Proceedings magazine is a communication tool for the Coast Guard's Marine Safety & Security Council. Each quarterly magazine focuses on a specific theme of interest to the marine industry.
Issue link: https://uscgproceedings.epubxp.com/i/284910
46 Proceedings Spring 2014 www.uscg.mil/proceedings offcers and assets will help meet the port security mandate and border patrol requirement? Maybe, if they have worked together long enough to have developed a relationship. However, even then, the confdence is short-lived. Station commanders transfer, and the incoming command cadre does not have the same relationship with the local respond- ers. Also, even though many of them are skilled mariners, local offcers do not possess a credential that is immediately recognizable to attest to their expertise. The NASBLA Boat Operations and Training Program Enter the National Association of State Boating Law Admin- istrators (NASBLA), which has represented the recreational boating program in all 50 states and six territories for more than 50 years. The state's governor appoints each NASBLA member, who then manages vessel numbering and titling, enforces state boating laws and regulations, and provides boating education access to recreational boaters. In 2010, NASBLA embarked on developing training and credentialing for marine law enforcement and emergency rescue personnel in full compliance with the Coast Guard's own training and qualifcation standards. Over the course of the next two years, approximately 1,500 state, county, and local marine patrol offcers were trained under the NASBLA Boat Operations and Training (BOAT) program and quali- fed as "tactical coxswains." NASBLA then entered their training records into a national database, which is acces- sible to every Coast Guard sector in the country. Tactical coxswains received a certifcate and were handed a man- date. NASBLA requires that to maintain that credential, the offcer must exercise those skills with area partners. The assigned area for an entire career, so they are entrenched within their patrol area, community, and have built up social capital with local partners. Federal assets become strained immediately when our mari- time threat level rises or when a manmade or natural disas- ter strikes, and Coast Guard stations do not have the capabil- ity to autonomously sustain a heightened security posture for long. While a local offcer may have his patrol boat tied to the pier of the very station that needs assistance, can the station commander have any assurance that utilizing local BOAT Program Continuing Improvement The National Association of State Boating Law Administra- tors uses two methods to measure program efectiveness and to assess if training to a national standard can really impact what happens on the water: • We review reported student interagency collabora- tion. • We use the Kirkpatrick model of learning assessments to assess student behavioral changes. 1 The Four Levels of Kirkpatrick's Evaluation Model: 1. Reaction: what participants thought and felt about the training. 2. Learning: demonstrated increase in knowledge and/or skills, and change in attitude. 3. Behavior: observed change in job behavior due to training program. Successfully transferring knowl- edge, skills, and/or attitudes from the classroom to the job. 4. Results: the outcome achieved (monetary, perfor- mance-based, etc.) due to training program participa- tion. After review, we are seeing positive behavioral change from not just our students, but also from their reported interagency collaboration in mission, response, and communication. Endnote: 1. The Kirkpatrick Model is the results of studies conducted by Donald L. Kirk- patrick, professor emeritus, University Of Wisconsin. His ideas were frst published in 1959, in a series of articles in the Journal of American Society of Training Directors. The articles were subsequently included in Kirkpatrick's book Evaluating Training Programs, originally published in 1994, Berrett- Koehler Publishers, 3 rd Edition. Available at www.businessballs.com/kirk- patricklearningevaluationmodel.htm, and at the Kirkpatrick website www. kirkpatrickpartners.com. Training and credentialing America's front line of maritime law enforcement offcers has become NASBLA's focus, with over 1,500 tactical operators trained in the last three years. Spring2014_FINAL.indd 46 3/21/14 11:14 AM