Emergency Responders, School Based ICS and YOU!

Mike Coleman – QDS CommunicationsCaptain Tim Moore – Douglas County SO

Johnson & Wales UniversitySymposium For the Prevention of School Violence

April 24th, 2009 3:00 pm to 4:30 pm

Discussion Leaders and Participant Introductions

What We Will Cover..

• Recent events and some impacts• Defining what ICS means to your schools• Frame of Reference• What is a “Comm Plan?”• Defining how you interact• Building partnerships• Partnership study review

Recent Events

• Ten year anniversary for Columbine High School Incident• February 4, 2009: Evanston, IL

A 10-year-old male elementary student was found hanged from a coat hook. Subsequent reports indicated the coroner ruled the death a suicide by hanging.

• February 10, 2009: Washington, DCA fight involving girls in a lunchroom, with several other subsequent fights, resulted in 16 high school students being arrested.

• March 11, 2009: Stuttgardt, GermanyA 17 year old former student kills 15 people and injures others.

• What about in your area?

Impacts to School Safety Efforts

• Traditional sources for grant dollars are shrinking

• Budget dollars are shrinking– School district staff and programs being cut– Contributions to Public Safety SRO programs– Public Safety budgets shrinking

• Sensitivity to the needs are less or are being competitive with academic performance dollars

• Lack of “buy-in” – “can’t happen here..”• School based incidents occurring

Defining What ICS Means to Your Schools

SB 08-181 pointsSigned into law May 14, 2008

Basic Definitions• NRF:

– Builds on the National Incident Management System (NIMS) with its flexible, scalable, and adaptable coordinating structures

– Aligns key roles and responsibilities across jurisdictions– Links all levels of government, private sector, and nongovernmental organizations in a unified approach to

emergency management– Always in effect: can be partially or fully implemented – Coordinates Federal assistance without need for formal trigger

• NIMS : – Provides a set of standardized organizational structures:

• such as the Incident Command System (ICS)• multiagency coordination systems• public information systems

– Requirements for processes, procedures, and systems designed to improve interoperability among jurisdictions and disciplines in various areas, including: training; resource management; personnel qualification and certification; equipment certification; communications and information management; technology support; and continuous system improvement.

• ICS: The Incident Command System (ICS) is the combination of facilities, equipment, personnel, procedures, and communications operating within a common organizational structure, designed to aid in all-hazards incident management activities. ICS is used by all levels of government—Federal, State, local, and tribal, as well as by many private-sector and nongovernmental organizations.

Source: fema.gov and nimsonline.com

What Does ICS Mean to Your Schools

• SB 08-181 requires:– School board is to establish a school response

framework consisting of policies consistent with NIMS• By July 1, 2009 a date is established indicating when

each school of the district will be in compliance and the information will be publicly available• Formal adoption of the NRF and NIMS• Institutionalization of ICS

What Does ICS Mean to Your Schools

• SB 08-181 requires continued:– In conjunction with local community partners

develop a coordinated school safety, readiness and incident management plan:• Identified safety teams and backups for interacting with

community partners and assuming ICS roles• Identify potential locations for operational and support

functions

– Develop a memoranda of understanding with the community partners specifying responsibilities

What Does ICS Mean to Your Schools

• SB 08-181 requires continued:– Create an All-Hazards exercise program based on

NIMS:• Conduct tabletop exercises• Conduct other exercises • Exercises done with community partners from various

disciplines• Designed to practice and assess preparedness

– Many provisions are “to the extent possible”

What Does ICS Mean to Your Schools

• SB 08-181 requires continued:– Exercises to include district employees and

community partners:• Orientation meetings around EOPs• Drills in addition to fire drills• Tabletops to discuss and identify roles and responsibilities

– Point to consider is testing the EOPs internally and then test with external partners

– After action review in writing describing lessons learned to include corrective actions to plans

What Does ICS Mean to Your Schools

• SB 08-181 requires continued:– Once per academic term - inventory emergency

equipment and review communications equipment which includes the ability to interoperate with state and local agencies

– Written procedures on taking action and communicating with responders, parents, students and the media during certain incidents

What Does ICS Mean to Your Schools

• SB 08-181 requires continued:– Key personnel to include safety teams and others

will complete FEMA EMI courses (counts towards continuing ED req’s)

– Review procedures to ensure NIMS compliance – Establish a baseline for NIMS compliance and an

action plan to achieve it (new employees will need to meet that baseline at some point)

What Does ICS Mean to Your Schools

• Federal Grants relating to homeland security dollars require ICS training / MOUs

• Smoother management transition for events occurring at a school to first responders

• Smoother time for school liaisons and others assigned within the ICS structure

Which ICS Training?• Colorado Dept of Public Safety reference– http://cdpsweb.state.co.us/nims.html

• Minimum Training– ICS100.SC Introduction to ICS for Schools– IS362 Multi Hazard Planning for Schools

• Optional Courses– IS700 Introduction to NIMS– IS800 Introduction to National Response Framework– ICS200 - ICS for Single Resources / Initial Actions – ICS300 - Intermediate ICS

• What is your school district supporting?

