Training and Education

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Individuals & Communities

Training and education provide the whole community with knowledge, skills and abilities needed to help people before, during and after disasters.

First Responders and Emergency Managers

FEMA provides world-class training and education for the nation’s first responders and emergency managers and other members of the whole community through a robust enterprise of institutions and partnerships managed by the National Preparedness Directorate’s National Training and Education Division (NTED) and the U.S. Fire Administration (USFA) National Fire Academy.

Search for available courses from three FEMA training organizations—CDP, EMI and NTED—easily in one location on the National Preparedness Course Catalog.

National Fire Academy

The National Fire Academy (NFA) is the nation's premier provider of leadership skills and advanced technical training for local fire and emergency services.

The NFA employs resident and off-campus classroom, blended and distance learning options, including national distribution systems of accredited state and metropolitan fire training systems and colleges and universities to reach America’s first responders.

All NFA courses receive college credit recommendation through the American Council on Education and continuing education units through the International Association for Continuing Education and Training.

Center for Domestic Preparedness

The Center for Domestic Preparedness (CDP) offers more than 50 training courses at its resident campus in Anniston, Alabama, and through mobile deliveries, focusing on incident management, mass casualty response, and emergency response to a catastrophic natural disaster or terrorist act. The CDP also offers a host of virtual training deliveries.

All CDP courses are accredited by the International Association for Continuing Education and Training for continuing education units, and many are also accredited by national healthcare and law enforcement organizations.

Training provided by the CDP is federally funded at no cost to state, local, tribal, and territorial emergency response professionals or their agencies.

Emergency Management Institute

The Emergency Management Institute (EMI) serves as the national focal point for the development and delivery of emergency management training to enhance the capabilities of federal, state, local, tribal and territorial government officials, volunteer organizations and the public and private sectors to minimize the impact of disasters.

Explore Independent Study Courses or resident and field courses.

The National Domestic Preparedness Consortium (NDPC)

The National Domestic Preparedness Consortium (NDPC) is a partnership of several nationally recognized organizations whose membership is based on the urgent need to address the counter-terrorism preparedness needs of the nation’s emergency first responders within the context of all hazards including chemical, biological, radiological, and explosive Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) hazards.

The Rural Domestic Preparedness Consortium (RDPC)

The Rural Domestic Preparedness Consortium (RDPC) is comprised of academic partners that possess extensive experience and niche capabilities in developing and delivering homeland security curriculum to the nation’s rural emergency responders.

The Center for Homeland Defense and Security (CHDS)

The Center for Homeland Defense and Security (CHDS) offers a wide range of programs focused on assisting current and emerging leaders in Homeland Defense and Security to develop the policies, strategies, programs and organizational elements needed to defeat terrorism and prepare for and respond to natural disasters and public safety threats across the United States.

FEMA Higher Education Program

The mission of the Higher Education Program is to engage academia, emergency management professional organizations, and practitioners to work together to foster a culture of continuous learning and innovation through education and research to meet the challenges that confront the nation.

Continuing Training Grants (CTG)

Through the Continuing Training Grants (CTG) program, FEMA provides funding for eligible applicants to support and target training solutions to facilitate an integrated, whole community, risk-informed, capabilities-based approach to preparedness. Recipients of CTG awards develop and deliver training to address urgent and emerging preparedness gaps for the nation.

Individuals and Communities

Communities can become more resilient when people get involved in building capacity and planning for the unexpected. FEMA’s Individual and Community Preparedness Division (ICPD) develops and provides trainings for volunteers and local organizations to support their community during emergencies of all kinds.

Organizations Preparing for Emergency Needs (OPEN)

When community-based organizations (CBOs) such as food pantries, daycares and non-profits are unable to sustain operations during an emergency, people who rely on them are exponentially impacted.

The Organizations Preparing for Emergency Needs (OPEN) training is designed to empower these organizations to better prepare for incidents with ten preparedness actions and guidance on developing disaster response plans.

