Strategizing Emergency Management Programs - Principles of Emergency Management - page 77

requirements placed upon state and local governments typically require many
hours of work in order to be fully compliant. In addition, there is a continual
refinement of each of the standards in order to clarify the “spirit and intent” of
each requirement. Because of these factors, full implementation of the NIMS at the
federal, state, and local levels of government is a phased process, and is expected to
take several more years for all requirements to be fully mandated.
There has been some debate regarding the life expectancy of the NIMS require-
ments. However, these requirements and standards should still be considered as the
Emergency Management professional constructs their program strategy. This will
assist in long-term NIMS compliance for the organization.
Emergency Management Accreditation Program
The Emergency Management Accreditation Program (EMAP) is a voluntary, non-
governmental process of self-assessment, documentation, and independent review
designed to evaluate, enhance, and recognize quality in emergency management
programs. The accreditation process is intended to improve emergency manage-
ment program capabilities and increase professionalism at the federal, state, and
local levels of government, thus benefiting the communities that these programs
serve. This process has been used internationally, and is also being used at colleges
and universities. The goal of the accreditation is to evaluate an emergency man-
agement program's organization, resources, plans, and capabilities against current
standards to increase effectiveness in protecting the lives and properties of residents.
The EMAP has been designed to facilitate compliance with a set of standards
called the “EMAP Standard.” The EMAP Standard is now a stand-alone stan-
dard. he EMAP Standard was built upon the NFPA 1600 Standard on Disaster/
Emergency Management and Business Continuity Programs adopted by the National
Fire Protection Association (NFPA). The NFPA 1600 earlier adopted a portion of
its program element framework from the Capability Assessment for Readiness cre-
ated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
he EMAP Standard contains 64 standards that are intended to indicate the
components that a quality emergency management program should have in place.
These standards are often difficult to meet and prove to be challenging for most
emergency management agencies. The standards describe “what” a program should
accomplish, but not necessarily “how” compliance with a standard should be
achieved. This provides flexibility to the local governments in developing emer-
gency management programs based around the EMAP Standard .
Although meeting this set of standards is voluntary, it provides a good “bar” or
quality level for the Emergency Management professional to strive for. Therefore,
strong consideration should be given to using this standard when developing an
Emergency Management program strategy.
The standards mentioned above are a few examples that Emergency Management
professionals must consider during the development of their overall strategy. The