More than 300 Citizen Corps volunteers attended a full day training this past weekend to learn how to help their communities become safer and better prepared to respond to disasters and emergencies.

King County Citizen Corps Council and Washington Citizen Corps partnered to teach classes on 13 topics including First Aid/CPR, Gas and Electrical Safety, Emergency Pet Sheltering, Radiation Awareness and Psychological First Aid.

The day-long training (which was funded through a grant from Homeland Security), provided access to a variety of courses that may not be readily available to the public but are of high interest to local emergency volunteers.

In addition, keynote speaker Dave Nichols spoke about his emergency sheltering experience through his recent deployment to Typhoon Yolanda in the Philippines.

Citizen Corps is a partnership between citizen volunteers and local fire departments, police departments and Public Health. Most communities in King County offer Citizen Corps Partner Programs, including Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT), Neighborhood Watch and Volunteers in Police Service .

-from a press release