You Are the Help Until Help Arrives

Life-threatening emergencies can happen fast, and emergency responders aren’t always nearby.

The You Are the Help Until Help Arrives training teaches people how to save a life by taking simple actions immediately.

Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Basic

The CERT Basic Training includes research-validated guidance for CERT programs to teach members what to do before, during, and after the hazards their communities may face.

The course FEMA Independent Study IS-317: Introduction to CERT can be taken online before or during training.

Last updated June 29, 2023

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Science and Technology Directorate
News Room
Preparing First Responders with Critical Tools and Technologies

Preparing First Responders with Critical Tools and Technologies

Release Date: September 20, 2021

Sep 20, 2021

06:49 am

Kathryn Coulter Mitchell

In recent weeks, we have all been reminded of the devastation that can be caused by natural disasters: the active wildfire season has scorched over two million acres on the West Coast and Hurricane Ida resulted in significant infrastructure damage and extended power outages from Louisiana to Connecticut. Both have claimed lives and caused chaos, and the consequences to communities across the country continue to be felt.

September is National Preparedness Month, and it has never been more important to take a proactive approach in ensuring our families and loved ones are ready when they are faced with both natural and manmade disasters. We use the month to raise awareness of the importance of preparing for disasters and emergencies, and the 2021 theme is “Prepare to Protect. Preparing for disasters is protecting everyone you love.” Everyone must do their part, including the Science and Technology Directorate (S&T)—we work around the clock to ensure those on the front lines are equipped with the resources they need to safeguard our communities.

Recent events such as the Champlain Towers South collapse and Hurricane Ida highlight some of the challenges in preparing for both no-notice and forecasted events. When the 12-story condominium in the Miami suburb of Surfside, Florida, partially collapsed in June, it created a very challenging urban search and rescue (US&R) scenario. First responders had to conduct physical search and rescue operations in the collapsed structure while providing emergency medical care for victims, all while contending with some severe weather.

Little more than a month later, Hurricane Ida struck in the Gulf and then made its way up the East Coast, bringing with it many of the human and infrastructure consequences common with hurricanes. Ultimately, 33 FEMA and state US&R teams responded to assist with the response mission.

So, how do these two response efforts illustrate how S&T prepares the teams to be ready at a moment’s notice? Both events highlight that tools S&T developed, including ones to improve flood preparedness and response, can easily apply to all hazards and can be scaled to meet the needs of local, state, and federal stakeholders on a single platform. One such technology helping first responders gain an advantage in complex disaster response operations is the Search and Rescue Field Data Collection and Situational Awareness Platform developed by the National Alliance for Public Safety GIS (NAPSG) Foundation and funded by S&T.

Through our Community & Infrastructure Resilience Program (C&IR), we partnered with the NAPSG Foundation and FEMA over a three-year period to develop tools and standards to increase first responder resource management preparedness and improve efficiencies in responding to a variety of disaster events. As a result, the Search and Rescue Field Data Collection and Situational Awareness Platform was deployed during the Champlain Towers South collapse and Hurricane Ida, where FEMA and the NAPSG Foundation were able to utilize GIS technology to help the responding US&R teams effectively plan and track search progression, provide a mechanism to follow up on critical issues, and inform executive leadership about incident status in near real time. The tool had previously been used in the aftermath of devastating tornadoes in South Carolina and throughout the 2020 hurricane season.

Both recent events required a scalable and easy-to-use system to capture thousands of authoritative data points by various teams. The platform combines standardized applications and language, training materials, and a host of resources to aid in the adoption of the tools. It allowed US&R teams on-scene to collect and share data across the common operating platform and rapidly identify and employ the right people and resources at the optimal point of impact.

This coordination has also spurred conversations around US&R resource inventorying, as well as the creation of a National Search and Rescue Geospatial Coordination group.

S&T is committed to its support for first responders and continues to ensure our nation’s disaster resilience. Contact CIR_STMCS@hq.dhs.gov for more about S&T’s Community & Infrastructure Resilience Program and partnership with the NAPSG Foundation.