The Homeland Security Institute (HSI), in partnership with Washington EMD and the Training and Exercise Subcommittee of the State Committee for Homeland Security (TESC), is developing statewide standards for homeland security training. HSI’s primary focus is on shared training that crosses all emergency response disciplines. The training standards will be based on Department of Homeland Security guidance.

• Teamwork, or interoperability, is enhanced by standardization, because everyone shares a common understanding of concepts, principles, terminology and protocols.
• Standards allow personnel to receive credit for training recieved through different venues and minimize repetetive training for new hires.
• Standards allow emergency responders to work together safely and help incident managers to deploy responding personnel more effectively and efficiently.

HSI and its partners have begun the work of homeland security training standardization by considering five awareness-level courses (Weapons of Mass Destruction, NIMS/ICS, Operational Security, Mass Decontamination, and Personal Protection Equipment) as a target baseline to be shared by all first responders in Washington State.