Today’s Emergency Managers Need Balanced Training

Do today’s emergency managers need a mix of both theoretical and practical training to prepare for dealing with the rise in both natural and technological hazards? According to one expert, they do.

In an opinion piece on the Emergency Management magazine website, Paul France, a graduate of the Homeland Security master’s degree program at the Naval Postgraduate School, says professionals need skills in emergency operations and management to perform essential work in a disaster.

“It’s important for skilled emergency managers to take a holistic approach and a broad view of hazards,” he says. “They must recognize the multicausality and interdisciplinary nature of disasters. A common theme among scholars and practitioners is that a comprehensive and integrated approach to emergency management is required.”

He says many of today’s emergency managers were simply put in their positions to write grants and get community funding; and many have far more responsibilities than just emergency management.

That’s where he says academia can help. “Academia, through its higher learning institutions, can provide well rounded education in which programs effectively address the plethora of possible hazards in any given jurisdiction or location,” he writes. “Future emergency managers must be aware of what can happen, what results are likely and what can be done to deal with the incident. Therefore, emergency management programs must also include in their curriculum each phase of the disaster life cycle and dedicate a specific class to the mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery phases. Among other things, professors teaching emergency management must point out how these four phases overlap so students understand the complex nature of the field.”

To read the full article, click here: http://www.govtech.com/em/articles/401826