COMMUNITY PREPAREDNESS PROGRAM GUIDEmission.sfgov.org/OCA_BID_ATTACHMENTS/FA24151.pdfprograms. The...

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COMMUNITY PREPAREDNESS PROGRAM GUIDE

Super Urban Area Security Initiative (SUASI) Community Preparedness Assessment

Guidance Document

Highlights

March 2008

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COMMUNITY PREPAREDNESS ASSESSMENT PROJECT

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Table of Contents

1. PROJECT OVERVIEW ............................................................................................................. 1

2. PURPOSE OF HIGHLIGHTS REPORT ...................................................................................... 2

3. RESEARCH APPROACH .......................................................................................................... 2 International/National Level ............................................................................................................................... 2 Local Level ............................................................................................................................................................ 3

4. SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS ...................................................................................... 4 International/National Level—Recommendations ........................................................................................... 4 Local Level—Findings and Recommendations ................................................................................................. 6

5. NEXT STEPS ........................................................................................................................ 20

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1. Project Overview The Bay Area Super Urban Area Security Initiative (SUASI) Citizen Preparedness Project funds regional citizen preparedness projects across the 10 Bay Area SUASI counties. It does this by using two sources of funding to distribute grants to operational areas for citizen preparedness programs. These programs range from education and media campaigns to training, certification, and volunteer coordination.

In 2007–2008, SUASI provided funding to ICF International and CirclePoint (ICF/CirclePoint Team) to lead an assessment of preparedness programs. The ICF/CirclePoint Team conducted an assessment of programs implemented internationally and nationally, as well as throughout the Bay Area’s 10 SUASI counties. The assessment includes identification of effective program characteristics and approaches that can be replicated for implementation in future Bay Area programs. The following objectives guided the Community1 Preparedness Assessment Project:

� Assess public education campaigns to identify the best practices of social marketing programs as they relate to community preparedness.

� Determine national best practices for citizen preparedness programs.

� Assess the effectiveness of the various characteristics of citizen preparedness programs available in the San Francisco Bay Area.

� Based on the identification of international, national, and local best practices and the results of a focus group assessment, develop recommendations for new or improved citizen preparedness programs that can be used in all 10 SUASI counties in the Bay Area.

Project Team and Partners

Throughout the eight-month Community Preparedness Assessment Project, The ICF/CirclePoint Team worked closely and consistently with the following partners:

� Citizen Preparedness Project Managers

� Citizen Preparedness Workgroup

� Citizen Preparedness Steering Committee

� Regional Planners

1 The term “citizen,” originally included in the title of the SUASI research project, was debated in the early phases of the research project by the Citizen Preparedness Workgroup and Steering Committee. Consequently, the ICF/CirclePoint Team replaced the usage of “citizen” with “community” (as demonstrated in the title of this report) due to the politically-charged nature of the word, as well as the reality that many of the individuals who are most vulnerable to disasters, and are most overlooked by preparedness programs outreach, are not citizens. Preparedness programs are centered on preparing all individuals living in the Bay Area regardless of citizenship.

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What Is an In-Depth Interview?

A one-on-one research interview with questions designed to encourage respondents to answer at length and freely express their opinions, ideas, feelings, thoughts, and attitudes.

The objective is to go beyond the superficial and probe into the

interviewee’s subject matter insights.

2. Purpose of Highlights Report The Highlights Report summarizes the work of the ICF/CirclePoint Team over the past eight months and is intended for use by SUASI Management and other implementers of local preparedness programs. The Highlights report includes findings at the international, national, and local (Bay Area) levels, and presents the Team’s recommendations based on these findings in order to support the development of future preparedness programs across the Bay Area’s 10 SUASI counties.

The Complete Report, referred to as the Community Preparedness Program Guide, and the Best Practices from National and International Perspectives, can be used as a reference for more in-depth analysis on the key strategic insights presented in the Highlights Report. All reports are available for download from the Bay Area SUASI Web site: http://www.bayareasuasi.org/.2

3. Research Approach

International/National Level

At the international/national research level, the Team conducted an extensive literature review and 13 in-depth interviews (10 formal and 3 informal) with subject matter experts, field practitioners, and national policy experts. In addition, the Team conducted informal e-mail interviews on international programs with 11 subject matter experts from around the world.

The Team reviewed the literature on preparedness, focusing on those programs and activities occurring geographically outside of the 10 Bay Area SUASI counties. Several sources were used in the search, resulting in approximately 470 references. The Team then examined each article from this pool of references and identified approximately 220 that could be categorized as referring to individual, family, community, or general preparedness programs. The results of this initial taxonomy indicated the relative distribution of the popular, academic, and government-issued references in the broad fields of preparedness and emergency management. The reference

list (267) comprised eight different document types. More than 75 percent of the documents are research references or guides on how to set up and/or maintain various types of preparedness programs. As a final step, the Team examined 267 references for explicit descriptions of best practices (or recommended practices, or exemplary or good practices) where the practices involved actual implementation and/or experience in the field.

2 The Bay Area SUASI Web site provides information on the regional approach being undertaken to improve the capacity to prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from terrorist incidents or related catastrophic events by providing planning, training, equipment, and exercises to the SUASI region. The site can be accessed at http://www.bayareasuasi.org.

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What Is a Focus Group?

A small group selected from a wide population and sampled, as by open discussion, for its members' opinions about or emotional response to a

particular subject or initiative.

