Assessing The Framework And Coordination Of The National Emergency Communications Plan

Every day in cities and towns across the Nation, emergency response personnel respond to incidents of varying scope and magnitude. Their ability to communicate in real time is critical to establishing command and control at the scene of an emergency, to maintaining event situational awareness, and to operating overall within a broad range of incidents. However, as numerous after-action reports and national assessments have revealed, there are still communications deficiencies that affect the ability of responders to manage routine incidents and support responses to natural disasters, acts of terrorism, and other incidents. Recognizing the need for an overarching emergency communications strategy to address these shortfalls, Congress directed the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Office of Emergency Communications (OEC) to develop the first National Emergency Communications Plan (NECP). Title XVIII of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (6 United States Code 101 et seq.), as amended, calls for the NECP to be developed in coordination with stakeholders from all levels of government and from the private sector. In response, DHS worked with stakeholders from Federal, State, local, and tribal agencies to develop the NECP—a strategic plan that establishes a national vision for the future state of emergency communications. To realize this national vision and meet these goals, the NECP established the following seven objectives for improving emergency communications for the Nation's Federal, State, local, and tribal emergency responders: 1. Formal decision-making structures and clearly defined leadership roles coordinate emergency communications capabilities. 2. Federal emergency communications programs and initiatives are collaborative across agencies and aligned to achieve national goals. 3. Emergency responders employ common planning and operational protocols to effectively use their resources and personnel. 4. Emerging technologies are integrated with current emergency communications capabilities through standards implementation, research and development, and testing and evaluation. 5. Emergency responders have shared approaches to training and exercises, improved technical expertise, and enhanced response capabilities. 6. All levels of government drive long-term advancements in emergency communications through integrated strategic planning procedures, appropriate resource allocations, and public-private partnerships. 7. The Nation has integrated preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery capabilities to communicate during significant events. The NECP also provides recommended initiatives and milestones to guide emergency response providers and relevant government officials in making measurable improvements in emergency communications capabilities. The NECP recommendations help to guide, but do not dictate, the distribution of homeland security funds to improve emergency communications at the Federal, State, and local levels, and to support the NECP implementation. Communications investments are among the most significant, substantial, and long-lasting capital investments that agencies make; in addition, technological innovations for emergency communications are constantly evolving at a rapid pace. With these realities in mind, DHS recognizes that the emergency response community will realize this national vision in stages, as agencies invest in new communications systems and as new technologies emerge.

Provides a strategic plan to improve emergency response communications within the current communications landscape. Emphasizes the need for enhancing and updating the policies, governance structures, planning, and protocols that enable responders to communicate and share information under all circumstances.

Crisis Communication Planning and Strategies for Nonprofit Leaders examines the unique position of nonprofit organizations in an intersection of providing public services and also being a part of Emergency and crisis management practices. This text discusses the evolution of crisis communication planning, the unique position of nonprofit organizations and the crises they face, along with provision of conceptual and theoretical frameworks to generate effective crisis communication plans for nonprofit organizations to utilize within diverse crises. Through the use of innovative real-life case studies investigating the impact of crisis communication plans, this book provides the foundational knowledge of crisis communication planning, theoretically supported strategies, crisis typology and planning resources. Each chapter focuses on critical strategic planning concepts and includes a summary of key points, discussion questions and additional resources for each concept. With this text, nonprofit organizations will be able to strategically plan for organization-specific and emergency management related crises, develop effective crisis communication plans, garner internal and external support and generate assessment strategies to maintain the relevancy of these plans within their future endeavors. Crisis Communication Planning and Strategies for Nonprofit Leaders offers a new and insightful approach to crisis communication planning to assist nonprofit organizations that are called upon to fulfill a variety of community needs, such as sheltering, food distribution, relief funding, family reunification services, volunteer mobilization and much more. It is an essential resource for nonprofit organizations.