Year of Resilience 2024
By Linda Crerar
In 2012, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) introduced the Whole Community Emergency Management Strategy to coordinate all levels of government, increase individual preparedness, and engage with members of the as vital partners to strengthen resiliency and security in this country. In January of 2024, FEMA announced the expansion of their efforts to continue building resilient communities. FEMA wants to stop the “cycle of response, recovery, rinse, and repeat”, and thanks to an increased investment of resources this past year, FEMA will be better able to help communities prepare for and mitigate the impacts of disasters and create a more resilient nation.
In June of 2023, the Center’s staff, working with our Advisory Board, produced its FY 24 Work Plan incorporating FEMA’s Whole Community Emergency Management Strategy and Governor Inslee’s Resilience WA plan. This plan included improving social connectedness, increasing integration and involvement in preparedness planning, response, and recovery in all sectors to be communicated to our state agencies, private and non-profit sectors to help communities strengthen support systems, respond effectively, bounce back from adversity and improve social connectedness working with our state’s education and training systems to build a diverse and competitive workforce. Our Center provides statewide leadership which supports diversity and ensures the industry’s academic programs remain cutting-edge. Our goal is to provide effective leadership and coordination that rapidly responds to the interests of educational institutions and workforce training needs public, non-profit, tribal, and business and industry sectors across the state.
After establishing our Center’s planning committee in 2023, headed by its Board’s Co-Chairs, and reviewing FEMA’s National Resilience Guide and our state’s Emergency Managements Department’s (EMD) 2023-2033 Strategic Plan which has adopted a new transformational vision statement of “disaster ready and Resilient WA”, the Board selected Resilience Management as the Center’s new name. The Advisory Board of 35 members representing our public, private, non-profit and tribal sectors wanted our Center’s name to better reflect our vision, mission, and values statements to, “Help state’s Community and Technical Colleges (CTC) prepare a skilled workforce to help maintain our safety, security, and ensure an effective response to all hazards events through education and training initiatives, and build disaster resilience in our communities.” We believe Resilience Management most effectively communicates the importance of the need for our state’s communities to have the ability to prepare, adapt, withstand and recover from all hazards.
The Center believes that the steps taken by our federal and state partners provides a blueprint of actions to take as well as sources that must be secured to build the capacity for our state’s emergency management community to effectively fulfill its mandate of building a disaster ready and resilient Washington. It will require partnerships with state agencies, local and tribal governments, our public colleges, and stakeholders from both the private and non-profit sectors to accomplish many of the goals and objectives outlined in the state’s plan.
In 2023, Emergency Management Department established and hired its first Assistant Director for Resilience who is responsible for managing the Resilience Unit. This position oversees the state’s Disaster Resilience, Mitigation, and Geological Hazards and outreach programs and is responsible for the development and implementation of a multi-year resilience strategy focused on improving the overall disaster resilience of the state. This position provides leadership to staff who manage and administer many programs for statewide for resilience and hazard mitigation. The position also provides the leadership needed for developing our state disaster resilience strategy and assists local agencies in their efforts and partners with business leaders from industries to identify best practices for preparing for, mitigating and responding to risks.
In the Center’s FY 25 Work Plan, we are gathering additional information and curriculum for Resilient Management KSAs from experts from both the public and private sectors to identifying forward thinking practices. We will work with our Communities-of-Practice to build our state and nation’s resilience. We will educate and train our workforce to work across systems and sectors to build a future where the goal is to advance resilience so that all people and communities thrive. Resilience Management requires a focus on sustainability both for community resources and approaches. Communities are dynamic and constantly changing and Resilience Management requires applying systems thinking and approaches. We must improve our understanding of systems and their interdependencies for building capacity and community resilience.
STATE TRAINING CALENDAR Washington State Emergency Management Division: https://reg.abcsignup.com/view/cal1a.aspx?ek=&ref=&aa=&sid1=&sid2=&as=38&wp=127&tz=&ms=&nav=&cc=&cat1=&cat2=&cat3=&aid=WSEMD&rf
EMD’s 2023-2033 Strategic Plan: https://mil.wa.gov/asset/65dfbe4e0c730/EMD33%20Strategic%20Plan.pdf
Guide to All Hazard Emergency Management Career Pathways: https://www.coehsem.com/pathways-programs/