CIP Update

April 28, 2006

This newsletter is for cities, counties and communities involved in public-private partnerships for joint emergency preparedness, planning and prevention. 

Michigan State University produces the newsletter through the Critical Incident Protocol (CIP)-Community Facilitation Program under a grant awarded by the Office of Grants & Training, Preparedness Directorate, U.S. Department of Homeland Security.  This newsletter provides ideas, suggestions, best practices and lessons learned to establish critical incident protocols using public-private partnerships.
Please go to: www.cip.msu.edu for more information about the program.

Participating Communities

Allentown, PA / Annapolis, MD / Bethlehem, PA / Brooklyn, OH / Carroll County, MD / Casa Grande, AZ / Clark County, NV / Evansville, IN / Hoover, AL / Lewis & Clark County, MT / Libertyville, IL / Marquette County, MI / Milwaukee, WI / Monroe County, MI / Northampton County, PA / Oakland County, MI / Perkiomen Valley, PA / Redmond, WA / Racine, WI / Richmond, VA / Rockville, MD / Sandy City, UT
We are currently working with 22 communities and will work with another 22 cities, counties or communities over the next couple of years.  Of the 22 available CIP Programs, we are in contact with 10 communities.  Is there a location in the nation that you think may be interested in building a public-private partnership for joint emergency preparedness?

Lewis & Clark County, MT Joins the CIP Program 
On April 19th Michigan State University initiated
a CIP Program in Helena, the capital of Montana.  The program was sponsored by Lewis and Clark County, Disaster & Emergency Management Services, Morrison & Maierle, Inc. and KMTX Radio.  The 70 participants represented the majority of the departments within the county, in addition to the City of Helena, State of Montana, and from Qwest, Montana Rail Link, KTVH Television, Helena Public Schools, Cherry Creek Radio, National Weather Service, Jefferson County, Helena Area Chamber of Commerce, American Red Cross, Park County, Morrison-Maierle, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Conco Phillips, Northwestern Energy, Carroll College, Independent Record, St. Peter’s Hospital, Amateur Radio Emergency Services, Geodata Services, and Helena Regional Airport.
By the end of the workshop the participants identified 11 recommendations they wanted to implement.  They are: To…….. continue meeting on a regular basis, have the group align itself with the Local Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC), have co-chairs representing public and private sectors, survey businesses for emergency preparedness plans, exercising and training, to meet at different businesses around the county, create a steering committee, along with sub-committees for tasks, offer business continuity seminars through the American Red Cross, create a centralized database of resources from across the county, have the county share their disaster plans with the business community, and recruit from specific business sectors.  As you can see, the group came up with some solid recommendations to review and implement in the future.

Please welcome Lewis & Clark County, MT!


Why Partnership is Important to the Public Sector


When working with public officials around the nation, we continually discuss the impact of the business sector in their communities.  Those discussions focus on different values on the importance of the business community to the public sector, such as:


1.     
Loss of business can impact the community in numerous, multi-facetted ways.
2.     
Creates understanding of the private sector risks, needs, resources, and expertise.
3.     
Establishes communication and decision-making prior to an event, disaster, or critical incident.
4.     
Leads to joint strategic planning on community issues.
5.     
Enhancing business preparedness creates a stronger, well-prepared robust community.
6.     
Leads to other potential coalitions i.e., economic, health, education, social, etc.
 
Furthermore, the private sector is responsible for public safety relating to their facilities/grounds, reducing risks, responding to critical incidents, mitigating the impact of hazards, investigations, and business continuity/recovery.  Therefore, they may bring technology, latest practices, working with a “bottom-line” philosophy, and a strong commitment to the community.

Risk Assessment – A Process for Public & Private Sectors
If you would like a six-step process for a risk assessment, please feel free to work with the CIP model, which is available on the internet on our website at www.cip.msu.edu.  Just go to the website and click on risk assessment.  There are a few forms, along with instructions on how to conduct a risk assessment, which you can download. 


When using the Risk Assessment Matrix (RAM), which is our model, the steps are:

1.     
Identify functions and processes
2.     
Determine the criticality of the function
3.     
Determine the recovery time
4.     
Identify the threats/risks
5.     
Determine the vulnerability
6.      Select an action plan
 
By implementing a risk assessment, businesses and public agencies are able to identify critical business functions and determine issues that need to be addressed.  If you would like assistance in doing a risk assessment, please contact the CIP staff.

Public-Private Partnerships for Emergency Preparedness & Homeland Security
The School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University (MSU) offers an online course, Public-Private Partnerships for Emergency Preparedness & Homeland Security as part of the Homeland Security Certificate Program.  This course explores the dynamics and interdependence between the public and private sectors for community preparedness and domestic security.  Emphasis is placed on joint emergency planning, risk assessment, mitigation and recovery and features a unique, online tabletop exercise for critical incident response.  Designed for both undergraduate or graduate students and professionals from diverse backgrounds, this course is delivered entirely online via MSU’s ANGEL learning system. 
 
Previous students include members from law enforcement such as police and fire, emergency management, health, as well as federal government agencies, the military, food safety and defense, agriculture, businesses, hospitals, media, and other non-governmental organizations.  In addition, traditional or non-traditional students may subsequently apply this course to a degree-granting program or toward the completion of a certificate in homeland security. 
 
To learn more about Public-Private Partnerships for Emergency Preparedness & Homeland Security and MSU’s Homeland Security Certificate Program, please visit our website at http://homelandsecurity.msu.edu/.  Follow the links for additional information on application procedures, tuition and fees, etc.  This class extends from May 15-August 18, 2006 and is currently open for enrollment. 
 
