SEARCH MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS (SMS) - Overview

Day 1

     Incident Briefing and Pretest
1.  Course Philosophy and Purpose (see example below)  (e)
2.  The Evolution of Search Management
3.  Initial Response Characteristics   (e)
4.  Incident Response Process  (e)
5.  Incident Management Principles   (e)
6.  Search Crucials
7.  Search Resources   (e)
8.  First Notice Actions   (e)
9.  Lost Subject Behavior Profiling  (e)

Day 2

10.  Defining Goals, Objectives, Tasks, and Assignments   (e)
11.  Initial Response Tactics   (e)
12.  Risk Management   (e)
13.  Identifying and Prioritizing Appropriate Actions (see example)   (e)
14.  Defining the Search Area   (see example below)   (e)
15.  Resource Activation   (e)
16.  Demobilization Planning   (e)
17.  Information Management, Briefing, Debriefing
18.  Incident Action Plan, Searcher Preparedness
19.  Incident Commander Responsibilities   (e)
20.  Stakeholders and Critical Allies   (e)
21.  Transfer of Command   (e)
22.  After-Action Tasks 

Day 3  

23.  Course Exercise (e)
24.  POA Consensus
25.  The Planning Meeting Process (one act play of a Planning Meeting using student actors)
26.  Suspension Process
Course Critique 
Final Exam
Administrative Details and Graduation

(e) = Course group exercise.  One student of the group (4-7 in a group) is appointed as the Incident Commander.  This course uses the “crawl, walk run” concept - (explain the concept, show the concept, and have the student perform the concept.

Examples of Units and Course Exercise

UNIT 1. COURSE PHILOSOPHY AND PURPOSE (e)

COURSE OBJECTIVES:
At the completion of this search and rescue training, you will be able to:

1. Appropriately initiate a search incident for a missing person.
2. Apply the Incident Response Process to form effective decisions.
3. Effectively manage a search incident through the initial response phase.
4. Anticipate and manage changes in incident complexity.
5. Establish the foundation for effective management of an expanded response incident.
6. Transition to a relief incident commander or incident command team.

COURSE PHILOSOPHY:
Most searches are resolved in hours rather than days, with the remaining small percentage expanding into multi-day events.

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Unit 13. Identifying & Prioritizing Appropriate Actions (e)

INTRODUCTION
Now that you’ve obtained fundamental information regarding the nature of the incident, have determined urgency, understand the application of resources, and can predict likely subject behavior, the next step is to determine what actions are justified.  This unit explores the steps to take in determining appropriate actions, including scenario analysis, prioritizing alternatives, classifying by mobility and responsiveness.

UNIT OBJECTIVES
At the conclusion of this search and rescue training unit, you will be able to:

1. Demonstrate the ability to identify and prioritize situations that may have caused a subject to become missing.
2. Recognize the value of using scenario analysis to determine resource needs and appropriate search actions.
3. Understand the purpose, and process, for classifying by mobility and responsiveness.

 
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 Example of Scenario exercise worksheet filled out

 

Unit 14. Defining the search area (e)

UNIT OBJECTIVES
At the conclusion of this search and rescue training unit, you will be able to:

1. Utilize travel aids, travel barriers, and passages to define and confine a search area having a high POA (Probability of Area)

UNIT GLOSSARY

Travel aid:
Natural and human-made features facilitating the subject’s direction of
movement.

Travel Barrier:
Natural and human-made features impeding or deflecting the subject’s
direction of movement.

Passages:
Convergence of travel aids and/or barriers.

(There are too many definitions in Unit 14 Glossary to add to the web site example.  Most Units have Unit Glossaries at the beginning of their Unit)

INTRODUCTION
So far we’ve explored critical reporting party information, appropriate responses, determining urgency, and through scenario analysis identifying high priority task and the resources to accomplish these task.

Unit 13 focused on situations where the subject might be injured or otherwise in need of immediate assistance, and perhaps of limited mobility.  This unit focuses on situations where defining and containing the search area is desirable because the subject maybe mobile.

A review of the original theory for determining where to search will be helpful for understanding the procedures recommended in this workbooks.  That theory was introduces in the original Managing the Search Function (MSF) course and was subsequently adopted in successor courses.

Defining the Search area in the search and rescue training SMS course advocates the methodology explained as superior to the MSF, and successor courses, process in that it defines a reasonably sized search area confinement effectively minimizing area expansion. 

(Example of teaching slide - Unit 14)
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EXERCISE 14.1

Read the following case study, and as a team complete the associated assignment.

1. Select one member of the team to be Incident Commander.  The role of this person is to keep the process moving, and to make decisions when the group isn’t reaching consensus.  Organize.  Delegate responsibilities, and share information. Don’t get bogged down (remember Jane may need assistance).
2. Begin developing a missing subject profile using the “Missing Subject Profile Worksheet” in your workbook.
3. Determine the urgency by completing the “Urgency Determination Worksheet”.
4. Identify and prioritize scenarios that might have caused Jan’s loss, and her possible subsequent activities, by completing the “Scenario Worksheet”.  Develop a minimum of 5 scenarios.
5. Consider and prepare for possible contingencies.
6. Develop goal(s), objectives, and tasks for this incident.  Prioritize the strategies, and determine the number and types of resources needed to accomplish these strategies.  Record the information by completing the “IAP Worksheet”.
7. Define the search area and establish confinement following the below steps, and with these assumptions:

1. Jane has now been missing eight (8) hours.
2. The map grids are one (1) squares.
3. Estimate Jane’s rate of travel on roads/trails at ¾ mile per hour.
4. Estimate Jane’s rate of travel cross-country at ¼ mile per hour.

1. Identify and calculate travel distances from the IPP for each travel aid and selected cross-country routes.
2. Delineate the theoretical search area’s boundary by connecting the end points of the plotted distance.
3. Identify passages and select key ones for confinement, preferably within the theoretical search area.
4. Sweep travel routes toward the IPP and establish confinement at the chosen passages.

St. Joseph Course

June 9-11

News

“The planning process works! Once we get people trained under this new system things will run much smoother.”

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