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Preparedness
Preparedness, in the context of crisis management, relates to various activities and precautionary measures to protect a group, an organization, or a society as a whole against a possible crisis. They include, among others, goal setting, plans preparation, simulations and exercises performance by all the relevant stakeholders, target audience training, and evaluation of the whole process. Appropriate preparedness should minimize the damage that may be caused by crises; improve the community, organizational, and interorganizational response to crises; and reduce negative consequences.
There is an important dialectic of the two terms preparedness and vulnerability. While the former describes the degree of readiness in the face of a certain kind of crisis and the measures taken before it happens, the latter relates to the degree of nonreadiness for this kind of situation, which may be aggravated by the failures of the relevant protective systems, socioeconomic factors, and weakness or dysfunction of emergency management authorities. Preparedness and vulnerability thus constitute the two sides of the same coin: when preparedness increases, vulnerability decreases, and vice versa. Appropriate preparedness should deal with the changing patterns of vulnerability in the organization, community, or a society as a whole in order to minimize the negative consequences on individuals’ health and safety as well as damage to community and organizational structures.
Case Study: Crisis Management Preparedness at the Israel Crisis Management Center
The Israel Crisis Management Center (SELAH) is a nonprofit association that assists new immigrants who experience severe crisis or tragedy situations. While a native Israeli may turn to family and friends during an emergency, new immigrants to Israel are often left vulnerable, isolated, and without essential resources at the most difficult and painful of times. Many find themselves faced with new surroundings, lacking the basic familiarities of language, cultural know-how, community ties, or extended family. Responsive to the varied cultures and mores within Israel's immigrant population, in times of crisis SELAH reaches out to immigrants from all countries, including the bereaved; survivors of war and terror attacks and their families; victims of road or work accidents; people displaced following a disaster such as fire, storm, or flood; and those suffering from sudden, serious illness.
SELAH's crisis professionals and trained volunteers, responding throughout the country, go to homes, hospitals, and other scenes of crisis to identify immediate emergency needs. This requires acute listening skills, sensitivity, compassion, and the practical know-how to determine how best to effectively deliver emotional support and essential practical aid. Crisis preparedness at SELAH thus centers on sensitivity training and instruction on accessing agencies, services, professionals, and emergency supplies.
Process of Preparedness
The process of preparedness includes both internal and external dimensions. The external dimension includes establishment and maintenance of working relationships with all the relevant governmental agencies (such as the Ministry of Absorption, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Welfare, hospitals, municipalities, etc.) and various social organizations that deal with crisis-related issues. The internal dimension of preparedness refers to the ongoing process of peer learning, supervision and instruction, common sharing of best practices across the organization, fund-raising methods to be able to address crisis-related needs of the target populations, identification of lessons learned from each crisis intervention carried out by SELAH, and more.
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- Agencies, United Nations
- Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery, UN (UNDP/BCPR)
- Environment Programme, UN (UNEP)
- Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
- International Children's Fund, UN (UNICEF)
- International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, UN (UNISDR)
- Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute, UN (UNICRI)
- Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), UN
- World Health Organization (WHO), UN
- Agencies, U.S.
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
- Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
- Emergency Management Agencies, City and County
- Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
- Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
- State Emergency Management Agencies
- U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)
- Categories of Crises: Engineering and Technological
- Air Traffic Control
- Air Travel
- Biological Engineering Risk
- Bridges
- Buildings
- Chemical Risk
- Cyber Crime
- Cyber Security
- Cyber Warfare
- Dams, Levees, and Seawalls
- Electronics Waste
- Environmental Contamination
- Hazardous Materials
- Hazardous Waste Disposal
- Improvised Explosive Devices
- Manufacturing Risks
- Marine Shipping
- Marine Travel
- Mining
- Nanotechnology
- Nuclear Risks
- Ozone Layer Depletion
- Petrochemical Risk
- Sewage Spill
- Smog
- Spaceflight
- Transportation Systems, Vulnerability
- Y2K Bug
- Categories of Crises: Financial and Business
- Categories of Crises: Natural Disasters
- Categories of Crises: Politics, International Relations, and Civil Violence
- Arms Control
- Biological Weapons
- Border Disputes
- Cabinet Office, UK
- Chemical Weapons
- Civil War
- Ethnic Cleansing
- Failed States
- Foreign Policy Crises
