February
15, 2008
This newsletter is for
public agencies, businesses, non-governmental organizations, and other
stakeholders involved or interested in public-private partnerships for joint
emergency preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery.
Michigan
State University (MSU) produces the newsletter through the Critical Incident
Protocol (CIP)-Community Facilitation Program under a grant awarded by the
Training & Exercise Integration Division, Federal Emergency Management
Agency, 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.
Michigan
State University through the CIP Program will, “enhance cities, counties, and region’s capabilities to prepare for,
respond to, and recover from man-made and natural disasters through public and
private sector collaboration, communication, and cooperation.” MSU
facilitates public-private partnerships and the CIP Program is free of charge
to participating communities.
Please visit our website at www.cip.msu.edu for more information about the program.
Participating
Communities in the CIP Program
The CIP Program has been initiated
in 34 communities in 21 states with over 2,600 participants establishing public-private partnerships for joint
management of critical incidents. We are looking to work with other cities,
counties and regions. Is there a location in the nation that you think may be
interested in developing a public-private partnership? If so, please let us
know.
Currently, we
are working with the following communities:
Alabama
– Hoover
Arizona – Casa
Grande
California – Mountain View
Colorado –
Littleton
Connecticut –
Norwalk
Illinois
– Lake-Cook Regional,
Libertyville
Indiana –
Evansville
Kansas –
Douglas County
Maryland –
Annapolis, Carroll County, Rockville
Michigan –
Marquette County, Monroe, Oakland County
Missouri / Illinois – Gateway Citizen Corps Coalition,
St. Louis
Montana
– Lewis & Clark County
Nevada – Clark
County
North Carolina – Buncombe
County, Greensboro
Ohio
– Brooklyn
Pennsylvania –
Allentown, Bethlehem, Northampton County, Perkiomen Valley
Texas – Dallas
Utah
– Layton, Sandy City
Virginia – Richmond
Washington –
Redmond
Wisconsin – Brown
County, Dane County, Milwaukee, Racine County
CIP Program Activities
March 6, 2008 – Eau Claire County, WI (Initiating CIP Program)
March 14, 2008 – Wichita, KS (Overview of the CIP Program)
March 19, 2008 – Santa Rosa County, FL (Initiating CIP Program)
April 1, 2008 – Arlington County, VA (Initiating CIP Program)
April 10, 2008 – Brown County, WI (Facilitating Tabletop Exercise)
April 16, 2008 – Dallas, TX (Facilitating Tabletop Exercise)
April 24, 2008 – Martin County, FL (Initiating CIP Program)
May 8, 2008 – Douglas County, KS (Facilitating Tabletop Exercise)
May 28, 2008 – Superior, WI (Initiating CIP Program)
Award for Excellence in
Public/Private Cooperation
Law enforcement agencies and security professionals are
partnering to work together on criminal investigation, emergency preparedness,
sharing information and intelligence, and other aspects. Because of the similar mission between these public
and private sector disciplines, there is a common agenda that brings together
their expertise to collaborate.
In recognition of the value of these partnerships, the
International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) has announced the Michael
Shanahan Award for Excellence in Public/Private Cooperation campaign. The award seeks to recognize outstanding
achievement in the development and implementation of public/private cooperation
in public safety. The award will be
presented to full service law enforcement agencies and private security
organizations that work together to solve local problems that result in
increased public safety.
This is a great opportunity for law enforcement agencies
and security entities to jointly apply for this national recognition. The application must be submitted by May 31,
2008 and to learn more, please go to http://www.theiacp.org/awards/shanahan.htm or you can contact
Nancy Kolb, IACP at kolbn@theiacp.org or (800) THE-IACP, extension
813.
Best Practices/Lessons
Learned – Joint Training
Many of the communities and partnership organizations that
we work with share ideas on joint planning, training, and exercising. When the MSU staff is asked for ideas on what
community groups could work on we always remind them to first ensure that the “basics”
are covered through joint planning, training, and exercising. Then based on the needs the group members
have identified an agenda can be formulated for future meetings.
Recently, we came across joint training that is not
utilized very much, but is important.
The Brown County, WI Office of Emergency Management offered a free
8-hour workshop to public agencies, businesses, and non-profit organizations on
“Public Information Officer”. This
workshop welcomed the private sector to participate, including Public
Information Officers, Media Directors, Public Relation Specialists, and
Marketing Managers. In addition to the
training material and program, attendees will have the opportunity to network
with each other thereby strengthening relationships. At some point in the future the public and
private sector participants could be working together on a major crisis.
We strongly encourage partnership communities and
organizations to offer joint training to public and private sectors. Not only will joint training educate both
sides of the other sector’s needs, limitations, and mission, but it will
sustain the relationships.
Lake-Cook IL Regional
Partnership
In February 2007, Michigan State University was invited
by Discover Financial Services and a few pubic sector agencies to provide an
overview of the CIP Program. A major
highway, known as the Lake-Cook corridor located about 30 minutes north of
Chicago, is home to many communities and a large number of corporations,
businesses, and other stakeholders.
Because of the positive response to the overview presentation on the CIP
Program, MSU held the Orientation/Planning workshop in July 2007, which was
attended by 53 community leaders from businesses, non-profit organizations, and
a number of public sector officials from various communities.
This group of people saw the potential for building a
regional wide public-private partnership.
They spread the word and held follow-up meetings. Now the Lake-Cook IL Regional Partnership has
grown to over 100 people. They held
elections for the leadership, which are co-chairs representing the public and
private sectors and created some sub-committees to work on a website,
grants/funding, credentialing, resources/mutual aid, communication, and
training.