Let’s Talk About YOU

for a MomentA frame of reference

Quick Biology Lesson• The sympathetic nervous system• Sympathetic (fight or flight) and Parasympathetic (rest and

repose) divisions typically function in opposition to each other. For an analogy, one may think of the sympathetic division as the accelerator and the parasympathetic division as the brake.

• The sympathetic division typically functions in actions requiring quick responses. The parasympathetic division functions with actions that do not require immediate reaction.

• Causes the release of chemicals in the body to react:– Epinephrine (Adrenalin)– Norepinephrine

Quick Biology Lesson• Your body reacts to stress: psychologically and physically• The sympathetic nervous system physiological response:

– Acceleration of heart and lung action – Constriction of blood vessels in many parts of the body – Liberation of nutrients for muscular action – Dilation of blood vessels for muscles – Inhibition of Lacrimal gland (responsible for tear production) and salivation

(dry mouth)– Dilation of pupils– Auditory Exclusion (reduction of hearing) – Tunnel Vision (loss of peripheral vision) – Acceleration of instantaneous reflexes

• Why is this important?

Sympathetic Response and You

• 70 – 75 BPM Normal Heart Rate:– Life is Good

• 115 BPM:– Lose fine complex motor skills such as finger dexterity, eye hand co-ordination, multi tasking

becomes difficult• 145-150 BPM:

– Lose complex (gross) motor skills ( 3 or more motor skills designed to work in unison)• 175 BPM:

– Pupil dilation and tunnel vision– Visual tracking becomes difficult “light house effect” on average about a 70% decrease in their

visual field– Difficultly to focus on close objects and impact depth perception– Difficulty remembering what took place or what they did

• known as “Incident Amnesia” or “Critical Stress Amnesia.” After a critical incident, it is not uncommon for a person to only recall approx 30% of what happened in the first 24hrs, 50% in 48 hrs, and 75-95 % in 72-100hrs

Heart Rate Impacts

How can you lesson the impact of stress during an incident?

PLANNING & TRAINING!

What is a “Comm Plan”?

Not the typical incident based communications plan

How Do You Communicate Today?• In Person• By ‘Hollering’• By Intercom• By Phone• By Cell Phone• By Radio• By Email• By TV• By Portals• By ______ ???

Interoperability

• National Buzz Word• Public Safety based is voice radio-based

communications• Pre-agreed upon ability to communicate• The right information, to the right people, in

the right amount, at the right time• Has a national example called the

Interoperability Continuum

Defining a Communications Plan

• A basic plan for schools has two conditions on when you need to talk with other organizations: – School Business– Emergency Situation

• Keep in mind that the emergency condition throws in stressors that typically are not present everyday

• Stressors impact accurate functioning

Who to Talk to When and HowSchool Staff Public Safety Staff

Day to Day Business at Your School

After Hour Events at Your School

Between Schools

Weather Related Events

Incidents Occurring On School Grounds

Incidents Occurring Near School Grounds

Emergency On or Near School Grounds

http://www.schoolsafetypartners.org

Interacting With Public Safetyand Building Those Partnerships

Let’s Compare

Police Organization• Typically organized in

government supported by tax dollars

• Chief of Police / Sheriff• Captains / Lieutenants /

Sergeants• Officers / Deputies• Administrative Staff /

Dispatchers

Teaching Organization• Typically organized in

government supported by tax dollars

• Principal• Assistant Principals and

Subject / Team Leads• Teachers• Administrative Staff

They do their job everyday because they care!

How Does Your School or District Interact with Public Safety Today?

• School used as a shelter• School students receive instruction:– On DARE– On GREAT– By SRO’s– 9-1-1 Programs– Career Day Participation– Internships

• Major Events• What Else?

“Partnership”

• “A relationship between individuals or groups that is characterized by mutual cooperation and responsibility, as for the achievement of a specified goal: Neighborhood groups formed a partnership to fight crime.” (dictionary.com)

• My easy definition is a “mutually benefiting relationship”– Example: Owner and Dog: Owner receives companionship, dog

receives food and shelter.

