Tribal Representatives – Training for emergencies

Indian reservations are areas of land managed by Native American tribes under the U. S. Department of Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs. There are 564 federally recognized tribes with a combined population of 1.9 million American Indians and Alaska Natives.

Maine is the only state in the nation to have a tribal representative seated in the legislature. Federal laws allow territories and the District of Columbia to seat Delegates in the Federal House of Representatives. However, they cannot vote on pending legislation.  They can sit on committees and vote in committee and receive the same allowance and salary as other members of the House of Representatives.

Tribes possess tribal sovereignty. The laws on the reservations may differ from those of the surrounding areas. The tribal council has jurisdiction over the reservation so that it is important to form partnerships to build respect, provide a better understanding of their culture in order to work in concert to protect their property, land and people in times of disaster.

Training for Tribal Representatives

E580 Emergency Management Framework for Tribal Governments

Provides:

• Basic understanding of emergency management principles
• Developing and implementing comprehensive emergency management system

            Definitions of hazards

            Training and exercises

            Forming partnerships with public and private sectors

            Sustaining and upgrading emergency management capabilities

E581 Emergency Management Operations for Tribal Governments

• Develop organizational structures
• Operational procedures
• Resources for effective emergency management operations

            Emphasis on standard operating procedures and procedures to test readiness

E344 Mitigation for Tribal Officials

• Provides tribal representatives an understanding of FEMA’s mitigation programs
• Tribal mitigation opportunities
• Mitigation success
• Mitigation planning requirements
• National Flood Insurance Program
• Mitigation grant programs

IS 650 Building Partnerships with Tribal Governments

• Building effective partnerships

Learn history, culture and their way of life

Training for Emergency Responders

The Preparedness Cycle has 6 important components:

·         Train

·         Exercise

·         Evaluate

·         Improve

·         Plan

·         Organize equipment

Each of the 6 components is crucial and there are different levels of training in specialized fields. The goal is to be able to coordinate effectively with first responders and leaders in your community in the event of a disaster.

Exercise the plan. Sometimes plans on paper do not translate to real life incidents. Exercising the plan with other groups through real time or tabletop exercises will help to improve your plan through evaluation.

Tabletop exercises provide an opportunity for communities to test their ability to respond to incidents. The incident is simplified and the time is limited so events unfold faster than they would in real time. A scenario is chosen and played out with the aid of a facilitator that is trained in emergency response.

Simple tabletop exercises are designed to be stress free and open discussion is encouraged. Group participation is important because

“An enhanced tabletop exercise is a simulated interactive exercise that helps to test the capability of an organization to respond to a simulated event. The exercise tests multiple functions of an organization’s operational plan. It is a coordinated response to a situation in a time-pressured, realistic simulation that involves several agencies. An enhanced tabletop exercise focuses on the coordination, integration, and interaction of an organization’s policies, procedures, roles, and responsibilities before, during, or after the simulated event. It places heavy emphasis on communication between all the agencies participating in the exercise.

This type of exercise will require much more planning, preparation, and coordination than a simple tabletop exercise. To a large extent, the value and benefit of an enhanced tabletop exercise comes from bringing representatives from all of the agency roles in the exercise together to participate in the exercise.

Training organizations include:

Center for Domestic Preparedness

Emergency Management Institute

Training and Exercise Integration/Training Operations

·         National Domestic Preparedness Consortium (NDPC)

·         Rural Domestic Preparedness Consortium (RDPC)

·         Naval Postgraduate School (NPS)

·         Competitive Training Grants Program (CTGP)

National Fire Academy