So far, MSU has worked with 34 communities since 2002 and
are scheduled to initiate the CIP Program in 5 more locations over the few
months and are talking with another 20 communities who are interested. We have learned a number of things when
creating partnerships or collaborations that brings together diverse interests,
abilities, and resources. Successful
organizations have been studied to learn their “secrets” of what makes them
work. There are two general concepts
that must be part of all successful collaborations. They are a “committed leadership” and a
“sense of purpose”. If these two
concepts are built into the foundation of the partnership then the initiatives,
strategies, and programs will fall in place.
Agriculture and Food
Vulnerability Assessment Training
The University of Tennessee, College of Veterinary
Medicine, in collaboration with the U. S. Department of Homeland Security is
offering free training to assist communities and industry to prevent and deter
terrorists acts that target the agriculture and food sectors. This 2 and ½ days training workshops are
delivered in communities across the nation, which consists of assessment
methodologies to evaluate vulnerabilities, along with developing mitigation
strategies. The workshop includes hands-on
training, case analysis based on actual facilities, and practical exercises,
which incorporates the CARVER plus Shock model.
For more information, please go to http://www.vet.utk.edu/cafsp/agfoodvulnerability or contact Program
Administrator Ann L. White at alwhite@mail.ag.utk.edu or (865) 974.0345.
Job Opportunity –
Public/Private Emergency Management
The National League of Cities (NLC) is looking for a
Program Manager that will be responsible for a program that is funded by a
grant awarded to NLC by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The manager will direct the Leadership
Training for Local Government and Community Stakeholders Program relative to
emergency prevention, protection, response, and recovery. This nation-wide program includes workshops,
tabletop exercises, web-based simulation, and web-based follow-up training. In essence, this program is based on
leveraging the resources, expertise, and experience of public and private
sector stakeholders in communities to utilize the principles of emergency
management to plan for, respond to, and recover from man-made, natural
disasters, and critical incidents.
The Program Manager will administer all aspects of the
grant, liaison with DHS, coordinate the actitivities of the advisory committee,
along with managing contractors, assignments, and related requirements.
For more information on this unique opportunity, please
go to http://www.nlc.org/job_opportunities/jobpostingitems/programmgrdhsgrant.aspx or you can contact the
NLC through their website at http://www.nlc.org.
A Public/Private
Partnership – Texas
Communities, organizations, and agencies continue to
utilize the potential of working with others for crisis management in creating
a partnership. MSU profiles these types
of collaborations to demonstrate the diverse opportunities and activities. Occasionally, the aftermath of a crisis can
lead those who were affected by it to meet with others to develop better
planning, response, and recovery processes.
For example, flooding in Texas in 2007 led to such a venture.
The Texoma Regional Public-Private Preparedness Coalition
held its first meeting and has grown to 125 participants at their last
meeting. The Texoma Council of
Governments (TCOG), which serves three counties partnered with county Judges,
along with other key leaders to formalize the partnership. Though the group is relative new, the large
number of attendees support the efforts of sharing resources, increasing
preparedness, and working together when responding to and recovering from a
disaster.
For more information on the Coalition, please contact
Sarah Somers, Program Director, Criminal Justice/Homeland Security Department
with TCOG at either ssomers@texoma.cog.tx.us or (903) 813-3552.
Free Web-Based Disaster
Recovery Seminars
There are a multitude of fee-based and free services
available through the Internet on crisis management, business continuity,
homeland security, emergency management, and disaster recovery. The Disaster Recovery Journal website
provides a variety of professional workshops, programs, materials, conferences,
job postings, and to include their notable magazine. One of the free services they provide is
webinars, which are available to anyone with Internet access and provides the
opportunity to listen and interact with experts on some of the latest
initiatives in the profession.
For example, some of the past events include Ensuring
Organizational Resilience and Employee Well-Being Through Crisis Communication,
101 Uses for Emergency Notification, and others.
To keep up to date on the latest in your industry, you
can sign up for the DRJ Informational Update at their website at www.drj.com, which provides a
variety of information including upcoming webinars.
Resource for Critical
Infrastructure Protection
The NI2 Center for Infrastructure Expertise is a
non-profit organization funded by the National Institute of Standards and
Technology, U.S. Department of Commerce.
The Center’s mission is to utilize applied research to improve the
security and protection of the nation’s critical infrastructure. Staff from the Center collaborates with
federal, state, and local government agencies, as well as businesses and
non-profit organizations on various initiatives. Some of their projects incorporate the
CARVER2 Vulnerability Assessment Tool, School
Multi-hazard Assessment & Resource Tool (SMART), and includes the
Canada-U.S. Cargo Security Project, U.S. Virtual Sea Border Project, and their
on-line critical infrastructure library.
To learn more about this valuable resource, please go to http://www.ni2cie.org/default.asp or you can download
their brochure at http://www.ni2cie.org/downloads/AboutNI2CIE.pdf.
Recent
Postings to the CIP Information Exchange Website
The CIP Information
Exchange website is a large database for public and private sector
professionals interested in homeland security, emergency preparedness, business
continuity, disaster recovery, and emergency management. It also contains
research publications, government documents, news items, and more.
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. On the next page, please click on CIP, which launches the main menu.
Located
in the folder "Bulletin Board - Information for all Communities" are
a variety of recent postings, including:
o
Annual
Threat Intelligence Assessment – Jan. 2008
o
Incident
Resource Inventory System / FEMA Guide (Jan. 2008)
o
Video
on Pandemic Flu Preparedness
o
DHS
Target Capabilities List (37) – A Brief Description
o
Managing
Resources – System Inventory (CIRDRA)
There are
numerous other resources located on the website. To locate a specific topic,
utilize the "search" function.
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
Program Director
CIP-Community Facilitation
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
weberbr@msu.edu
Visit our website: http://www.cip.msu.edu