What Kind of Partnership Does Your School or School District Have With Your Local Public

Safety Organizations?

“Partnership”

List some partnerships that exist within your school, agency, or community:

•

•

•

•

How formal are these partnerships?

MEASURING CHANGE IN COLLABORATION AMONG SCHOOL SAFETY PARTNERS

2006

Bruce B. Frey Jill H. Lohmeier

Steve W. Lee Nona Tollefson

Mary Lea Johanning University of Kansas

Persistently Safe Schools: The National Conference of the HAMILTON FISH INSTITUTE ON SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY VIOLENCE

The group was assigned to assess the level of cooperation among the grant partners.

…Models of collaboration among agencies, groups, and community stakeholders are notoriously difficult to translate into valid and reliable instruments that can be used to measure meaningful change in the level and pattern of collaboration. This paper describes a model of collaboration, presents an instrument for its assessment, and suggests a method of graphical display that captures the sometimes elusive nature of collaboration…

…A method of visual display which shows collaborative links and their strength among partners was adapted from a method presented by Cross (2003). Early evidence of scale reliability for the Levels of Collaboration Scale is presented…

…Collaboration has a variety of definitions and names, but is generally treated as meaning the cooperative way that two or more entities work together towards a shared goal….

Various continuums were studied to use as a gauge on the effectiveness of the collaboration. The team identified a model to provide the “theoretical validity for any instrumentation we chose or developed. The five stages of Hogue’s (1993) Levels of Community Linkage model was chosen as the most relevant framework.”

Based Upon Your Partnership Lists, Which Model Do You See?

… Given the definitions of each level, respondents were asked to what extent they collaborate with each other grant partner. Answer options were on a 0 to 5 scale with 0 indicating “no interaction at all” and 5 indicating the collaboration level using Hogue’s taxonomy. ..

..For the purposes of their paper, the name of each group or organization was been replaced with a generic descriptive name…

Conclusions:

“Our experience with the scale in our local evaluation has been that stakeholders, respondents, district administrators, teachers, principals and grant partners find the information useful and persuasive. Even more, the visual representation method, used as feedback, has resulted in grant partners actually identifying collaboration goals and targets which were not part of the original design. In this context, the scale operates as a formative assessment. In addition, the level of collaboration might well have increased to a small degree because of the interactions and discussions of Levels of Collaboration scores themselves.”

Levels Purpose Structure Process

Networking

* Dialog and common understanding* Clearinghouse for information* Create base of support

•Loose/flexible link* Roles loosely defined* Community action is primary link among members

* Low key leadership* Minimal decision making* Little conflict* Informal communication

Cooperationor Alliance

* Match needs and provide coordination* Limit duplication of services* Ensure tasks are done

•Central body of people as communication hub* Semi-formal links* Roles somewhat defined* Links are advisory* Group leverages/raises money

* Facilitative leaders* Complex decision making* Some conflict* Formal communications within the central group

Coordinationor Partnership

* Share resources to address common issues* Merge resource base to create something new

* Central body of people consists of decision makers* Roles defined* Links formalized* Group develops new resources and joint budget

* Autonomous leadership but focus in on issue* Group decision making in central and subgroups* Communication is frequent and clear

Source: Collaboration Framework- Addressing Community Capacity http://crs.uvm.edu/nnco/collab/framework.html

Levels Purpose Structure Process

Coalition

* Share ideas and be willing to pull resources from existing systems* Develop commitment for a minimum of three years

•All members involved in decision making* Roles and time defined* Links formal with written agreement* Group develops new resources and joint budget

* Shared leadership* Decision making formal with all members* Communication is common and prioritized

Collaboration

* Accomplish shared vision and impact benchmarks* Build interdependent system to address issues and opportunities

* Consensus used in shared decision making* Roles, time and evaluation formalized* Links are formal and written in work assignments

* Leadership high, trust level high, productivity high* Ideas and decisions equally shared* Highly developed communication

Source: Collaboration Framework- Addressing Community Capacity http://crs.uvm.edu/nnco/collab/framework.html

Available Resources from Our Session

• Session PowerPoint and related documents available at:– http://schoolsafetypartners.org/jw

• Email me your request and I can email it to you:– MikeC@QDSCorp.com

Closing Statements

• Importance of:– Planning– Training– Communicating– Partnering

• Now is the time to start• Use a building block approach: planned

incremental development