Emergency Services Skills Assessment (ESSA)

Benchmarking Capability Across Emergency Response Roles

The ESSA is a practical, standardised evaluation of emergency response skills used as part of the Emergency Response Certification process. Developed by the Emergency Management Community of Practice (EMCoP), it provides a consistent and portable benchmark for individuals working in high-risk emergency response roles across the mining sector.

This assessment ensures certified professionals meet core capability standards across disciplines such as fire response, rescue operations, medical response, and breathing apparatus use.

Why It’s Important

The ESSA is designed to:

Validate your current skills against defined industry benchmarks
Provide confidence to employers and industry peers in your operational readiness
Support certification at the Emergency Response Officer (ERO) or Emergency Response Leader (ERL) level
Ensure consistency, quality, and fairness through a nationally recognised process

What to Expect

The ESSA is:

Conducted in person by an endorsed provider
Delivered in a 3-hour session covering key emergency response disciplines
Structured around practical tasks observed by a qualified assessor
Supported by a detailed debrief and feedback on performance
Aligned with nationally recognised performance criteria

Participants must complete practical exercises across a set of rotating core areas, which may include:

Medical response
Road crash rescue
Vertical or confined space rescue
Fire suppression
Breathing apparatus operations

Assessment Outcome

At the end of the session, candidates receive one of the following outcomes for each skill area:

Seasoned – Demonstrates advanced or extensive practical capability
Satisfactory – Meets industry-accepted minimum level of performance
Developing – Does not yet meet the required level of competence

A co-branded ESSA Certificate is issued to candidates who achieve satisfactory or higher results in all assessed areas.
Please note: For certification purposes, only assessments completed within the last 12 months will be accepted.