West Sussex County Council selects Brightwave for Emergency Response Training

e-Learning specialist supporting implementation of new strategy

West Sussex County Council has selected Brightwave, the workplace communication, learning and performance specialist, to design and deliver its online emergency response training. With more than 24,000 employees the Council serves in excess of 750,000 residents in the south-east. The new course will ensure that all staff have an awareness of the County Council's emergency responsibilities.

The course will explain why the Council must be able to respond to emergencies as well as demonstrate a working knowledge of the other agencies involved in emergency response in West Sussex. It will also explain the roles of individual service groups in the overall corporate emergency response.

It will be the first in a series of planned e-learning packages and will form part of a wider training programme to support the implementation of a new strategy and policy from April 2007.

"As an organisation we have a large amount of employees who work in a wide range of functions and are highly diverse. We have around 2,000 new starters each year. Emergency response is relevant to each and every one of our employees and with Brightwave's help we can ensure that the course is relevant and accessible for everyone", said Damien Adams, Head of Emergency Planning at West Sussex County Council. "Brightwave has shown the ability to take an important but potentially dry subject such as emergency response planning and create a course that is both interesting and motivating."

"We are delighted to be continuing our successful partnership with West Sussex County Council", said Lars Hyland, Director of Learning Services at Brightwave. "Following the induction and health and safety projects, it is clear that professionally produced e-learning can give council employees an effective learning experience that is delivered closer to the time of need, more engaging and with less environmental impact than traditional approaches. Together with our Launch and Track platform, we are seeing increased demand for an online service that is both simple to use and administer that can meet the highly diverse needs of local councils."