Training
As incidents across the country and around the world over the past years have shown, there is a need to focus efforts in an all-hazard approach toward emergency preparedness and response. Cuyahoga County, in its efforts to prevent, protect, respond to, and recover from incidents affecting its security, whether natural or man-made, has realized the need to embrace a capabilities-based approach to training and exercising.
Cuyahoga County has taken great strides toward increasing the safety of its citizens, key infrastructure, and economy from natural and man-made disasters. Cuyahoga County's critical infrastructure, geographic location, national, social, and economic assets continue to make it a vulnerable target.
To strengthen our overall preparedness, the County has identified a need to coordinate planning, training, and exercising for First Responders in Cuyahoga County. Training and exercising provides the County with a means of attaining, practicing, validating, and improving its capabilities.
Training is provided to local first responders to prevent, protect, respond to, and recover from man-made and natural catastrophic events. The term "first responder" refers to those individuals who, in the
early stages of an incident, are responsible for the protection and preservation of life, property, evidence, and the environment, including emergency response providers as defined in section 2 of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (6 U.S.C. 101), as well as emergency management, public health, clinical care, public works, and other skilled support personnel (such as equipment operators) who provide immediate support services during prevention, response, and recovery operations. There are 10 professional disciplines, as well as the private sector and citizens through its courses. The major disciplines served by are defined as follows:
- Law Enforcement (LE): Individuals who, on a full time, part-time, or voluntary basis, work for agencies at the local, municipal, and State levels with responsibilities as sworn law enforcement officers.
- Emergency Medical Services (EMS): Individuals who, on a full-time, part-time, or voluntary basis, serve as first responders, emergency medical technicians (EMT) (basic), and paramedics (advanced) with ground-based and aero-medical services to provide pre-hospital care.
- Emergency Management Agency (EMA): Organizations, both local and State, that coordinate preparation, recognition, response, and recovery for WMD and /or catastrophic incidents.
- Fire Service (FS): Individuals who, on a full time, part-time, or voluntary basis, provide life-safety services, including fire suppression, rescue, arson investigation, public education, and prevention.
- Hazardous Materials Personnel (HZ): Individuals, who, on a full-time, part-time, or voluntary basis, identify, characterize, provide risk assessment, and mitigate/control the release of a hazardous substance or potentially hazardous substance.
- Public Works (PW): Organizations and individuals who make up the public/private infrastructure for the construction and management of these roles at the Federal level. The categories/roles include administration, technical, supervision, and craft (basic and advanced).
- Governmental Administrative (GA): Elected and appointed officials responsible for public administration of community health and welfare during an incident.
- Public Safety Communication (PSC): Individuals who, on a full-time, part-time, or voluntary basis, through technology, serve as a conduit and put persons reporting an incident in touch with response personnel and emergency management, in order to identify an incident occurrence and help support the resolution of life-safety, criminal, environmental, and facilities problems associated with the event.
- Healthcare (HC): Individuals who provide clinical, forensic, and administrative skills in hospitals, physician offices, clinics, and other facilities that offer medical care, including surveillance (passive and active), diagnosis, laboratory evaluation, treatment, mental health support, epidemiology investigation, and evidence collection, along with fatality mangement for humans and animals.
- Public Health (PH): Individuals who prevent epidemics and the spread of disease, protect against environmental hazards, promote healthy behaviors, respond to disasters and assist in recovery, as well as assure the quality and accessibility of health services.
Levels of courses offered are at the awareness, performance, and management and planning levels to accommodate different job functions of the first responder community. Awareness level courses are designed for responders who require the skills necessary to recognize and report a potential catastrophic incident or who are likely to witness or investigate an event involving the use of hazardous and /or explosive devices. Performance level courses are designed for first responders who perform tasks during the initial response to a castastrophic event, such as safeguarding the at-risk public, rescuing victims, decontaminating victims. Management and planning level courses are designed, as the title suggests, for managers who build plans and coordinate the response to a mass consequence manmade or natural event.
Exercise
Experience and data show that exercises are a practical, efficient, and cost-effective way for a community to prepare for disasters. Research has shown that people generally respond to an emergency in the way they have been trained. It only makes sense for Emergency Services and Public Safety personnel to exercise their plans and procedures so they are better prepared to respond to and recover from an emergency or disaster.
Cuyahoga County
Emergency Management training and exercise area sponsors emergency preparedness training, seminars, and conferences to local first responders as defined in Homeland Security Presidential Directive 8 (i.e., police, fire, emergency management, emergency medical services, public health, public works and others) that are designed to cover Mitigation, Preparedness, Response and Recovery.
In coordination with federal, state, regional, and local partners, Cuyahoga County Emergency Management conducts and participates in exercise events that strengthen the ability of the local emergency management community prepare, respond and manage large-scale incidents.
Exercise Types
There are seven types of exercises defined within
HSEEP, each of which is either discussions-based or operations-based.
Discussions-based Exercises familiarize participants with current plans, policies, agreements and procedures, or may be used to develop new plans, policies, agreements, and procedures. Types of Discussion-based Exercises include:
- Seminar - A seminar is an informal discussion, designed to orient participants to new or updated plans, policies, or procedures (e.g., a seminar to review a new Evacuation Standard Operating Procedure).
- Workshop - A workshop resembles a seminar, but is employed to build specific products, such as a draft plan or policy (e.g., a Training and Exercise Plan Workshop is used to develop a Multi-year Training and Exercise Plan).
- Tabletop Exercise (TTX) - A tabletop exercise involves key personnel discussing simulated scenarios in an informal setting. TTXs can be used to assess plans, policies, and procedures.
- Games - A game is a simulation of operations that often involves two or more teams, usually in a competitive environment, using rules, data, and procedure designed to depict an actual or assumed real-life situation.
Operations-based Exercises validate plans, policies, agreements and procedures, clarify roles and responsibilities, and identify resource gaps in an operational environment. Types of Operations-based Exercises include:
- Drill - A drill is a coordinated, supervised activity usually employed to test a single, specific operation or function within a single entity (e.g., a fire department conducts a decontamination drill).
- Functional Exercise (FE) - A functional exercise examines and/or validates the coordination, command, and control between various multi-agency coordination centers (e.g., emergency operation center, joint field office, etc.). A functional exercise does not involve any "boots on the ground" (i.e., first responders or emergency officials responding to an incident in real time).
- Full-Scale Exercises (FSE) - A full-scale exercise is a multi-agency, multi-jurisdictional, multi-discipline exercise involving functional (e.g., joint field office, emergency operation centers, etc.) and "boots on the ground" response (e.g., firefighters decontaminating mock victims).
IS-139 Exercise Design Independent Study Course
NIMS Compliance and Course Information
NIMS