DHS Uses Interoperability Technology in the Capital Region
On February 23, 2006, the Department of Homeland Security, Office of National Region Coordination facilitated the Winter Fox Interoperability Demonstration (WFID) which was hosted by the Pentagon Force Protection Agency (PFPA).  Participants included federal (PFPA), state (Virginia and Maryland), regional (Port of Baltimore, MD), local (Frederick County, MD), and private sector (George Washington University) partners.  WFID locations were Federal Office Building II (FOB II), Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) Smart Traffic Center (STC), the South Marine Terminal, Port of Baltimore, MD, and the Emergency Operations Center (EOC), Frederick County, MD. 

According to a Government Computer News article,
We are trying to come up with a trust model to be used across federal, state and local jurisdictions,” said Lemar Jones, director of the Pentagon’s Force Protection Agency’s anti-terrorism and force protection office. “We want to verify someone’s identity, whether they are public or private, and decide whether to grant them access to a building or reservation.” (Miller, 04/17/06)
This identity verification/management demonstration validated the capability to use existing standards and technology (Federal Information Processing Standards 201 (FIPS 201)) to establish a scalable identity trust model and interoperability throughout multi-jurisdictions.  It further demonstrated to regional public and private sector senior officials the ability to electronically manage human resource assets in response to any human-induced or natural disaster incident.

Additionally, WFID validated the ability to electronically integrate standardized National Incident Management System (NIMS) and/or National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP) sector attribute information for personnel qualifications.  WFID also validated the following key capabilities:


(1)    
Electronic validation of identity cards from six different back-end infrastructures.
(2)    
Electronic validation of PKI certificate-based smart identity card to card bearers. 
(3)    
Routine electronic physical access into federal and state facilities.
(4)    
Incident area first, second, and third perimeter control using electronic identity and attribute validation for tiered incident management.
(5)    
In-transit visibility of COOP/COG human resource assets.
(6)    
Federal, state, and local EOC notification.

This public-private multi-jurisdictional effort by the Office of National Region Coordination using technology for interoperability was successful and paved the way for more coalition building exercises and training opportunities.  To learn more about this initiative, please contact Debbie Sottile at Deborah.sottile@associates.dhs.gov


Midwest Summit Conference for Public/Private Partnerships

A Midwest Summit titled “Economics of Disaster”, which will enhance critical incident preparedness through public/private partnerships, is scheduled for May 3-4, 2006 in LaCrosse
, WI.  For more on the conference, please go to: www.midwestsummit2006.com

Creating successful public-private partnerships is an essential key in identifying, addressing, and resolving issues concerning preparedness and continuity in today’s business world.  The Midwest Summit will provide opportunities for innovation and investment in resilience and economic sustainability for both private businesses and government infrastructure.  This two-day seminar will focus on establishing formal coordinated agreements, networking, information sharing, crime prevention, resource sharing, training, legislation, operations, establishing regional information command centers and coordinating the flow of information regarding infrastructure in an effort to promote crisis preparedness and homeland security
.

MSU staff from the CIP Program will be presenting at this conference.


Best Practice – CIP Community Mission Statement

Occasionally, the CIP staff is asked by new communities in the CIP Program if they should have a mission statement, objectives and/or goals.  Our answer is, yes!

We will share with you what one of the communities has done.  Just last week we finished our last CIP workshop, a tabletop exercise, for Annapolis, Maryland.  The Annapolis Critical Incident Partnership (ACIP) group formalized their existence by developing a mission statement, objectives and creed.  As an example, here is their mission statement:

The Mission of the ACIP is to serve as a bridge between private sector business and local emergency management in order to foster an understanding of emergency preparedness and continuity planning practices within the private sector; to support local businesses in preparing their employees and their families for emergencies; and to broaden the active involvement of the business community in critical incident preparedness, thereby helping to build resilience, self-sufficiency and security into our community.


Recent Postings
to CIP Information Exchange Website
To enter
the "CIP Information Exchange" website, please go to https://angel.msu.edu and enter your user/password ID (or use msu.msu@angel in the User/NetID and "partnership" as the password to log in).  Click on CIP, which launches to the main menu.

Located in the folder "Bulletin Board - Information for all Communities" are just a few of the following postings:


“First Responder’s Best Friend: ‘Chemical Companion’ Helps HAZMAT Teams Make Critical Decisions”
“NGA Center Survey Reveals Challenges, Opportunities for Homeland Security Directors”

“Red Cross Outlines Changes to Improve Disaster Response”

“TSA & FLETC Trains Police Officers to Spot Terrorists”

There are numerous other resources located on the website.  To locate a specific topic, use the "search" function, which can be found on the main menu page on the right-hand side
in the green task bar.

Starting a CIP Program

Feel free to make a referral to the MSU staff about possibly starting a CIP Program elsewhere in the United States.  We can use your assistance! 


Past Newsletters

If you are interested in viewing past CIP Update newsletters, please go to www.cip.msu.edu and select “Newsletters” from the main menu. 
 

Closing

If you have any topics and/or ideas for a future
CIP Update newsletter, please contact Brit Weber at weberbr@msu.edu or (517) 355-2227 or other MSU staff members.  About every three weeks you will receive this newsletter via email.  If you no longer want to be on this list, please reply to this email.

Sources

 
Miller, J.  (April 17, 2006).
  Cross-Agency Exercise Proves HSPD-12 Model.

Government Computer News.  Retrieved on April 28, 2006 from: http://www.gcn.com/print/25_8/40411-1.html


Brit Weber

School of Criminal Justice
Michigan State University
1407 S. Harrison Rd., 335 Nisbet Bldg.
East Lansing, MI 48823
Work:  (517) 355-2227   Cell:  (517) 206-1640
Visit our website at http://www.cip.msu.edu