International Conference on Nuclear Security 2020

Integrated Training – Partnerships in Protection of Radioactive Materials

Not scheduled

15m

Paper CC: Capacity building (e.g. human resource development and sustainability, nuclear security education and job-specific performance training including for newcomer countries)

Speaker

Mr Jimmie Williams (US DOE)

Description

Protecting facilities that house high activity radioactive materials can be a challenge for any organization. The Office of Radiological Security (ORS) seeks to mitigate this challenge by providing physical security equipment and training assistance to sites who volunteer to participate in their program. Over the last ten years, the ORS Alarm Response Training (ART) has conducted over 180 training course for more than 6,400 participants from 48 U.S. states and 19 countries. Our ten years of success is due to the character of the ORS program. That is, never be complacent and always accept the challenge of contributing to improvement and being supportive of the participant's needs. The program seeks to establish mutual, collaborative relationships on multiple levels and across non-traditional partnering organizations.

Establishing this integrated response course as it is today required several iterations before finding the right message. During this time, Alarm Response Training has captured hundreds of lesson learned and best practices while maintaining a continuous improvement process. Listening to the participants and partners and implementing changes where needed, we have helped the participating sites improve their security culture, develop response plans, and establish relationships among the Radiation Safety Officer/Health Physicist, on-site security, and the local law enforcement community. We have assisted teams of stakeholders, each with different personalities and divergent priorities, develop robust integrated plans to respond to a security alarm. Dealing with such a diverse audience of personnel required the message of the training be clear, meaningful, logical, and valuable to the participant.

With the aforementioned in mind, we applied a tutorial-type training program using subject matter experts with the same background as the attendees to convey the partnership and a “what’s in it for me” message. Engagement through a variety of traditional, performance, and sensory-based training has helped us achieve our goals. This method can be applied to facilities around the world in their efforts to better protect their radiological materials. This paper and presentation will discuss the teaching methods of ART, its evolution, and how we are preparing for the next phase of building partnerships through integrated training through new tools such as augmented reality and other sensory engaging methods.