
What is the time commitment as an employee of VA-1 DMAT?
A federal applicant will spend several hours compiling the necessary information and completing the federal application forms. Part of the federal application process is completion of four incident command system courses each of which may take 30 minutes to an hour to complete. After submission of the federal application, and after successful initial screening, applicants will need to be fingerprinted by a Health and Human Services approved fingerprinting specialist. Depending on travel distance, the fingerprinting process could take from an hour to a full day.
Once federally approved, the time commitment to the team includes attendance at one day-long orientation session, at least two monthly half-day meetings per year, and at least one day-long exercise per year. The exact length of time for each of these meetings and trainings will vary depending on location and travel time.
Team employees must provide a minimum of three-weeks of consecutive availability for potential disaster deployment during each of 4 on-call months each year. During on-call months and when employees have indicated they are available, employees are free to go about their business but must be prepared for immediate recall for disaster deployment within 6 hours of a "warning order".
Certain required NDMS (National Disaster Medical System) team employee training is available on-line and may take 10 or more hours to complete. The on-line training can be completed from any internet-connected computer at a time of each team employee's convenience. Periodic annual online training updates or new courses may be required by NDMS and could take approximately 1 hour each to complete usually by a specified deadline.
A disaster deployment will “federalize” team employees selected for the deployment and place them on the federal hourly payroll for the period from activation through return home. The length for a deployment may be from several days up to two weeks. Very large disasters may include a longer deployment if a member is willing and available.