2010 Rapid Response Team Camp

This year's camp was an incredible success. Once again we were blessed to have the American Red Cross secure funding for the summer camp enabling us to train 40 high school students from around the state.

Arkansas schools are not exempt from the daily potential for crisis, whether the result of the forces of nature or of the accidental or deliberate actions oh humankind. Events of recent years have prompted school officials across Arkansas to think about crisis preparedness, but few school have in place comprehensive crisis plans at this time.

At present crisis plans in Arkansas schools are one-dimensional for the most part and fail to address fully the three essential components of crisis preparedness: prevention, intervention, and response. As well, these plans typically omit any meaningful roles for students beyond those of victims or perpetrators.

Typical school plans identify a chain of command that is comprised of a list of adults who are responsible for some assigned function in the event of a crisis. Beyond such a list, the plans are limited to identification of evacuation routes and procedures and a listing of security rules, regulations, and policies.

In compliance with school plans evacuation routes are posted and practiced in preparation for fires. Staff and students are instructed where to go and how to sit while waiting for a storm. Teachers are instructed to lock their doors to keep out potentially violent intruders allowing into their classrooms only those with appropriate identification. As an added precaution, in a number of Arkansas schools, students are regularly scanned for weapons, their lockers are searched, and they are prohibited from wearing certain kinds of clothing or carrying backpacks.
An adult chain of command, planned evacuation routes, locked doors, scanners, and searches are important components of disaster preparedness in schools today. As important as they are, however, these common components do not adequately prepare a school to respond to a crisis. Leaving so much to chance, they evoke significant questions.

What happens if…?
What happens if the school building is destroyed by a tornado during the middle of the school day? What do the students do when as they uncover their heads and unfold themselves from their crouched positions they find themselves surrounded by debris, live power lines, and injured friends and teachers? What do the students do when their teacher is trpped unconscious under concrete blocks and ceiling beams?

What happens if on a cold, winter morning during a first period exam the math teacher slumps suddenly over her desk and fails to respond when her students call out to her?
What happens if a sudden, deafening round of gunfire explodes in the crowded school cafeteria at the height of lunchtime and bodies lie lifeless where only a moment before hungry students had stood in line contemplating broccoli or salad bar?

What does happen to the students who are left enveloped by the eerie, quiet silence in the instant that follows the wake of savage devastation?
What happens in any number of imaginable or unimaginable scenarios where students, along with their teachers, are faced with struggling through the first awful moments after the onset of suddent, unexpected crisis?

For the most part, Arkansas schools, like schools across the nation, have a plan for where students should be throughout the school day. What Arkansas schools do not have, like schools across the nation, is a plan for what students should do when something catastrophic occurs that disrupts or disables the adult chain of command. Likewise, adults in the school have little idea about what to do in the immediate aftermath of crisis.

Then what is the answer to the question “What happens if?” In the aftermath of crisis maps and drills may not provide useful direction. The locked doors, scanners, and school uniforms may not be useful either. Without a planned focus on student leadership and without prior education for students and staff about what should happen chaos, panic, additional injury, and preventable death are most likely what will happen.

To those of us involved, we believe the Rapid Response Team Project is a significant part of the solution. Our basic philosophy is that if we teach young people emergency management and medical skills in times of crisis they will be able to transform themselves from victims to survivors. It is that sense of empowerment which motivates all of us to continue our association with the project and promotes our belief that these young people will make this world a better place to live.

Relay For Life

May 14 & 15, 2010 will be the Relay for Life in Huntsville. Anyone wishing to participate by putting in a team or assisting with activities will be greatly appreciated. I will be posting more information in the coming months as we develop the plans further.The American Cancer Society Relay For Life is a life-changing event that gives everyone in communities across the globe a chance to celebrate the lives of people who have battled cancer, remember loved ones lost, and fight back against the disease. At Relay, teams of people camp out at a local high school, park, or fairground and take turns walking or running around a track or path. Each team is asked to have a representative on the track at all times during the event. Because cancer never sleeps, Relays are overnight events up to 24 hours in length.Relay began in 1985 when Dr. Gordy Klatt, a colorectal surgeon in Tacoma, Washington, ran and walked around a track for 24 hours to raise money for the American Cancer Society. Since then, Relay has grown from a single man’s passion to fight cancer into the world’s largest movement to end the disease. Each year, more than 3.5 million people in 5,000 communities in the United States, along with additional communities in 20 other countries, gather to take part in this global phenomenon and raise much-needed funds and awareness to save lives from cancer. Thanks to Relay participants, the American Cancer Society continues to save lives.

