One of the greatest challenges for 9-1-1 centers during a disaster is maintaining adequate staffing levels. To address this problem and expand on some individual state initiatives in place, APCO International and NENA have joined hands to develop more widely the Telecommunicator Emergency Response Taskforce (TERT).

TERT involves a comprehensive program that includes assistance to individual states in developing programs that would lead to the establishment of predetermined and selected trained teams of individuals who can be mobilized quickly and deployed to assist communications centers during disasters.

TERT Team Leader is a public safety telecommunications call taker, dispatcher, supervisor or lead who is also knowledgeable in the administrative aspects of a TERT deployment and is capable of managing human resources, work task distribution, liaison and documentation needs of the TERT. The TERT Team Leader is assigned by the TERT State Coordinator.

FEMA courses required:

IS-100 Introduction to the Incident Command System (ICS 100)

IS-144 Telecommunicators Emergency Response Taskforce (TERT) Basic Course

IS-200 ICS for Single Resource and Initial Action Incidents

IS-700 National Incident Management System (NIMS) An Introduction.

IS-800 National Response Framework, an Introduction

IS-1200 TERT Team Leader Course