Training and briefings

What is our exposure if we send someone unprepared?

Larger than most buyers expect, and there is a decided case that shows it. In 2015 the Oslo District Court found the Norwegian Refugee Council grossly negligent after one of its staff was shot and abducted in Kenya, and awarded him around NOK 4.4 million. What created the liability was what had been left undone before the seizure, not the abduction itself. The employee was freed by an armed operation, the one phase nobody can train for.

The question after an incident is rarely whether it could have been prevented. It is whether the organization did what it had said it would do. Training is one part of that answer, alongside the assessment, the briefing and the record that both happened.

Is there a recognized standard for HEAT?

No, and it is worth knowing that before buying. There is no formally recognized international HEAT standard. No body certifies these courses, no minimum duration is fixed, and no content list is binding.

What exists is sector buyer guidance. The Global Interagency Security Forum publishes material for the humanitarian sector, the ACOS Alliance works on it through the Industry Standard for Safety Training and the International News Safety Institute alongside it in journalism, and individual sending organizations set their own frameworks. Some providers have their courses checked against a general quality mark, which says something about how a course is organized and nothing about what is in it.

Two things follow for you. A HEAT certificate carries the reputation of the provider, not the weight of a standard. And the only question that matters is whether the organization sending you recognizes that course. We settle that beforehand.

Is there a certificate?

Yes, and it is worth looking closely at which one. We document attendance, content, duration and date. That record says what it says, namely that someone completed this content at this depth with us.

Regulated qualifications are a different matter, because there the law or the client dictates who may issue them. In Germany, section 26(2) of the DGUV Vorschrift 1 allows only people trained by an authorized body to serve as workplace first aiders. The same pattern applies to GWO modules for the wind industry and to anything requiring clinical practice on real patients. In those cases we arrange delivery through an approved body and the certificate comes from them.

HEAT has no such authority, because no recognized international standard exists. A HEAT certificate is therefore worth what the provider issuing it is worth. Whether your sending organization will accept it is something we settle beforehand.

How large should a group be?

Course size is the wrong number. What matters is how many participants there are per instructor, and how much of the time each person is doing something rather than watching.

The solid numbers on this come from medical simulation research. Different field, same underlying problem. For procedural skills, groups of two to four are most effective and effectiveness declines above about six. Adult learning guidance adds the rule of thumb that participants should be actively doing something at least seventy percent of the time.

In practice a group of twelve is no problem as long as enough instructors are there and the work happens in small groups. The same group with a single instructor is one where most people watch. We plan on one instructor per three participants as a rule, and a full-format scenario exercise runs with at least four instructors. That floor comes from the roles, because role play, safety cover, exercise control and observation cannot be held by the same person.

For small groups we build the course differently. Fewer large scenarios, and more practical work in short repeated cycles where each person takes a turn several times. The outcome is equivalent, the route to it is not, and which format you get is settled beforehand. Ask a provider for the number of instructors, not the number of seats, for the same reason. Briefings and awareness sessions scale far beyond that, because nobody has to acquire a physical skill.

Do you train in country?

Usually, and it is generally the better option. The scenarios then use the real roads, the real hospital and the real radio net, and people practice with the vehicles and equipment they will actually use. Transfer into daily work is far higher than on a training site in Europe.

Three things get settled first. The legal position, because security training is licensable in some countries, and training props that resemble weapons or uniforms are regulated almost everywhere. We run the course through a training partner licensed in that country. The optics, because a scenario that looks like a real incident from a distance is itself a risk, so local authorities, the site and the neighborhood are informed beforehand. And the situation, because where it makes in-country delivery unsafe the course runs in a neighboring country while the content stays specific, with the same routes, hospitals and contacts in the exercise material.