Rapid Response Team Project

In today's world, the children of our nation are constantly bombarded with negativity and given options of personal destruction in an overwhelming stream of despair and hopelessness. Research has proven time and again that children who are active in school and church activities are much less likely to fall victim to these paths of disaster than those who wander the streets and through life searching for happiness in material and chemical pursuits.
Organizations like the Huntsville Arkansas Rapid Response Team (HARRT) offer young people another path. HARRT's focus on medical training, emergency management, leadership and team-building allow students to develop in a positive manner and to learn the joy of leadership through service.

American Red Cross VAI 2008

Those of us who are committed to the RRT Project recognize that in a perfect world there would be little need for what we do. But, then again, we also recognize this is not a perfect world. The school shootings in Jonesboro, Columbine, and across this nation stand as stark reminders that violence can, and will, stalk our children even into those very institutions where they should be the safest. Natural and man-made disasters occur routinely in this nation and our kids face medical emergencies on a daily basis around this great country. As adults, we can bury our heads and bolster our own courage with prayers and good wishes that our kids are never faced with the horrors that the world all too often inflicts upon others. Or, we can continue to use our best efforts to protect our children while at the same time empowering our kids to fend for themselves when desperate times call for action. When you truly stop to think about it, the only legitimate course of action is to train our children how to respond safely and effectively when disaster strikes.

The goal of the Arkansas Rapid Response Team Project remains to provide our high school and college aged young adults with the best 1st Aid and emergency mitigation techniques possible. And, with the support of other American Red Cross Chapters across this great land, our young people will benefit from this training and when the those terrible times happen, as we know all to well that they will, instead of finding themselves in a hopeless condition without the knowledge of what to do, they will be armed with the life-saving skills to make a difference.

HARRT Members Train for Disaster

Saturday, November 17, 2007, HARRT members conducted a five hour training session that challenged team member's mental and physical skills.


If you'd like to make a donation to help support the efforts of our organization, it would be greatly appreciated.

2007 Rapid Response Team Camp

This summer dozens of students from across the state learned skills that will enable them to help in community emergencies during a week long Red Cross training camp in Little Rock. The camp shows the teens how to respond to school shootings, weather or health emergencies, to name a few. After the camp, students take what they learned back to their schools and train their classmates.
The camp uses returning campers, who are certified American Red Cross instructors, to teach new campers CPR, AED, and 1st aid skills, as well as introducing them to the Incident Command System. The week concludes with all of the campers putting their skills to use in responding to a detailed mock disaster.
This year's mock disaster centered on a high wind incident involving dozens of volunteers from the Little Rock area. Many of the victims were UAMS nursing students or area firefighters who had nothing but praise for the student first responders who rushed to their aid.
Kevin Shinn, state Chairman of the American Red Cross Rapid Response Team Project, says the Rapid Response Camp was created as a result of real life disasters and violence.
"Because of the potential of school violence and natural disasters, which can occur at any time, this program trains young people to be prepared. Unfortunately, this is not just a "What if" type scenario in that recent history is full of examples where it has happened. There was the school in Alabama that was devastated by a tornado and school related violence has certainly touched this state. There was Jonesboro, and another case at our own school where a student with a knife took over a classroom full of children. You never know when it could occur," said Kevin Shinn. “Which is why this program is so vital.”
Kristyn Shinn went through the camp five years ago and was voted the Outstanding Camper. Now she is a member of the American Red Cross Rapid Response Board responsible for planning the camp. She says it changed the direction of her life. "I used to want to be a lawyer; this program showed me what young kids can do. Now I am a pre-med major at the University of the Ozarks. This program has changed a lot of young kid’s lives," said Kristyn Shinn.
Kristopher Hardin of Greenbrier says, "It's taught me to work with anybody and everybody.” The Red Cross calls the training invaluable because emergency personnel are not always immediately available at disasters. “It is wonderful to have the energy of these students,” Camp Director Colleen Joslin says. “They are eager to learn education, not to mention their enthusiasm for helping others is contagious.”
Former first lady Janet Huckabee, who works for the Red Cross and was the first chairman of the Rapid Response Project, says once they complete the camp, they're prepared for anything.
"A lot of times, we teach duck and cover. We practice getting in the halls at schools when there is a tornado, but when it hits, we ask ourselves what do we do now?” said Huckabee. "Keeping victims calm is the first step in saving lives."
This year, AJ Templeton and Rebecca Thurman, both members of Kevin Shinn's team from Huntsville High School, were selected by their peers as the Outstanding Campers for the week.
This is the seventh year the Red Cross Rapid Response Camp has been offered. It's free to students who are recommended by their schools. As you know, Red Cross disaster assistance is made possible with the help of donations.

Log onto: http://www.redcrosslittlerock.org/ if you would like more information.