- Hijackings
- Hostage Taking and Negotiation
- Human Trafficking
- Interstate War
- Land Mines
- Missiles
- Nuclear and Radiological Weapons
- Nuclear Proliferation
- Peacekeeping
- Protest
- Religious Violence
- Revolution
- Riots
- Suicide Bombings
- Terrorism
- Transportation Security
- War Crimes
- Weapons Trafficking
- Categories of Crises: Population and Demographics
- Disaster Information Databases
- Nongovernmental Organizations
- Risk Management Standards
- Theory, Issues, and Techniques: Civil
- Agency Notification and Mobilization
- Civil Protection
- Civilian Protection, Post-Conflict
- Contingency Planning
- Continuity of Government
- Crisis Information Management Systems
- Debris Management
- Decision Making
- Decision Support Tools
- Disaster Assessment
- Disaster Declaration
- Disaster Risk Reduction
- Documentation
- Emergency Alert Systems
- Emergency Management System
- Emergency Manager
- Emergency Support Functions
- Financial Risk Management in Higher Education
- Hazard Mitigation
- Incident Action Plans
- National Incident Management System (NIMS)
- National Preparedness Goal
- National Response Framework
- Operational Plans
- Operational Readiness
- Perimeter Control
- Policy Setting
- Political and Organizational Leadership
- Preparedness
- Prevention
- Protection
- Search and Rescue
- Situational Analysis
- Stafford Act
- Sustainability
- Threat Detection
- Theory, Issues, and Techniques: Corporate
- Alternate Site, Corporate
- Auditing
- Backup Facility
- Backup Media
- Backup Strategy
- Business Continuity Management
- Business Continuity Planning
- Business Continuity Planning Life Cycle
- Business Impact Analysis
- Business Resumption Planning
- Classification of Systems
- Cluster
- Cold Site
- Continual Improvement
- Critical Applications
- Critical Business Functions
- Criticality Assessment
- Data Mirroring
- Data Recovery
- Dedicated Site
- Disaster Declaration Officer
- Disaster Recovery
- Disaster Recovery Life Cycle
- Disaster Recovery Plan Test Cycle
- Downtime
- Electronic Vaulting
- Failover
- Fink's Crisis Life Cycle
- Impact Analysis
- Incident Management
- Incident Response
- Insurance
- Journaling
- Losses, Quantitative Versus Qualitative
- Maximum Acceptable Outage
- Minimum Business Continuity Objective
- Mirroring
- Mitroff's Five Stages of Crisis Management
- Mobile Recovery Site
- Reciprocal Agreement
- Reciprocal Site
- Recovery Time Objective
- Reinsurance
- Reputational Risk
- Response Team
- Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threat (SWOT) Analysis
- Supply Chain
- Vital Records
- Warm Site
- Theory, Issues, and Techniques: General
- All-Hazards
- Cascading Crisis
- Catastrophe, Definition of
- Climate Change Adaptation
- Collaboration
- Command and Control
- Contingent Coordination
- Coordination
- Coping Capacity and Response Capability
- Credibility
- Crisis Communications
- Crisis Management, Emerging Trends in
- Crisis Simulations
- Crisis, Definition of
- Critical Infrastructure
- Damage Assessment
- Damage Containment
- Debriefing
- Decision Making Under Stress
- Disaster Drills
- Disaster, Definition of
- Disruption of Organizations
- Early Warning Systems
- Electronic Media
- Emergency Management, Principles of
- Emergency Medical Care
- Emergency Operations Center
- Emergency Public Information
- Emergency Responders
- Emergency, Definition of
- Evacuation
- Exercises
- Fusion Center
- Hazard Vulnerability Analysis
- Hazard, Definition of
- Historical Analogies, Use of
- Impact, Definition of
- Improvising
- Incidents Versus Crises
- Interdependence
- Interoperability
- Legal Liability
- Logistics
- Mass Care
- Mass Fatality Management
- Mass Media
- Mental Models
- Methods, Qualitative
- Methods, Quantitative
- Multiple Disaster Problem
- News Media
- Nongovernmental Organizations
- Nonlinearity
- Panic, Nature and Conditions of
- Pre-Crisis Training and Planning
- Pre-Impact Planning Process
- Public Awareness and Education
- Public Image
- Public Relations
- Recovery
- Residual Risk
- Resiliency
- Resource Management
- Response
- Risk Analysis
- Risk Assessment
- Risk Treatment
- Routine Emergencies Versus True Crises
- Safety Policies
- Scapegoating
- Scenario Planning
- Shelter-in-Place
- Simulations
- Social Media
- Spokesperson, Designating and Utilizing
- Stakeholders
- Strategic Plans
- Training
- Trauma
- Trigger Events
- Uncertainty
- Volunteer Coordination
- Vulnerability
- Warning
- Whistle Blowers
- Worker Error
- Theory, Issues, and Techniques: Public Health
- Cholera
- Drug Resistance
- Ebola Virus
- Emergency Medicine
- Epidemics
- Health and Medical Response Scenarios
- HIV/AIDS Epidemic
- Hospital Emergency Room
- Infectious Disease
- Infestations, Parasite
- Influenza
- Living Modified Organisms
- Malaria
- Measles
- Mental Illness
- Noncommunicable Diseases
- Pandemics
- Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
- Public Health Surveillance
- Public Safety Canada
- Quarantine
- Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)
- Smallpox
- Social Distancing
- Surge Capacity, Hospitals
- Triage
- Tuberculosis
- Vaccinations
- Theory, Issues, and Techniques: Social Sciences
- Blame, Politics of
- Bounded Rationality
- Bureaucracy
- Chaos Theory
- Cognitive Novelty, Engaging in
- Cosmology Episode
- Coupling
- Decision Making, Theories of
- Decision Stream
- Groupthink
- High Reliability Organization Theory
- Information Asymmetry
- Information Vacuums
- Normal Accident Theory
- Normalization of Deviance
- Organizational Failure
- Paradigm Blindness
- Practical Drift
- Risk Society
- Structural Secrecy
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