August 14,
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 / Douglas County, KS / Evansville, IN / Hoover, AL / Lewis & Clark County, MT / Libertyville, IL / Littleton, CO / 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 24 communities and will work with another 25 cities, counties, and communities over the next couple of years. Of the 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? If so, please let us know.
Welcome Douglas County, Kansas
Please welcome Douglas County to the public-private partnership program. Douglas County is the 24th community that is participating in the CIP Program.
This county is located between Kansas City and Topeka and includes the city of Lawrence, other communities, the University of Kansas, other education institutions, along with a strong and robust business community, and a progressive culture.
Attending the workshop were various Douglas County and city of Lawrence departments, multiple University of Kansas departments, Kanwaka Township Fire Department, Baldwin City Police, Hallmark Cards Inc, Headquarters Counseling Center, Lawrence Chamber of Commerce, American Red Cross, Lawrence Journal-World, PROSOCO Inc, World Company/Sunflower Broadband, Aquila, ICL Performance Products, Roger Hill Volunteer Center, Independence Inc, Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center, Eudora School District #491, and Sauer Danfoss Inc.
CIP Activities
Currently, we are in the process of scheduling dates to initiate the program with the following communities; Dallas, TX / Brown County, WI / Buffalo Grove, IL / Norwalk, CT / Santa Ana, CA / Anaheim, CA / Detroit Metropolitan Airport-Romulus, MI / and Cleveland, OH. We are talking with an additional five or more, but still need more communities to sign up!
We are initiating the program in Layton, Utah on 09/19/06. We are scheduling the following tabletop exercises; Northampton County, PA on 10/19/06 and Libertyville, IL on 10/24/06 and Lewis & Clark County, MT on 11/15/06.
Effectiveness of a Partnership
How do you measure the effectiveness of a partnership? The real challenge becomes how you measure it on a community-wide level. A social capital survey is utilized to measure the effectiveness of partnerships and representatives from diverse backgrounds, education, and expertise. The survey takes about 15 minutes to complete.
"Social capital" social capital is a term developed by social scientists, which uses extensive observations and research that refers to a network of relationships. More specifically, the survey assesses perceptions about community groups, as well as public governmental agencies regarding the working and developing of partnerships to solve community problems. Additionally, the tool is used to measure the effectiveness of joint critical incident preparedness relating to social capital.
The staff has identified some statistical trends from the communities who participated in the CIP program. A social capital survey is administered to the participants who attend the first workshop. At the end of the workshop, we offer suggestions on how to enhance the partnership for joint critical incident management. After 9 to 12 months, another social capital survey in the community. This illustrates trends of social capital for joint critical incident preparedness. Each participating community receives a report of the findings.
Feedback from the survey will assist the community in identifying strengths and weaknesses in the experiences and relationships and in joint critical incident preparedness process. This insight can be useful in guiding the development of joint public/private sector strategies within the community.
The percentages below reflect the aggregate for the communities:
Note the increase between the pre and post phases regarding the value of critical incident preparedness.
Attitudes toward other community representatives
are also assessed. This includes contact, trust, understanding, empathy, and cooperation from the perspective of
police, fire, EMS, public health, emergency management, security,
business fire, business spokesperson, business risk management,
business management, media, elected officials, hospital, and mental
health.
In the CIP program we have discovered some anecdotal trends too. Traditionally, participants who complete the pre and post surveys have slightly different backgrounds. In the first survey, more executives are represented, while in the second survey we see a slight increase of operational personnel.
Tabletop Exercise - From Around the World We Work Together
On the day shift of Delta Chemical Plant in this city of 250,000 an explosion occurs!
Confusion and chaos reign, as plant emergency medical and security personnel respond to the explosion and injured employees, while frightened calls are made to the local police, fire, and EMS agencies. Delta Chemical Plant houses a variety of hazardous materials, which greatly increases the anxiety of responders. As the fire spreads and smoke bellows over the nearby business and residential area crossing the major interstate cars begin to slow down. Suddenly, a semi-tractor slams into the cars and turns over spilling its load across the lanes, as more vehicles stop on this smoke filled highway. Within time there are secondary explosions at Delta Chemical Plant, along with a bomb threat called into a nearby business - Ajax Manufacturing Facility indicating that they too are next!
