Neighborhood Team Program

In case you were wondering what CERT-NTP is all about...

During a regional disaster, the Fire Department isn't coming.

You and your neighbors will be the first responders in your communities for hours, days, maybe even weeks until the professionals become available. Is your team ready?


The Neighborhood Team Program (NTP) is designed to make it easy for perspective Neighborhood Team Leaders to get started creating their Neighborhood Disaster Response Teams by combining the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) and Ready Your LA Neighborhood (RYLAN) / Map Your Neighborhood (MYN) training programs with step-by-step guides and other short (2-4 pages) and easy to follow documentation.

NTP gives our CERT Coordinators a way to reach out to people in the neighborhood who are interested in stepping up as Team Leaders and gives them both a standardized framework of guidelines to work toward the goal of setting up self-sufficient teams. NTP is primarily grassroots in origin, bottom up in nature with CERT Coordinators mostly there to provide guidance through experience and training.

Your Neighborhood needs you, are you ready to answer the call?


The Neighborhood Team Program is designed to help you and your neighbors get prepared for a disaster.

Neighborhood Team Program (NTP) was created by combining the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training taught by LAFD, the block level organization of Ready Your LA Neighborhood (RYLAN), and the community Neighborhood Watch groups to create a comprehensive self-sufficient grass-roots response group prepared to handle any disaster.

We provide you with step-by-step guides, Standard Operating Procedures, and guidance from a CERT Coordinator to get you started and help you build your team.

If your neighborhood team already exists, we’ll put you in touch with them. If your team doesn’t exist yet, we’ll help you start one.


The Neighborhood Team Program is administered and managed by the Community Disaster Preparedness Foundation, an independent 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization and is not run by any Fire Department, Government, City Agencies or with any of the programs we recommend. Please visit https://www.disasterprep.org for more information about NTP.


Neighborhood Team Program - End Goals

  1. To have a single place for community members to sign up to find out more about disaster preparedness (CERT training, Ready your LA Neighborhood / Map Your Neighborhood) and to put them in touch with their Battalion and Bureau Coordinators who will guide them along the process.
  2. To have a standardized city-wide plan members can follow in their neighborhoods so that Battalion Chiefs know what CERT / Neighborhood Disaster Response Teams will be doing at the block level and can write us into their disaster plans.
  3. To have a plan to get critical incidents from the block level up to the LAFD Battalion Command Posts via two-way radio when 9-1-1 is overloaded and cellphones don’t work.
  4. To drill the plan city-wide annually so that we know it works and adjust the plans accordingly.