Working with WHO-GOARN and national stakeholders, we've developed a five-phase Rapid Response Team (RRT) training model tailored to the Pacific context. Because outbreak and disaster response routinely draws in defence alongside health, we also offer dedicated desktop scenarios and simulation-based training to strengthen civil-military coordination.
How the model works
Each phase runs up to one week, and produces a customised RRT manual developed specifically for that team:
Initiation training — team formation, manual development and endorsement
After-training review — challenges and best practices, root cause analysis, action plan
Technical (competency-based) training — skills development and SOP contextualisation
After-training review — refining systems and sustaining improvements
Simulation exercise — field-based response simulation to build confidence and test systems
Our Programs
Papua New Guinea: Rapid Response Team (RRT) Training: PNG is where this model was built and tested. The program sits within the National Department of Health's FETPNG unit and trains multidisciplinary teams of clinicians, epidemiologists, surveillance officers, laboratory specialists, environmental health officers, administrators and communication officers. Each team is embedded in its Provincial Health Authority, so response capacity sits in the province, close to the outbreak.
All 22 provinces have completed Phases 1 and 2, and Phase 3 is now rolling out. Teams work through a multi-day tabletop emergency, practise their own role and learn the others, and adapt a national Standard Operating Procedure to their province. Participants also practise a 2-day district-level course, which they then deliver in their own districts.
