The Illinois Telecommunicator Emergency Response Taskforce (IL-TERT) is an Intergovernmental Mutual Aid program intended to provide teams of highly qualified public safety / 9-1-1 telecommunicators to:
Respond rapidly to the scene of disaster situations any place in the State of Illinois.
Respond to disaster situations out-of-state under the EMAC compact.
Provide assistance to other Illinois PSAP’s that encounter crisis situations.
Provide advice to agencies that wish to develop local Field Communications teams.
The need for such a program resulted from a recognition that the Illinois Terrorism Taskforce has deployed a number of large Incident Command vehicles throughout the state each of which have a communications component. Efficient operation of the communications function requires the deployment of professional telecommunicators who have been specially trained in incident command and field operations.
In addition, hurricanes Katrina and Rita in the fall of 2005 demonstrated the need to deploy telecommunicators with those same skill sets to the disaster area. Illinois received a request to deploy 20 telecommunicators to the disaster area, but could not do so since no formal mutual aid program existed
Subsequently, the Illinois group (IL-TERT) moved forward to form a statewide telecommunicator mutual aid system and at the same time has made an effort to work in conjunction with the national program. The national program has evolved into a cooperative effort of APCO and NENA called the National Joint TERT Initiative (NJIT).
IL-TERT officially formed in August of 2006 and currently has forty-five (45) member agency's (PSAP’s).
Click to view state press release on IL-TERT