Emergency Preparedness
Tecknomic LLC specializes in the design, development and delivery an array of emergency preparedness exercises and training. These offerings present the best and most up-to-date courses and designs that will help build an organization's capacity to prepare, respond and recover from both man-made and natural disasters. While our focus has been at the local level in Washington, DC, the District models its directives and protocols after the Department Homeland Security. Therefore, our courses and exercises can be easily adapted and applied to the federal sector and other local jurisdictions.
TRAINING
District Response Plan (DRP) Training
The District Response Plan (DRP) training is intended for all District employees who will be active participants in carrying out actions guided by the DRP. This audience consists of a number of individuals including, but not limited to, agency contingency planners, Emergency Liaison Officers and their alternates, Executive Leadership, federal government partners, and private citizens who assist in disaster response, representing both non-government organizations and private sector partners.
Emergency Liaison Officer Classes: Advanced/Basic
Training classes that include the DRP and its relationship to the FRP, who is in the chain of command and how the information flows from each agency to the active ELO, to the district’s CMT and finally communicated to the city through the Mayor. (Based on the NIMS training module)
Joint Information Center Training
Tecknomic provided training to Public Information Officers and communication employees in the National Capitol Region. This training enhanced the understanding of the roles and responsibilities of the public information officers during emergencies. This involved the facilities where information is coordinated, the preparation of the data into information products, and finally the release, known as Joint Information Centers (JICs). A JIC is a physical location where public affairs professionals from organizations involved in incident management activities can collocate to perform critical emergency information, crisis communications and public-affairs functions.
National Incident Management System (NIMS) Training
Tecknomic in partnership with The October Group researched, developed, crafted and delivered the National Incident Management Systems (NIMS) for DCEMA. The course introduced District employee’s to the intricate details and overarching assumptions of NIMS. To ensure success and ongoing improvement, we had several meetings with the client to upgrade and modify the course materials and curriculum. Each modification was based on input from class participants, instructor experience and client observations. The final delivery included the NIMS Workbook that is also designed to serve as reference material for District staff; NIMS Train-the-Trainer module, which allows DCEMA the capacity of delivering the NIMS course; and, a list of all class participants and their test results. To date, nearly 600 District employees have completed the course and applied for NIMS certification. Overall, the course design and project management expertise have been well received throughout DCEMA.
EXERCISES
We developed a program to educate the community, citizens with special needs, and senior citizens to cope with any and all types of emergencies. The design of the program focused on stimulating the communities toprovide input that created workshops, training materials to educate, document, and assess the D.C. communities’ preparedness to respond to emergencies. This process was duplicated in all (39) neighborhood clusters to improve on the existing Community Emergency Preparedness Plans. Helping District residents to reduce the risk from disaster. Our strong communication efforts within the community built an extensive network including faith-based organizations, volunteer groups, ward leaders and District citizens. We believe in its essence the core to this is building a rapport and relationships, which naturally enhance and improve communication, community planning and meeting coordination.
Transportation Exercise ESF#1
Designed, wrote and delivered a realistic and interactive scenario for the District’s Department of Transportation’s primary and secondary agencies. The goal of the exercise was to assess and evaluate the communication and coordination of resources of ESF 1 and support agencies. In addition the exercise was designed to assess roles and responsibilities during a large scale emergency.
The Latino Outreach Project
The Latino Outreach Program was designed to educate the non-English speaking community of the existing resources that are available to the public during an emergency. We provided project managers, translators and planners that assisted EMA on the location, facilities, vendors and marketing for the event. This effort furthered the existing process of developing Emergency Management materials and methods to reach more of the community as a whole. Outreach Programs for the public and pay close attention to the cultural nuances to our clients’ constituents. We were able to provide DCEMA with Event Coordination.
Project Management
FAC
Tecknomic provides logistic management support services for the Family Assistance Center for their Mobile Solution called “FAC in a BOX”. To prototype a response trailer design to support the FAC Program. This is the first step in creating a number of response trailers to support NCR disaster recovery efforts.
We assist the Office of the Chief Technology Officer Program Manager on setting up and maintaining the FAC equipment. Our project coordinator managed inventory and configured the FAC equipment and trailer in accordance to the FAC Plan. This ensures that the FAC trailer is ready to deploy on a moment’s notice to support disaster recovery efforts in the National Capitol Region NCR.