UNITS
Incident Command
Team Units
At the heart of the OVERT program are the volunteers. For the first time, this program brings together varied members of the community and successfully integrates them with significant numbers of police officers, paramedics, fire fighters, military personnel and health care workers. The Emergency Response Volunteers of OVERT form the foundation of every deployment. Without the strong group volunteers currently serving with OVERT, the organization could not exist.
Once a request for assistance is received, OVERT is capable of responding with a diverse set of resources. These resources being the team’s various units.
The Ontario Volunteer Emergency Response Team (OVERT) Inc. is an entirely new concept in community participation, education and response to Search and Rescue operations, community emergencies and disasters. Our team has expanded upon our original role as a SAR team, taking from this experience to make our organization more capable of assisting our community during major community emergencies.
Incident Command
During an operation our team members have many roles and responsibilities. This all has to be organized and run by our command staff. As with any other emergency agency, proper organization and deployment of resources is critical to an operation.
OVERT operations are conducted in conjunction with standard practices of emergency operations in mind. Therefore our command staff are certified in SAR management, IMS 200 and Basic Emergency Management (Province of Ontario). This allows for better interoperability with the existing emergency services operations and ensures best practices by our organization.
A professional approach to incidents is critical to a successful operation and our teams’ commitment to this is reflected in our approach to managing our operations.
The Incident Management System (IMS) is a standardized approach to emergency management encompassing personnel, facilities, equipment, procedures, and communications operating within a common organizational structure. IMS is predicated on the understanding that in any and every incident, there are certain management functions that must be carried out regardless of the number of persons who are available or involved in the emergency response. (Quote IMS 100 Emergency management Ontario).
