborhood and community. From starting with yourself and then going into skills to aid your neighborhood and community, the course will help you understand how to take care of those around you until help arrives. And when that help arrives, what can you do to continue to help.

This course is a 2.5 day course. The course is broken up as:

• Friday: ~6p to 9:30p
• Saturday: 9:00a to 5:00p
• Sunday: 9:00a to 5:00p

If we finish training early on any given day, we like to release early.

This course takes a lot of material from different areas of emergency services and prepares you with the skills necessary to get things started. It is an academic and hands-on training. So, participants should come prepared to practice what they are learning. Anyone from the community is eligible to take this training, as long as you are at least 14 years of age.

Upon completing this course, you have the option to go on to further training and being rostered as a volunteer disaster responder with the Marion County EMA as part of the Marion County CERT Program.