How can Emergency Management professionals gain disaster response experience?

Volunteer at your local fire department ??. That’s how I began my career in emergency management. Not only will volunteering give you firsthand emergency response experience, but it will also provide training opportunities to expand your knowledge and skills. For example, I completed additional training to become an emergency medical technician. Gaining the certification provided me with more emergency response opportunities. Also, as a bonus, the fire department provides this training at no cost to its volunteer members in most US jurisdictions. By gaining this first responder experience, you will position yourself for broader local, state, and federal emergency management opportunities and, thus, potential disaster responses.

Volunteering with local organizations can provide practical experience in emergency management. One great example is involvement with a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) under many local fire departments. During severe storm events, these volunteers, equipped with training, can be pivotal in conducting neighborhood safety checks and providing first aid. Their actions exemplify how such volunteer experiences directly contribute to community resilience and emergency response effectiveness.

Leaders should allow their staff to support other agencies in incidents response and large scale special events whenever possible, so long as their respective agency or jurisdiction itself is not involved in the response.

Join an Incident Management Team to have the opportunity to have “boots on the ground” disaster experience. You may have to start off in a supportive role until you have the position specific training and get “credentials “.

If you’re interested in great training while also deploying locally, nationally, and even internationally then Team Rubicon might be for you. Although famously incorporating military veterans into emergency and disaster response, this organization has representation from all walks of life and age groups. There are plenty of challenging positions for those who train and qualify, but many other support roles too that are equally important.

The best way is learning by doing. There is no alternative of practical work. Best is to start in the field operations or as a front liner

In my Experience, for an Emergency Response Team to gain hands-on disaster response experience, they must engage in realistic simulations like tabletop exercises. These scenarios refine decision-making and collaboration skills in a controlled environment, mimicking real-world challenges. They can add practical experiences under their “belts” by joining emergency response teams or volunteering with organizations like FEMA. Field deployments offer a frontline perspective, honing logistics, resource distribution, and community engagement skills. These experiences build resilience and adaptability crucial for effective emergency management in unpredictable scenarios.

International teams are not for the faint of heart, nor for everyone. If you haven't deployed overseas or become a seasoned domestic responder- it may not be in your wheelhouse just yet. International disaster response is a novel beast and generally all the lifelines and creature comforts you know to exist are not the same. Though many organizations try to bridge that gap for their staff responding- it's not always the case. Clean water, adequate food, safety where you're staying, violence in the afflicted area- these are just a few things that you can expect to be briefed about on a regular basis on an international deployment.

Esse é um caminho mais amplo para discutir ideias e autodesenvolvimento Compartilhar junto a órg?os internacionais e interno pode multiplicar fontes de melhorias contínuas

Attaining a degree or certification in emergency management can help build foundational skills at the entry-level. A degree or certification is also beneficial for career progression for people already working in the field. The greatest benefits to all is the relationships built while attending these programs and the opportunities that arise from them.

In California, you can get several certificates (EM Specialist, Homeland Security Specialist, PIO) without needing any field or EOC experience. You will probably need to fund your own training costs, though. You can also get the FEMA Professional Development Series certificates entirely online through FEMA's Independent Study program. These courses are free. Finally, if you can't find a college program specifically for EM, some schools have EM as a single-course elective. You may also be able to convince someone to let you study EM as an independent study course for a related major. For example, my Masters is in Public Admin, but three of my courses were EM-related independent study classes.

Education is but one avenue of gaining experience in the EM field. While pursing your degree, be sure to seek out opportunities to engage with local EM offices either via exercise participation or internships to build your practical experience. Furthermore, professional certifications are gained through a combination of education AND real-world experience. Education is only as valuable as your ability to apply what you’ve learned in the real world.

There are a lot of educational opportunities out there and many and at no cost like those through FEMA. Here you can get expert instruction and educational opportunities. As safety professionals our education really never ends, we should constantly be pushing ourselves to learn more and understand things differently or from a new perspective. Education can often be difficult to get so the ability to get free education is a plus as well.

Many professional certifications and credentials are available through FEMA's Emergency Management Institute. Although they provide additional tools and knowledge, degrees and superior education are not the only sources of training and education. Furthermore, they are becoming more critical to complement the technical "response-heavy" side of "traditional Emergency Management" practitioner-academic perspectives can provide a significant edge to the preparedness and mitigation sides of EM with the technical writing skills.

I think this is an important part of the process which involves responsibility on both ends of the spectrum… For those coming into EM, you have to be willing to accept that your role may primarily be that of an engaged observer or that the role you fill (at first) could be one that’s less than where you consider your skills to be (my first thought is to act as a scribe for a member of the Command or General Staff). Understanding that a lot of benefits come through your ability to be a sponge observing the response, transition to recovery, etc. So much can be learned by simply being involved without necessarily having the highest amount of authority or responsibility.

Networking and mentorship is very important. Learn from those who have been in your shoes. There is no reason to reinvent the wheel or not take advantage of others' lessons learned. Throughout your career you will obviously innovate, but a baseline in best practice learned from others is important. On another note, when faced with a new project that is unfamiliar I have someone in my network I can reach out to who has either completed the same work or very close. Communication is essential for emergency managers, and our personal communication can be honed when networking and bring mentored and learning from others especially listening skills! In many cases local professional or trade associations offer mentoring/mentee opportunities.

I have found that there are many many many veterans of major events who will speak at seminars and training programs. Find one of these courses and take notes. Speakers such as these tend to present their stories because they want to help others in our fields to cope under pressure.

