Operational competencies describe the skills, knowledge and attributes that is required to undertake a particular task. LandSAR is required to develop competencies for all roles within the land search and rescue environment as part the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the New Zealand Police, but more importantly the development of operational competencies is a critical component of our organisational risk management strategy in that it is one way of ensuring that our people are able to operate safely in whatever terrain or environment they are deployed.
The competencies project intends to provide a framework through which essential competencies, required by the different roles within LandSAR teams, may be developed and then established throughout the organisation. These roles include operational team members, team leaders, IMT members and other specialist or support roles.
The first part of this project was the Team Leader Competencies, which were developed by a national Working Group and then implemented through a Grandfathering scheme nationwide, whereby Team Leaders were certified within each LandSAR Group. These will be due for review later in 2012 – immediately prior to the National LandSAR Conference in November.
As the next step in this process, LandSAR has been working with EMQUAL in the development of Team Member Competencies, both Probationary and Operational – the probationary competencies being the backcountry capabilities and experience expected of any person before they join a LandSAR Group and the operational competencies are those minimum search and rescue specific capabilities that our probationary members need before they can be classified an operational.
To access the DRAFT documents EMQUAL and LandSAR have developed, click on these links. (The documents have been put up in two parts to make the download smaller and faster!)
Probationary Field Team Member Competencies Pt 1
Probationary Field Team Member Competencies Pt 2
Operational Field Team Member Competencies Pt 1
Operational Field Team Member Competencies Pt 2 |