The concept is to develop a series of programs that will build resilience within a community by strengthening the individual and smaller private sector companies through a structured educational program selection, conducted over a 9 to 12 month period.

The program will progress through a series of at least four courses (EmPreps I, II, III, and IV), at this point, extending over a nine to twelve month period.  The program goal is to take an individual and/or business that has little to no preparation and bring them to a point, within a year, to have a written plan, to have practiced that plan, and to have planned that if they lost their current location or ability to operate, they would have a backup plan to get up and running (if at all possible) and at least be able to survive personally for a three to seven day period.  The program will assist a business in developing a threat analysis of their location, creating/ modifying their written emergency plan, learning how to effectively structure a tabletop exercise and active drill/ exercises. More importantly, though, the goals it to stimulate the business owner/ leader to develop their own personal plan for their family and ensure that their employees do the same, working to create the Culture of Preparedness, as General Honore states.  The EmPreps program focuses on the primary threats to the local area, which may include tornado, hurricane wind damage, fire, flood, pandemics, active shooter scenarios, and foreign and domestic terrorism.  The name of the course and the actual courses provided are not as important as the model, the structure, of using a defined course concept, over a defined period, to build preparedness on the individual/ community level, though a series of steps.

A sample of the course structure that I have used since 2006 includes:

EmPreps I:                                                                        Summer 2010

The Development of a Written Emergency Plan

Information Technology Disaster Recovery Plan

Workplace violence/ Active Shooter Plan

Foreign and Domestic Terrorism Threats

Threat Analysis for Business Location

Tabletop Exercise Structure and Process

EmPreps II:                                                                       Fall 2010
Pandemic/ Community Health implications and effect on the small business and community

Business Continuity Planning

IS-100 (Introduction to Incident Command Systems); IS-700 – (National Incident Management System- NIMS); IS-860 – Intro to the National Infrastructure Protection Plan

EmPreps III:                                                                      Winter 2011
Completion of the Community Emergency Response Training Program (CERT course – 9 weeks): Completion of CPR/ First Aide/ External Defibrillator

Onsite visit to business by SBDC consultant to document completion of written emergency plan and emergency kit preparation, answer questions, and assist as needed.

EmPreps IV:                                                                      Spring 2011
Insurance Preparation and Coverage
Course wrap up and review

I developed this course through my work at the University of Georgia SBDC and believe that an established set of courses, with a defined outline and outcome (possibly tied to the PS-Prep requirements, especially for the self certified small/medium sized business), provided through the local community college/technical college/state university system, would be an effective tie in for multiple providers and recipients. An additional aspect of the courses would be that they will begin to build the rapport the individual and/or business owner has with the local public safety/government and non-profit sector leaders.