CIP Update

 

January 26, 2007

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

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 / GCCC-St. Louis, MO / 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 28 communities and will work with another 21 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 Gateway Citizen Corps Coalition, St. Louis, MO to the CIP Program

Please welcome our newest community to the CIP Program, which is the Gateway Citizen Corps Coalition (GCCC).  The program goals are to create or enhance public-private partnerships for joint management of critical incidents.  In working with cities, counties and regions across the nation we have learned that program flexibility works best, as each community is different.  The GCCC represents two states, seven counties, and the City of St. Louis, MO in this region. 

The Gateway Citizen Corps Coalition is somewhat new and they were familiar with the CIP Program.  The Board of Directors reviewed the program and wanted MSU to facilitate a modified program that focused on enhancing the public-private partnership, further define goals and objectives, review program implementation, and enhance strategic planning processes.

Through the CIP Program, MSU facilitated a strategic planning workshop for GCCC.  This workshop is a modification of one of the three workshops we offer.

Citizen Corps is a component of the USA Freedom Corps coordinated through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that provides oversight and training in the following programs: Community Emergency Response Team (CERT), Neighborhood Watch Program (NWP), Volunteers in Police Service (VIPS), Fire Corps, Medical Reserve Corps (MRC), and Citizen Corp Councils.  For more on these programs, please go to http://www.citizencorps.gov.

Specialized CERT Training for Colleges and High Schools

The Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT) program is offered across the United States and directed by DHS.  CERT educates people about disaster preparedness and trains them in basic disaster response skills, such as fire safety, light search and rescue, and disaster medical operations. Using their training, CERT members can assist others in their neighborhood or workplace following an event and can take a more active role in preparing their community.

For universities and colleges there is a Campus-CERT three day train-the-trainer program offered by Michigan State University.  The C-CERT program aims to enhance the preparedness level in campus communities nationwide for all hazards, including natural disasters and terrorist attacks involving WMD.  If your campus would like to implement the C-CERT Program, please contact Phil Schertzing, Ph.D., Michigan State University at (517) 432-3156 or schertzi@msu.edu.

For high schools, there is a Teen-CERT 20-hour program offered by Eastern Michigan University.  The Teen-CERT program has three main goals, which are to provide a knowledge base of natural and man-made disasters, build decision-making skills, and provide hands-on training through readiness, response, recovery and mitigation.  If your school districts are looking for a CERT Program, please visit the following website: http://teencert.org.

Recovery or Business Resumption Process

A quick recovery from an incident will get the community back on the path to normal activities.  The process may be short or long term; however, planning for the recovery phase (preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery) will decrease recovery time.  Both public and private sectors must collaborate to ensure a quick recovery. 

During a critical incident, the business team begins the recovery phase.  The public sector Incident Commander should collaborate with the business team to discuss recovery.  Unfortunately, many public sector agencies focus on the response phase, while the impacted business is working on both response and recovery.  Businesses that are seriously affected by a critical incident and have a longer recovery time period will impact the community through loss of revenue to the public sector, loss of products or services to the community, and a perception to potential investors that the impacted businesses and community do not have enough resources for managing critical incidents.

Communities and public-private partnership groups should review the following recovery issues through collaboration and planning:

·         Develop a system to include experts who focus on recovery

·         Utilize outside resources to support the recovery process

·         Conduct an assessment of affected businesses which informs the public sector on the impact to the community

·         Develop an understanding of the financial impact to the community

·         Develop a joint process to solicit support and understanding by the community (Jones, 2000)

 

These recommendations are based on discussions was pulled from the Critical Incident Protocol – A Public and Private Partnership, a 42-page how-to-guide for public sector agencies, businesses, non-profit organizations, and others on how to create partnerships for critical incident management.  You can download or view the publication either from our website at www.cip.msu.edu or from http://www.cj.msu.edu/~outreach/CIP/CIP.pdf.

Measuring the Effectiveness of a Partnership

There are many types of public-private partnerships that are usually formed as a result of a common interests or regulatory issues.  Partnerships are formed at the local, state, regional, national, and international levels.  The CIP Program is a partnership program, which is funded by the Office of Grants & Training, U.S. Department of Homeland Security; therefore, the program is provided through federal tax dollars.  It is important that processes are analyzed to ensure that DHS programs are meeting the mission and needs from the federal down to local levels.

The CIP Program creates or enhances a public-private partnership at the decision-maker level (executives, administrators, managers, etc.) for cities, counties, and regions.  MSU uses two to four different types of workshops over a period of six to twelve months to build the partnership. 

How do you measure the effectiveness of a partnership?  To answer that, MSU administers a social capital survey that measures the level of networking and critical incident preparedness based on public-private partnership.  The survey assesses perceptions about community groups, as well as public governmental agencies regarding the working and developing of partnerships to solve community problems.  Feedback from the survey will assist the community in identifying strengths and weaknesses in the experiences and relationships of the participants specifically in the area of the joint critical incident preparedness process. 

 

Below are some of the results from a recent analysis on 15 communities who completed the survey through the CIP Program relative to their level of critical incident preparedness.  Pre and post test percents are provided.

  • Does your community have a critical incident response plan?  An increase from 85% to 91%
  • Did you participate in joint public/private sector meetings during the development of your organization’s response plans? An increase from 39% to 53%
  • Was a common incident command system adopted by public/private sectors in your community?  An increase from 71% to 84%
  • During a critical incident, or exercise, have you participated in a joint incident command post?  An increase from 45% to 48%
  • Is there a joint public/private sector taskforce in your community focusing on security or anti-terrorism?  An increase from 67% to 77%
  • Have you participated in joint public/private sector exercises within your present organization during the past two years?  An increase from 48% to 60%

 

The social capital survey also measures the level of networking in a community on how certain public sector disciplines and private sector professions collaborate.  If you would like to know more about social capital, either contact MSU staff or please visit our website at www.cip.msu.edu and go to the menu and click on social capital.

 

CIP Happenings

 

The CIP Program represents 30 communities in 19 states with 1,923 attendees and is growing.  We are looking for more communities to work with.

 

If you would like to attend one of our workshops, please contact us.  We have finalized dates to initiate the CIP Program in the following locations:

  • Bethlehem, Pennsylvania on February 15, 2007 (Tabletop Exercise)
  • Dallas, Texas on February 27, 2007
  • Lansing, Michigan on April 12, 2007
  • Greensboro, North Carolina on April 19, 2007

 

Recent Postings to CIP Information Exchange Website

To enter the "CIP Information Exchange" website, please go to https://angel.msu.edu and entermsu.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:

“Training Video – Threat Against Transit System”

U.S. Rails with Hazardous Materials Vulnerable to Terrorists”

“The Center for Public Health Preparedness is Offering Training, via Internet”

“Governors Loses – Washington Wins in Power Struggle over National Guard

“NIC Recommends Adoption of NFPA 1561 and NFPA1600 Standards”

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.

Source

Jones, R.W.  (2000).  Critical Incident Protocol—A Public and Private

Partnership.  Office for Domestic Preparedness, U.S. Department of Homeland Security.  Available at:  www.cj.msu.edu/~outreach/CIP/CIP.pdf.

 

 

Brit Weber

School of Criminal Justice

Michigan State University

1407 S. Harrison Rd., 335 Nisbet Building

East Lansing, MI 48823

Work:  (517) 355-2227      Cell:  (517) 206-1640

Visit our website at:  www.cip.msu.edu