SB Bucket Brigade Academy
Bucket Brigade Academy 2025
The Bucket Brigade Academy (BBA) is a leadership training program for high school students interested in helping their community adapt to life in a changing climate. The natural disasters and ecosystem damage that we are facing are a serious challenge for everyone. The Academy program empowers young people to rise up to that challenge by providing the training, skills and network of support they need to move forward with competence and confidence.
Bucket Brigade Academy Training:
- Advanced First Aid Training and Certification
- First-Aid CPR
- Wilderness First-Aid
- Wilderness First Responder
- Psychological First-Aid
- The Incident Command System (ICS)
- Learn the system that empowers first-responders to organize and collaborate in a crisis
- Orient and align with the national approach to managing emergencies and coordinating humanitarian aid across multiple agencies
- Team Deployment Leadership
- Learn how to lead teams of volunteers in the field
- Learn “All-Positive Communication” for effective leadership using ICS
- Deployment Skills Training:
- Team rescue
- Emergency response
- Community restoration
- Humanitarian aid
Through hands-on volunteer deployments in our real-world resilience laboratory, the Bucket Brigade Academy teaches high school students how to organize, train and deploy the power of community in response to natural disasters and crises.
Building on the Bucket Brigade Community Self-Rescue System, developed for decades and honed during the humanitarian responses to the Thomas Fire and Debris Flow, the Global Pandemic, the Alisal Fire, and 2023 winter flooding, our trainers put an emphasis on relationship-building, all-positive communication and community organizing for direct action to help create a more connected and resilient Santa Barbara County.
June 16-20: LEVEL 1 – Youth Cadets (ONLY AGES 14-19)
June 23-27: LEVEL 1 – All ages 14 and up
June 30 – July 2 – SPECIAL MAKE-UP CLASS – for COVID in 2024 and CPR Recertification Training for returning cadets.
July 7-11 LEVEL 2 – Wilderness First Aid and ICS Leadership Training
July 14-18 LEVEL 3 – WFR Advanced First Aid and AdvancedLeadership Communication
July 21-25 AND July 28 – August 1 – LEVEL 4S – Introduction to Shelter – Build a tiny home for homeless housing.
How Much Does The Bucket Brigade Academy Cost?
The tuition at the Bucket Brigade Academy is $600 per week of training.
However, we offer partial and full scholarships to qualified candidates!
Here are some of the costs that go into each week of training:
The Bucket Brigade Academy provides elite training, certification and gateway-to-employment opportunities. We also believe that lack of money shouldn’t be a barrier to this level of training so, in order to make our program accessible to everyone, we have set up the:
BBA Scholarship Fund
Brought to you for access and inclusion with the help of our sponsors:
Students who can not afford the full cost of training or who can not afford training are encouraged to apply for a partial or full scholarship.
For example:
- If your family can afford to, we ask that you donate the full $600 and consider donating additional funds
- If your family can afford to pay partial tuition, apply for a partial scholarship to cover the rest.
- If your family can not afford to pay tuition, apply for a full scholarship to cover the rest.
- We have never turned away a cadet who has been accepted to the Academy for lack of ability to pay.
Bucket Brigade Academy is made possible and accessible through the support of our Sponsors
Corporate, Family, and Individual Sponsorships Available - Click To Inquire
Frequently Asked Questions
Have a question that you don’t see answered here?
Email [email protected] and we’ll get the answer for you.
Everyone ages 14-19. Everyone. If you are 13 and going to be a freshman in high school in the fall of 2024, you can apply too. The general rule: high school students.
Yes – they are genuinely encouraged to apply. Please do. All are welcome here and the more diverse the community of leaders, the better the Cadre will be.
- We will accept up to 500 applicants for initial consideration.
- Everyone who applies after the initial 500 will automatically be on an application waitlist.
- Once applications are received they will be checked for completeness. Incomplete applications will be rejected from the initial 500 and we will fill those slots with completed applications from the application waiting list in the order they are received.
- Our Analytical Decision-Making Framework is focused on finding the best leadership candidates from each neighborhood as identified in our application. (This will be refined in the future – We know it is not perfect AND – we only have 80 seats this summer) Applicants are competing with people from their own neighborhood. Not other neighborhoods. The desiderata are diverse cadres of people from different neighborhoods and backgrounds working together. This is realistic training for “spontaneous volunteer” leadership.
- What makes a best candidate? Someone who has a strongest likelihood of using the training and community network connection we provide for the immediate benefit of their community.
- The Goal of the Admission Process: To create diverse cadres of “most likely to lead” people from each neighborhood in Santa Barbara County. Our goal is to weave a safety net of compassionate and capable human beings throughout the County – to build the “human infrastructure” of resilience. To accomplish this, we need people who want to help their community, who are trained to be good at helping others and who regularly, patiently and willingly collaborate with spontaneous volunteers.
You are welcome to apply.
This program will be taught in English in 2023 and in English AND Spanish in 2024.
We are very sorry not to offer it in both languages this year, but this is a new program and “you have to walk before you can run.”
We do have bilingual staff on site and can answer questions in English and Spanish, so if you struggle with English, (and speak Spanish) we can work with you and this is not a barrier to being admitted to the program.
Seriously – don’t let this get in the way.
If you are a leader and are reading this in translation please apply. We will do our absolute best to accommodate you if you are accepted.
You bet it is. Definitely a plus – at the Academy and in life as far as we are concerned.
The more languages you speak, the more people you can work with during a spontaneous volunteer deployment.
You can ask to be wait-listed on a week when you can make it.
No. If you miss a day of training, you will not receive certification.
Don’t apply. Certification requires attendance to the fully scheduled training program.
You will not receive certification at the time of training.
However, with a doctor’s note, we will allow you to make up the required training on a weekend during the following 12 months.
Absolutely. We fly the pride flag high at the Bucket Brigade and BB Academy.
You are welcome and encouraged to apply and the Bucket Brigade Academy is a safe space.
NOPE. If any cadet is unable to treat others with total respect, we will kick them out.
The first thing we teach is “All-Positive Communication.” Volunteer leadership demands total respect for others. Anything less will not get it done.
Mean comments, inappropriate comments, rude behavior, harassment or anything deemed to be “not 100% respectful and kind” will not be allowed at the Academy.
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