Allen-Vanguard has recently completed 240 awareness sessions for Australian Customs Service officers on the subject of Chemical Warfare Agents (CWA).
The awareness sessions were developed specifically for the Australian Customs Service, the trainers report, to inform every operational officer on what CWAs are, what indicators to look for and how best to react if discovered during customs border protection duties, whereupon emergency response authorities were called.
Over a six-week period, some 3,000 operational staff attended 240 awareness sessions in 28 locations around Australia.
What they say
Australian Customs National Manager for Research and Development, Tonie Smith, said: “This awareness training was an initiative by Australian Customs to help strengthen Australia’s border protection. The training had to be completed within a very short space of time with minimal disruption to the officers’ normal duties. This was achieved through close co-ordination of key Customs staff and the Allen-Vanguard team.”
Managing Director of Allen-Vanguard, Roy Peers-Smith said: “Allen-Vanguard has an unrivalled reputation for practical first responder training. This is the first time we have been contracted to design and deliver information sessions on this scale. To meet this particular challenge, we assembled a large instructor team to conduct the awareness sessions throughout the country. This team – led by our own CBRN expert Warwick Penrose – was made up of some of Australia’s most knowledgeable First Responders who had already completed Allen-Vanguard’s Live Agent Training (LAT) courses. The outcome of this is that the majority of Australian Customs staff are now aware of the threat of chemical warfare agents and how to deal with them. Customs staff who were unable to attend the training in person will receive the information via an audio-visual package on CD which formed part of the contract.”