Mentorship is key for growth and development. It is always good to seek out someone who is able and willing to mentor you, this will expand your knowledge and understanding of not just safety but of the world. A mentor doesn’t have to be in your area of expertise, it is actually great if they aren’t because you are looking for someone to learn from and I have had mentors who weren’t safety professionals. The one thing my mentors always had was strengths that I didn’t have, they were willing to share what they knew and not judge me for my opinions or positions. That isn’t to say I haven’t had safety professionals as mentors, I have but when looking for a mentor consider someone not in your field too!

A mentor can be a great help to someone trying to enter the field. The mentor should understand the challenges and issues of the field. Through phone or video conversations, the mentor can help the mentee better understand their strengths and weaknesses, explore ways to gain knowledge and experience and be a person to bounce ideas around. I have mentored quite a few people, and I find scheduling sessions every 60 days and giving a homework assignment with deliverables and periodic check-ins can be very helpful. The goal is to guide the mentee and provide feedback and encouragement. They often know what they need to do; they just need someone to speak to. It can be invaluable for anyone first getting into this work.

Volunteer with Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) and local Search and Rescue (SAR) teams. They typically fall under the Sheriff’s Department. Good way to learn more about disaster response and also giving back to your community.

While first-hand disaster experience is a must for emergency managers, an infinitely larger body of work is available for the self-directed study of history's disasters. Using multiple books about a disaster: - Build a timeline of events to understand the incident and the decisions made. - Reflect on the perspective of the individual, the first responder, the local government leader coordinating the response, and national leadership. - Develop your own after-action report. What went well and what didn't? - If the incident resulted in legislation, read it and understand what changed. Doing this will help you identify commonalities and differences between disasters, allowing you to gain experience from events you didn't respond to.

Hold up your experience to the light and see where you have holes in your knowledge (like Swiss cheese!) Reflect on where you are now and where you need to be to get that entry-level job. Make a list and be strategic. There is a lot one can do to expand one's knowledge. Dig into the FEMA Independent Study library. Read reports from federal and state agencies, national and international groups, such as the Annual Global Risk Report or large insurance carriers reporting on climate change and other major risks. Listen to podcasts to build knowledge. Join groups like Linkedin and build a network. Join IAEM and get involved. All of those things are helpful in maturing who you are in the field.

Whatever happened to a good old fashion deployment into a disaster zone and ‘shadow’ someone or a small group responding to the community impact. The best form of learning will always be hands on. The theory of disaster management will give you the basics but sometimes the theory won’t work and you’ll have to adapt on the run to achieve the desired outcomes. Disaster management is 80% relationships, 15% experience and 5% knowledge. It’s like anything in life. You can read as much as you like about something but until you actually do it, you won’t be able to start building that skill base.

"Know thy self" is a skill that will allow anyone to succeed and grow in any field. Emergency Managers should become proactive self-learners, and consistently search for ways to learn and improve more. This self-learning drive should also be inspiring and entusiasticly contagious, in order to create an environment and a culture that promotes learning. Emergency Managers should support their continuous learning with the opportunities and gaps identified in After-Action Reports and historical records. Curiosity should drive the purposeful quest to continuously learn and support the continuous organizational and leadership development of their team.

Disaster Management or Humanitarian capacity is all about the right people in managing disasters. It is whole different attitude as compare to the development work. Business as usual people shouldn't opt to come in disaster management. Timely decisions are key in responses, persons afraid of making wrong decisions shouldn't come in this field.

Gaining hands-on disaster experience is critical for growth. Entry level team members should seek out an active Emergency Management or Crisis Management shop with a lean-forward culture and philosophy. Expertise in disaster management is gained through repetition. Using the incident management concepts that would be used for a true disaster should be used for emergencies at all levels of intensity. This helps build muscle memory which fortifies the experience base. Using Emergency Manager Kelly McKinney's EM operating model can help with that repetition. 1. Watch (Situational Awareness) 2. Size-up (Analyze) 3. Notify (Alert/Warn) 4. Activate (EOC, CMT) 5. Operate (Response/Incident Management) Also review post incident AARs.

Emergency management is not for the faint of heart. As an career profession- we're fiercely loyal, passionate, overzealous at times, and intense. Why? We're engaged in so many different faucets of the community (public and private sector) that it gets woven into our personality- preparing with our stakeholders builds that trust, responding with our counterparts gets the heart pumping, recovering with our communities brings peace after a storm. Getting experience in response is only a fraction of what we do in EM but it usually sets the fire and leads to people pursuing a passionate career in EM.

To pave the way for valuable disaster response experience, emerging management professionals can utilize the FEMA National Qualification System (NQS) as a cornerstone. Within the NQS framework, they can pinpoint roles matching their career aspirations, such as logistics, planning, or operations. Engaging in NQS positions fosters competencies like crisis communication, strategic decision-making, and resource coordination, while promoting behaviors such as adaptability and effective collaboration. Through tasks like incident planning and stakeholder coordination, individuals gain practical expertise essential for excelling in emergency management and disaster response, relief and recovery.

I had the opportunity to experience some emergencies and this gave me experience, especially in managing these situations. And throughout this evolution I realize that a predominant fact is the ability to remain calm and not lose your analytical capacity. Theoretical knowledge, practical experience and a positive and focused attitude when faced with complex and often dangerous situations are essential for a professional who acts when others are at risk.