December 18,
2006
Michigan State University (MSU) 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 / Brown
County, WI / Carroll County, MD / Casa Grande, AZ / Clark County, NV /
Douglas County, KS / Evansville, IN / Hoover, AL / Layton, UT / Lewis
& Clark County, MT / Libertyville, IL / Littleton, CO / Marquette
County, MI / Milwaukee, WI / Monroe County, MI / Northampton County, PA
/ Norwalk, CT / Oakland County, MI / Perkiomen Valley, PA / Redmond, WA
/ Racine, WI / Richmond, VA / Rockville, MD / Sandy City, UT
We are currently working with 27 communities and will work with another
22 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.
Happy Holidays
From the staff at Michigan State University we wish you happy holidays
and best wishes for 2007!
Welcome Norwalk CT
The CIP Program welcomes
There was a wide assortment of participants, including various Norwalk
city departments as well as the Foxboro Court Condominium Association,
Rowayton Fire, STAR, Inc., Perkins Eastman Architects, U.S. Coast Guard
& Auxiliary, American Red Cross, Mid-Fairfield Child Guidance
Center, United Way, King Industries, Securitas, League of Women Voters,
Environmental Innovations Group, Greater Norwalk Chamber of Commerce,
Klaff’s, Inc., Priceline.Com, CB Richard Ellis, Inc., Stolt-Nielsen
Transportation Group, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Northeast
Utilities/Connecticut Light & Power, The Maritime Aquarium, 800
Connecticut Avenue, University of Phoenix, and Devine Brothers, Inc.
At the end of the workshop, the co-sponsors announced the date for the
next meeting, which ensures the development for sustaining a
partnership for joint critical incident management.
National Homeland Security Conference
SU attended the recent U.S. Department of Homeland Security national
conference for states, cities, counties, and training partners. The Office of Grants and
Training (OGT) is a component of the
U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Preparedness Directorate. OGT is responsible
for preparing the nation against terrorism by assisting states, local
and tribal jurisdictions, and regional authorities as they prevent,
deter, and respond to terrorist acts. OGT provides a broad array of
assistance to America's first responders through funding, coordinated
training, exercises, equipment acquisition, and technical assistance.
GT recruited over 1,200 people throughout the
During the conference, Secretary Chertoff shared the following
strategies:
Discussions emphasized
the sharing of ideas and a renewed sense of commitment and urgency to
protect our nation and homeland security. Cory Gruber, Acting
Assistant Secretary, Office of Grants and Training set the tone for the
conference by sharing a thought-provoking statement by George Orwell,
“Life is a race between education and catastrophe”!
Profile
of a Partnership: National Cyber-Forensics & Training
The NCFTA
is a public-private partnership organization that is comprised of
experts from industry, academia, and government which focuses on
sharing intelligence, combining resources, and enhancing cross boundary
efficiency. With our increasing dependence on computers and
technology, this organization is one of the leading institutions in
computer forensics and training. NCFTA promotes advanced
training, increased security awareness to reduce cyber vulnerability,
forensic and predictive analysis, and offers lab simulations.
Their
website offers some of the latest information on recent cyber alerts,
news, research, and confidential reporting. NCFTA is located at
CIP
Program Happenings
The final
workshop in the CIP Program series for each community is a tabletop
exercise. We design and facilitate a disaster scenario that
incorporates both public and private sectors. Recently, in
In the next
couple of months, we will be initiating the CIP Program in
Developing
a Partnership
A public-private
partnership for joint crisis management requires leadership,
diversified participation, identification of group needs, objectives
and goals, performance tasks, and sustainability.
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, professions, and individuals.
When seeking ways to
increase diverse participation, it is easier to focus on
enhancing the partnership 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 including manufacturing, retail, banking,
transportation, insurance, service, lodging, food industry,
agriculture, and other sectors, you can strengthen the networking and
level of communication for community 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 both the private and
public sectors. Then, the needs can be divided into those which
affect the community and those that affect individual organizations.
When establishing objectives
or goals, look first to identify common issues that impact all
participants and could create a bond of collaboration (versus
exclusion). Recently, we worked with a new community which
identified some important next steps. One suggestion 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 taken these steps, they can move to the next one. In
identifying the performance tasks that will meet the needs and
objectives, the leadership should focus on dividing the tasks among the
membership. Tasks may be assigned to sub-committees or individual
members. By spreading performance tasks throughout the group,
greater cohesion and collaboration can be achieved.
Sustainability ensures that the
leadership is in place, members represent diverse organizations, the
needs of the participants are identified, goals are created based on
the needs, and performance tasks are set in place. These steps
require collaboration, communication, and cooperation, which are the
building blocks to sustainability and resiliency of the partnership.
In sum, a public-private
partnership for joint critical incident management can enhance
emergency preparedness, protection, response, and recovery components
through joint planning, training, and exercising.
Recent
Postings to CIP Information Exchange Website
To enter
the "CIP Information Exchange" website, please go to https://angel.msu.edu and enter “msu.msu@angel” in the User/NetID and
“partnership” (both
without quotation marks) 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 a
variety of postings, including the following:
“IACP’s
Prevention and Response to School Violence Programs”
“The
Missing Link in Homeland Security – Private Security Profession”
“Committed
to Protecting America – A Private Sector Crisis Preparedness Guide”
“American
Red Cross: Fact Sheet on Shelter-in-Place”
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.
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 wish to
be on this list, please reply to this email.
Disclaimer
The views expressed here are
those of the author and do not necessarily
reflect the
views of the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security or Michigan State University.
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