The Rural Domestic Preparedness Consortium, RDPC, officially endorses National Safe Schools Week on October 15-21, 2017.
RDPC was presented the National School Safety Award for its commitment to school safety.
In 2015, The Center for Rural Development, the RDPC executive agent, was awarded the National School Safety Award from the School Safety Advocacy Council for its commitment to school and student safety. Every year, RDPC supports rural school districts by training hundreds of school personnel and public safety professionals with two different crisis management courses at no cost to local agencies.
AWR 148 – Crisis Management for School-Based Incidents – Partnering Rural Law Enforcement, First Responders, and Local School Systems is an eight-hour, instructor-led course developed by the Ohio-based University of Findlay, an academic partner for RDPC, specifically for school administrators and emergency responders. This course provides an opportunity for rural law enforcement and school personnel to develop a partnership with regard to school safety through effective collaborative planning, preparedness, communication, and coordination of resources.
MGT 417 – Crisis Management for School-Based Incidents for Key Decision Makers is a 16-hour, instructor-led course developed by the University of Findlay specifically to provide the operational-level details to support many of the topics covered in the AWR 148 training.
Rural schools, law enforcement, other emergency responders, and community stakeholders are often limited in their access to resources, so it is imperative that all potential affected parties collaborate in planning, preparation, communication, response, and recovery in the event of school-based incidents. Affected parties must come together to practice their interoperable skills through drills and exercises to ensure the strategies in place provide for an effective crisis response and collaborative recovery.
RDPC is led by The Center for Rural Development (The Center) in Somerset, KY. The Consortium is comprised of five academic partners with expertise in developing and delivering homeland security curriculum for rural first responders. Current members of the Consortium include: The University of Findlay, Eastern Kentucky University, NorthWest Arkansas Community College, North Carolina Central University, and University of California-Davis. The University of Tennessee serves as an affiliate to the program providing tribal training courses. Each of these institutions possess extensive and unique capabilities relating to rural emergency preparedness training.
All training delivered by RDPC is certified by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and is offered at no cost to a broad scope of stakeholders in qualifying jurisdictions, including the traditional emergency response disciplines, and other emergency support functions as defined by the National Response Framework, as well as critical infrastructure owners and operators.
For more information or to request training – visit www.ruraltraining.org. The RDPC help desk is also available at info@ruraltraining.org or (877) 855-7372.
