Training Program Offers Opportunities to Review and Assess Emergency Management Procedures

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is making available to NAICU members the ability to participate in a virtual training program to help colleges and universities in emergency preparedness and response planning.

In 2012, the Emergency Management Institute (EMI), which is part of the National Emergency Training Center, launched the Virtual Table Top Exercise (VTTX) program to bring together key personnel from the emergency management community to review a pre-packaged set of training exercises with organizations, institutions, and associations. The training scenarios cover situations such as an active shooter, floods, special events, cyber threats, and public health-related events such as an Ebola or pandemic flu outbreak.

EMI has opened this training opportunity to colleges and universities and invites NAICU members to participate. Each training course is limited to 10-15 participants who convene remotely for a four-hour period to discuss a simulated disaster scenario. The discussion is private within each location, allowing for an earnest assessment of policies and procedures by emergency management experts. However, participating institutions are connected so each might benefit from how the others assess current plans, policies, and procedures, while at the same time, provide their own perspective and practices facing a similar situation.

Campuses may find participating in the exercise of value for a number of reasons. Of particular interest is the variety of the participants in any one scenario. For example, your campus personnel may “run” their training exercises with staff from professional sports teams, major city police departments, Native American tribal leaders, or federal, state and local agencies.

For additional information, including the FY 2015 list of dates and training scenarios, please click here. If your institution is interested in participating, please contact Douglas Kahn at Douglas.Kahn@fema.dhs.gov or 301-447-7645.

For more information, please contact:
Bo Newsome