This disaster is a simulated scenario developed by Michigan State University (MSU) and presently being used in an on-line college course for students. Many of the readers of this newsletter have participated in tabletop exercises, which are typically held in a classroom setting where everybody understands their roles based on their profession, knows the other participants, and responds together according to the facilitated scenario. Yet, those participating in MSU's Homeland Security Certificate series are sitting in front of a computer during this "two-week" exercise someplace in the world. They can not see their fellow responders, and they are assigned roles of police, fire, media, crisis management team, security, and others to start working together in responding to the disaster. These responders in the course are full-time students, federal and local police, military personnel, asset protection specialists, analysts, security officers, and other professional-career individuals. We have students working together through this on-line disaster exercise that are located in Iraq, Japan, Philippines, and across the United States.
Each discipline, such as police or security has a team of students with a team leader that posts response activities based on the team's input relative to the incident, as it escalates. The team leaders discuss their team's actions in a forum and collectively decide what they need to do to mitigate the disaster and ensure a solid recovery. As the tabletop exercise concludes the instructor thanks the students and provides a review of the response and recovery actions.
The Homeland Security Certificate includes three courses. The tabletop exercise is part of the Public-Private Partnerships for Emergency Preparedness and Homeland Security course. In this course students learn about the interdependences between public and private sectors for joint critical incident management on a community level. Students are exposed to guidelines and lessons learned for effective partnership building, along with identifying the challenges, priorities, and concerns of various sectors in the community. Emphasis is placed on joint risk assessments, contingency planning, recovery, and the importance of sustaining the economy in communities.
To learn more about the Homeland Security Certificate please go to http://www.homelandsecurity.msu.edu. The three courses include Foundations of Homeland Security, Issues in Terrorism, and Public-Private Partnerships for Emergency Preparedness and Homeland Security.
Developing A Partnership
A public-private partnership for joint crisis management requires leadership, diversified participation, identifying the needs of the group, establishing objectives and goals, and setting performance tasks.
Some of the most successful public-private partnerships have leadership that is shared by both sectors. This shared leadership sends an important message to not only the members of the group but to future participants, as well. When an organization is led by public and private sectors then the perception of the leadership is truly one of joint collaboration. Ideally, leaders should have the experience and credentials to be comfortable in providing direction, guidance, and feedback to a diverse partnership group. One of the challenges of the leadership process will be to keep the total membership on track, while encouraging sidebar discussions and networking between the various sectors and professions.
When seeking ways to increase diverse participation, it is easier to focus on enhancing the relationship between related professions and sectors, such as police agencies and security professionals. Yet, the real strength of the group comes from bringing in the various aspects of the business community to partner with the different public sector agencies. By bringing in manufacturing, retail, banking, transportation, insurance, service, lodging, food industry, agriculture, and other sectors, you can strengthen the networking and level of communication when all are working together for a community's health, safety, and economic security. This collective approach identifies those interdependencies that are critical to a community's survival.
There are some relatively simple ways to identify the needs of the group when discussing emergency preparedness. When first creating a public-private partnership, one of the initial steps should be to ask everyone, "What are the challenges you face in delivering your service or product?" By conducting a round-table inquiry, a formal survey of the membership, or a survey of the community, a group can quickly develop a list of needs or challenges that affect the private and public sectors. Then, the needs can be divided into those that affect the community and those that affect individual organizations.
When establishing objectives or goals, look first to identify common issues that affect all participants that could create a bond of collaboration versus exclusion. Recently, we were working with a new community and they identified some next steps they wanted to take. One of the suggestions was to invite all community businesses to either share their emergency response plans with the group and/or for those businesses without an emergency response plan to have the group develop plans for the businesses. A goal or objective could be built around this concept, which would benefit the community as a whole.
After a partnership group has the leadership in place, it can move to the next step. In identifying the performance tasks that will meet the needs and objectives, the leadership should focus on dividing the tasks among the membership. This could be done through assignments to sub-committees or individuals members to work through a task. By spreading performance tasks throughout the group this builds cohesion and encourages collaboration collectively.
In sum, a public-private partnership for joint critical incident management can effectively work on emergency preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery components through joint planning, training, and exercising. This collaboration or cooperation generates an awareness of what the other person or organization is doing and creates a robust, vibrant sense of security and safety in the community, regardless of its size or complexity.
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:
"Public Transportation - Security and Emergency Preparedness Planning Guide"
"Disaster Preparedness - Special Needs Population
"No Easy Fix for Emergencies Rooms, Experts Report to U.S. Congress"
"Best Practices Guide for Mega Shelters"
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 https:///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.
Brit Weber
School of Criminal Justice
Michigan State University
1407 S. Harrison Rd., 335 Nisbet
East Lansing, MI 48823
Work: (517) 355-2227
Cell: (517) 206-1640
Visit our website at www.cip.msu.edu