We're glad you are joining us. This page is meant to walk you through our onboarding process. If you haven't spoken to us yet about joining, please start with the How to Join page and fill out the form there. We look forward to hearing from you.
Per Washington Administrative Code (WAC) 118-04-080, "Registration is a prerequisite for eligibility of emergency workers for benefits and legal protection under chapter 38.52 RCW [Revised Code of Washington]."
The full WA Emergency Worker Program is detailed here.
There are a few ways to get registered as an emergency worker, depending on your situation.
If you are a clinical employee, you generally register through your hospital, clinic, or practice.
For counties King, Pierce, Snohomish, Skagit, and Whatcom, please find the appropriate section below.
If you reside outside of the above counties, please let us know. Each county is different, so we are less streamlined outside of our core service area.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) provides extensive online training. There are many course that we could recommend, but for now, please just focus on the two that you need to get your emergency worker status: ICS 100, 200 and 700.
To begin, you will need to create a FEMA Student ID (SID) in the FEMA Student Identification System.
Click Register for a FEMA SID.
Fill out the form and agree to the Privacy Statement. Click Register.
All of your testing and records of completed courses will be available through your FEMA SID. The courses are open, but taking a test will require a SID.
You can browse the full Emergency Management Institute - National Incident Management System (NIMS) (fema.gov) for training, but here are the ones we care about right now:
IS-100.C – An Introduction to the Incident Command System
Estimated time: ~3 hours
IS-200.C – Basic Incident Command System for Initial Response
Estimated time: ~4 hours
IS-700.B – An Introduction to the National Incident Management System
Estimated time: ~3.5 hours
IS-800.D – National Response Framework, An Introduction
Estimated time: ~3 hours
Note that new members have reported that it makes more sense to start with IS-700.B as it sets up many of the concepts that are used in the other training modules.
After taking a course and passing the test, download and save the certificate. You will need to submit this to the King County PHRC for qualification into the Reserve Corps (volunteers). Hold on to it. There are other course (such as ACES) that require it as well.
In King County, we register with the Public Health Reserve Corps. To do this, you must complete your FEMA Training, Register with WAserv, and Register with the PHRC.
Inside of King County, the PHRC is our credentialing organization. That means that they issue your Emergency Worker ID card and provide insurance for you when we are onsite at the hospitals (during training or an actual deployment).
Go to Joining the PHRC - King County. Please complete their onboarding process first, (including registering with WAserv) and then use their "Apply to be a PHRC volunteer" link at the bottom.
When complete, they will mail you a PHRC Emergency Worker card. Please send us your card number and the expiration date.
You can learn more here: https://sites.google.com/view/dmcc-net/. Region 1 is fairly decentralized. We will connect you with the right person to get credentialed.
Contact Pierce County Emergency Management. You muse have completed ICS 100, 200, 700 and 800 training before applying.
You must also fill out the below forms and send them to the Pierce County Emergency Management Office Assistant along with a scan of your drivers license or state ID for a background check. Contact us and we will provide the appropriate contact to submit them.