Creating targeted training for responders, governments and industry

Training has always been an important component of Sea Alarm’s work, and in the last few years, the organisation has concentrated on assisting wildlife responders, governments and industry with developing their skills and knowledge in a variety of training formats.

Sea Alarm has developed a range of training modules which we use in all kinds of situations where groups of people show an interest in “Sea Alarm’s view on the world” and invite us to deliver a training course. Our training courses have various themes related to oiled wildlife response, including awareness and planning, response management for oil spill response advisers and ICS staff (including Wildlife Branch Directors), as well as field and facility management.

We find it very helpful to include table top exercises in these courses, and our “Fantasia” exercise suite is not only continuously expanding, but always much appreciated. Increasingly we are developing e-learning packages, and using modelling tools to describe and to help people better understand the complex dynamics of facility management.

In collaboration with other parties, we continue to advance and expand on the portfolio of hands-on training packages. A few years ago Sea Alarm helped to develop the POSOW Oiled Wildlife Response course, which includes various modules that can be used for so-called “basic” responders (people that register as convergent volunteers during an incident ). With our EUROWA partners we are currently in the last stage of developing more in-depth training packages for key hands-on positions in an oiled wildlife response (see EUROWA Project at www.eurowa.eu). These training packages include complete courses for:

• Advanced Responders
• Veterinarians
• Experts and Section Heads
• Field and Facility Managers

With these courses, in addition to Sea Alarm’s in-house courses, there is a quite complete overall portfolio available for anyone required to play a role in a wildlife incident response.
Recently, Sea Alarm has run courses for a variety of groups and organisations, including European authorities, for the International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation (ITOPF), the International Oil Pollution Compensation Funds (IOPC Funds), Oil Spill Response Limited (OSRL), national stakeholder groups (e.g. Ireland) and a range of oil companies.

As of 2017, we aim to offer our courses more on a regular basis, so stay tuned to learn more about the schedule of courses we are planning to organise and to which you can sign up.