Overview 

Credentialing is a standard system—across disciplines and agencies—to authenticate emergency responders and their capabilities during a public safety incident. According to FEMA, the credentialing process "entails the objective evaluation and documentation of an individual's current certification, license or degree; training and experience and competence or proficiency to meet nationally accepted standards, provide particular services and/or functions or perform specific tasks under specific conditions during an incident. For the purpose of NIMS, credentialing is the administrative process for validating personnel qualifications and providing authorization to perform specific functions and to have specific access to an incident involving mutual aid." 

Oklahoma Emergency Responder Qualifications 

The Oklahoma Emergency Responder Qualifications document is the first step in the development of the Oklahoma Emergency Responder Credentialing System. Through these qualifications, Oklahoma responders can build partnerships among federal, state, local and tribal agencies in order to facilitate emergency responder deployment for response, recovery and restoration.  

The Oklahoma Office of Homeland Security has been fortunate to work in partnership with multiple emergency response agencies and officials from all over the state to develop a draft version of the Oklahoma Emergency Responder Qualifications. The Oklahoma Emergency Responder Advisory Group consists of more than 100 members representing law enforcement, fire service, public health, emergency medical service, non-governmental organizations, emergency management, public works, and agriculture. The advisory group first met in October 2011 to discuss the implications of credentialing and the possible impact on the state. Since then, multiple workshops have been held to develop the draft version of the Oklahoma Emergency Responder Qualifications. This document represents hundreds of hours of work from the Oklahoma Office of Homeland Security and members of the Oklahoma Credentialing Advisory Committee. 

This document will be updated on a regular basis as additional qualifications are identified by the Oklahoma Emergency Responder Credentialing Advisory Committee, or when the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) NIMS Resource Typing and Job Titles are updated. OKOHS acknowledges that additional recognized qualifications are continually being created and updated.   

Public Comment Period

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