October 13,
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 / Layton, UT / 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 25 communities and will work with another 24 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.
Michigan State University Wants Your Help
The CIP Program, which is directed by the School of Criminal Justice, Michigan State University is looking for another 20 cities, counties, or regions to work with in the nation. News about our program travels by word of mouth and through presentations, as we constantly market the program through different avenues, formats, and ways. Yet, we need your help.
Just this week MSU participated in a panel sponsored by the Northern Illinois Association of Contingency Planners Chapter which profiled the CIP Program, and how it was working in a nearby community, Libertyville, Illinois. The fire chief, and two business managers discussed the positive impact the CIP Program had made in their organizations and the community. One of the speakers exclaimed, "It sells itself!" when discussing the benefits to the corporation. It does sell itself, after it has been in place, but first it takes others to let MSU know of communities who might be interested in the program.
If there are people in your network who you think might be interested in the program, please ask them to contact Brit Weber, Program Director at either (517) 355-2227 or weberbr@msu.edu at Michigan State University. Thank you for your support.
Former FEMA Director, Mike D. Brown
Michigan State University did a presentation on the CIP Program at the 2006 Summit for the Michigan Homeland Security Conference, with over 600 people representing the public and private sectors. The keynote address was given by Mike Brown, former FEMA director. Mr. Brown's talk was titled, "How to Avoid Becoming Dysfunctional in a Crisis: State, Federal, and Local Government Lessons from Hurricane Katrina".
Brown gave a number of anecdotes from his experience during Hurricane Katrina and then some conclusions. Brown rhetorically asked, "Are we safe?" referring to our nation's safety and security. Yet, after providing some broad-based examples of inequities, challenges and weaknesses in our nation's preparedness, Brown stated, "No. That is the wrong question to ask! The question is, are we resilient?" He stated we should be asking, "Are we prepared for the next battle?" Browned offered that, "it is our nature to continue to fight the last battle, but we need to prepare for the next battle, too."
Brown referred to the 2006 Summit's mission, "Building a Better Tomorrow - with Yesterday's Experience" by taking what we have learned in the past and utilizing that for the next disaster. He stated this concept should be the guiding mission of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and by public and private first responders and emergency management personnel, too.
Unfortunately, some of our public leaders have developed an attitude that Brown describes as, "We create too great of an expectation that we are Johnny-on-the-spot, but the truth is we need to be honest and share the truth at the ground level," when communicating accurate and complete information between federal, state, and local officials during a major crisis.
Brown summed up some basic concepts that still ring true to this day when stating, "you fight as your train, you train as you fight" in reference to the importance of emergency preparedness.
Template for Public/Private Partnerships from the Midwest Summit 2006
In May 2006 the Midwest Summit for Enhancing Critical Incident Preparedness through Public/Private Partnerships was attended by over 300 participants in LaCrosse, Wisconsin.
The final report from this Summit is available online at: http://www.midwestsummit2006.com. The Summit was used as opportunity to break down some of the barriers between public and private sectors, along with the challenges between federal, state, and local agencies. Some of the results from the Summit were;
·
Public/private collaboration is a
policy shaping endeavor
·
Regional partnerships
are being encouraged by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security
·
Organizations can experience
benefits relating to efficiency
and cost savings through
partnerships
·
Being a leader in resiliency is the right thing to do
The Summit produced a six-step template for creating a public/private partnership:
1. Provide leadership
2. Obtain commitment
3. Establish a leadership council
4. Develop a public/private
emergency response plan
5. Activate action plans
6. Monitor progress and review results
For more details on the template or other information, please visit their website to download the final report.
Profile of a Resilience Organization - ICOR
The International Consortium for Organizational Resilience (ICOR), a not-for-profit educational and credentialing organization that provides professional development, certification, thought-leadership, and the latest in research and industry trends, which is based out of Lombard, Illinois.
Among the international services it provides is the ICOR University working in the following disciplines: emergency management, human impact preparedness, crisis management & communications, technology & information management, organizational administration, risk management & insurance, facility & infrastructure management, legal compliance & audit, business continuity management, and IT redundancy and recovery.
The ICOR Resilience Model focuses on "Building Resilient Communities." In order to fully understand the characteristics or principles of a resilient community, it is important to understand the quality characteristics or elements that characterize healthy communities. Communities are comprised of many types of organizations - from government to business to educational institutions to faith-based organizations - each of which support or contribute to the health and resiliency of that community. In order for the community as a whole to be resilient and viable, each one of the organizations within that community needs to be able to provide their particular goods and/or services - no matter what challenges the world puts before them (ICOR, 2006).
The ICOR group builds resiliency with communities, organizations, and others stakeholders on an international level, including the United States. For more information, please go to their website at http://www.theicor.org.
Free Crisis Checklist by Organizing Made Simple
Annapolis, Maryland is participating in the CIP Program, and their group is known as the Chesapeake Critical Incident Partnership (CCIP). This organization has a number of key leaders that help the partnership move forward for joint critical incident management. One of the business owners involved with CCIP owns Organizing Made Simple, and provides a free crisis checklist. This checklist is one way of giving back to the community and anyone with internet access a tool for emergency preparedness.
Please take a moment to view the checklist, which is at: http://organizingmadesimple.com/checklist_basics.htm.
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 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:
"Crisis Training for Schools"
"Suspicious Activities - False Fire Alarms, Homemade WMD, and Poison Water Supply"
"Public Transportation Emergency Response and Preparedness Program Announced"
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.
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.
Sources
The International Consortium for Organizational Resilience (ICOR). (2006). Organizational Resilience: Beyond Business Continuity.
Retrieved on October 13, 2006 from http://www.theicor.org/pages/home.html.
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