Medical Reserve Corps units across the nation, along with most of our response partners, are encouraged to achieve 'NIMS Compliance' by asking their members to take two special courses:

- NIMS-700 describes the National Incident Management System.

- ICS-100 is the first level of training for the Incident Command System.

By completing these classes, response agencies throughout the United States are better able to interact during emergencies. Their members can implement the same disaster response concepts while using common terminology. This shared understanding allows multiple agencies to communicate and work together more smoothly.

ICS and NIMS training is available in classroom format -- as in the examples shown below -- as well as through updated courses that are available from the links at the end of this web page.

Joe Guarnera taught ICS-100 and NIMS-700 to UMV MRC members in the classroom.	MRC members were among a large NIMS-700 class offered by the City of Lowell.

FEMA home page for all current Incident Command System online courses:
http://training.fema.gov/IS/NIMS.asp

Welcome to NIMS-700:
http://emilms.fema.gov/IS700a/index.htm

Final exam for NIMS-700a:
http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/IS/examnotice.asp?eid=is700a

Basic ICS-100a course:
http://training.fema.gov/emiweb/is/is100.asp

Final exam for ICS-100:
http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/IS/examnotice.asp?eid=is100a

All members of the UMV MRC are asked to complete these two courses at their earliest convenience. If they take the online classes, they are encouraged to send the link for the course completion certificates to nburns@westfordma.gov, to ensure that the certificates are noted in the database and kept in their files.