Program Overview

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Instructor Training Program Overview

A major objective of the Blue Card training program is for individual departments or regions to effectively manage the certification and evaluation program themselves, while customizing the system to the local topography, resource levels, and SOPs. Future instructor/certifier's will first enroll in the Blue Card online training portion of the program available at the registration page. When the on-line portion of the program has been successfully completed, the instructor will be eligible to attend the Train the Trainer program.

The Train the Trainer program consists of 5 consecutive, 8 hour days. Much more time is spent reviewing each simulation with the student/instructor in order to cover all of the teaching and evaluation points of the certification process. The TtT participants will also get much more detailed lesson plans and instruction on the 5 basic occupancy/building types, tactical level operations, command team operations and mayday operations.

Instructor candidates must have at least 7 years of fire service experience. The ideal Blue Card instructor would be a Department Training Officer, Response Chief or Ranking Operations Chief (Shift Commander, District Chief, etc.).

After the instructor has successfully completed the entire program, they will be provided with a 1 year license to use a very large instructor's media package. The contents of the Instructors media package is detailed in the pricing section of the overview.

5 Day TtT course schedule:

Day 1

AM - Introductions, Command Function Review
PM - Communications Review, Commercial Sets & Reps

Day 2

AM - Commercial simulations, Strip Mall Sets & Reps
PM - Strip Mall Simulations, Residential Sets & Reps

Day 3

AM - Residential Simulations, Apartment Simulations
PM - Apartment Simulations, Big Box Simulations

Day 4

AM - Mayday Overview Presentation
PM - Mayday Operations, Mayday Simulations

Day 5

AM - Blue Card Overview Presentation, Media Review
PM - Blue Card RMS Overview

The Blue Card TtT program offers FD's with incredible, turn-key resources that will help implement a comprehensive, local command training program at a fraction of the costs it would take a FD to produce the material/program themselves. It will also provide departments with a core group of instructors/evaluators that are now trained and equipped to deliver the Blue Card evaluation, certification, continuing education, and re-certification processes to the members of their own department or region.

Blue Card Instructor Support

What the Instructor Gets:

Quarterly Simulations

All Certified Blue Card Instructors will receive 1 full year of support from the date of their Instructor certification. This includes at least 1 - Multi-position tactical simulation uploaded every quarter. Each of the new simulations added to the Instructors package will fit into the 5 building types and will continue to build on previous Blue Card themes. Each Blue Card simulation also comes with a PowerPoint Sim Review and an Instructors Guide.

Sim Reviews & Instructor Guides

The PowerPoint Sim reviews have been streamlined since the beginning of the Instructors program. Each sim review is now designed to guide the sim review discussion around the Strategic Decision Making model, while stressing the need to perform good communication skills around the 6 standard radio transmission types. The Instructors Guide that is included with each sim gives the Instructor an excellent overview of the simulation goals, the primary positions in the sims, the conditions they will encounter, along with the sim eval sheets and benchmarking already included in the Instructors guide.

Instructor Download Center

All of the programs Instructor material is loaded into, and is ready to be downloaded out of the Instructors Download Center. This is an invaluable resource for the Instructors. It contains all of the Instructor support material, new material is constantly being added, while the older material is updated and re-posted as necessary. The download center can be accessed on any computer with an internet connection. This makes all Blue Card training material available to every Instructor 24/7/365, no matter where you are, you'll have access to the training material.

Additional PowerPoints

Additional PowerPoints authored by the Brunacini's are frequently added to the Instructors download center. This gives Instructors the materials to customize and make similar presentations to the members in your own department who would not otherwise get a chance to see these materials being presented.

Task Manual

Because the most important operational level on a hazard zone is the Task Level, Blue Card will devote a great deal of time and energy in presenting best practice, task level skill evolutions. Knowing the time it takes and the difficulties in carrying out the routine tasks that we perform on regular basis, directly correlates into an IC's effectiveness when assigning units while forecasting fast moving events. Every issue of the Instructors Newsletter and BSHIFTER magazine will detail these standard evolutions with videos; SOP's and company level evaluation sheets.

Instructors Newsletter

Every month, all of the Blue Card Instructors are emailed the monthly Blue Card Instructor's Newsletter. The newsletter will detail all of the new material added to the system, along with any new enhancements or changes made to the training site. The newsletter will also feature the material in Task Manual that focuses on the task level skill sets that solve our hazard zone problems.

Blue Card Instructor Meetings

The Blue Card training staff is 100% committed to sustaining and constantly improving the training and information we produce. The only way to do this is to connect with the Instructors who are actually delivering the program in their departments. The Semi-Annual Blue Card Instructor Meetings gives the Blue Card staff a chance to meet with our Instructors on a consistent basis, listen to their input on how to improve and enhance the program, as well as showcase the improvements and the new training materials that have been added to the system over the previous 6 months. These are great get together's and they are free to all Blue Card instructors.