Local Level

At the local level, the Team acquired a wealth of information and knowledge specific to the 10 Bay Area SUASI counties. The Team collected key insights from 12 in-depth interviews conducted with preparedness program implementers and community leaders involved in preparedness initiatives. The Team also developed an online survey aimed at the same type of respondents, resulting in 141 survey participants. The interviews and the online survey were designed to gather information on community preparedness initiatives, including performance measurements used, general outreach methods, and barriers to program participation, as well as information related to characteristics of populations being served by preparedness programs.

The ICF/CirclePoint Team also coordinated and facilitated 13 focus groups: one in each of the 10 SUASI Bay Area counties, and 3 additional groups. While the initial 10 focus groups were open to the general public, the latter 3 sought input from specific populations, including the Young and Urban Demographic, Refugee and Immigrant Caseworkers, and the monolingual Spanish speaking community. Focus groups captured perceptions and insights about what makes certain preparedness programs effective from the various perspectives of community members.

With input from the Steering Committee, the Workgroup, in-depth interview candidates, and survey responses, over 261 preparedness programs from across the 10 counties were identified. Preliminary information about the selected programs was obtained to provide background that could be shared with focus group participants.

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Leadership

Members of the Senior Management Team with the depth and breadth of knowledge in the particular areas of work relevant to the success of that program, with complementary work history and expertise.

Examples include the Director, Managing Director, Board of Directors, Senior

Advisers, among others.

4. Summary of Recommendations

International/National Level—Recommendations

The following recommendations stem directly from the Team’s research and assessment of international and national preparedness program attributes (see the accompanying report, Best Practices from National and International Perspectives, for the complete international/national program assessment and findings). The following recommendations pose a “Call to Action” to program leaders and practitioners, translating knowledge garnered from international and national research into simple action steps. The actionable recommendations that follow can help the Bay Area create, maintain, and grow community preparedness programs that are effective, inclusive, and engaging.

Leadership

� Appoint a Disaster-Experienced Manager: The manager/director of the citizen preparedness program should be able to speak from personal experience in disaster or disaster response.

� Lead with Passion: Appoint a director who is passionate about his or her community, disaster/safety issues, and loss reduction.

� Build on Volunteer Management Expertise: Appoint a manager/management leader with solid knowledge, skills, and experience in volunteer recruitment, management, and training.

� Walk Your Talk: Reflect the at-risk population in the makeup of your leaders.

Partnerships

� Maintain an Integrated Vision: Manage through cross-sectored, cross-disciplinary partnerships.

� Enlist Community Champions: Use community and faith-based organizations as organizational messengers to approach, engage, and monitor target populations.

� Let the People Speak—Never Decide for Them

Strategic Approach

� Prioritize Action and Implementation: Focus on preparatory action, including long-term risk reduction (mitigation) and short-term event response.

� Build Integrated Programming: Use a multifaceted approach and include neighborhood-wide, community-based preparedness, media outreach campaigns, and social networks.

Partnerships

Individuals and organizations that are engaged to support the emergency management program together, and further its activities at all stages, from planning to

implementation.

Strategic Approach

An approach that incorporates long-term goals and objectives and conducts a series of tactical activities intended to achieve those goals and objectives.

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� Emphasize Capacity-Building and Empowerment: Build capacity for control in disaster events and clearly understood actionable preparedness steps.

� Target Specific Risk: Include multi-hazards preparedness content to encourage people to prepare for “life events.”

Innovative Technologies

� Map Hazards and Risks: Use Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and other visual data display methods for education and planning.

� Demonstrate: Use strategically located local demonstration projects.

� Use Age-Appropriate Communication Technologies: Use a variety of media information technologies to reach the wide range of age and culturally diverse population segments.

Expand Message Platform

� Address Economic Issues: Address preparing for disaster-related financial impacts, interruption of livelihood, and job retention.

� Include Mitigation: Include action steps to protect oneself, one’s residence, its contents, and the environment.

� Address Recovery: Expand program content to address short- and long-term recovery.

� Address Pet Animals: Partnering with animal disaster specialists, expand program to include thorough preparedness content on pet animals in all trainings, curriculum materials, and marketing outreach.

Risk Levels

� Verify Definitions: Work with members of the target population to determine their levels of acceptable risk.

� Verify Vulnerable Populations: Have members of the target population assess who is most vulnerable and why.

Sustainability

� Rally Political Support

� Keep Participants Active

� Increase Trainee Value: Provide interns and all program trainees with career or personal value opportunities to keep them interested and actively involved.

Innovative Technologies

New and creative methods, machines, computers, software, communication devices, and processes to address citizen preparedness.

Risk Levels

A level of uncertainty where some of the possibilities involve a loss, catastrophe, or other undesirable outcome. The “level” of

risk is related to the degree of loss.

Sustainability

A characteristic of a process or activity that can be maintained at a certain level over the long term.

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Measurements

� Evaluate: Build uncomplicated methods for evaluating how your efforts are being received, the information being understood, and actions being taken.

� Bring in Expertise: Use local expertise.

Social Marketing

� Expand Community Definitions: Expand beyond geographical boundaries to define your community at-risk and target population.

� Integrate: Link preparedness efforts to credible, existing programs.

Communications Outreach

� Do Not Use “One Size Fits All” Approaches—They Don’t Work

� Utilize Innovative, Multi-Pronged Outreach Campaigns

Local Level—Findings and Recommendations

The following recommendations stem directly from the Team’s research and assessment of community preparedness programs implemented throughout the Bay Area’s 10 SUASI counties. The actionable recommendations that follow can assist the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management create, maintain, and grow community preparedness programs that are effective, inclusive, and engaging.

Included below is a summary of key findings from local research which informed the Team’s development of the following four key recommendations and their associated sub-recommendations. The ICF/CirclePoint Team found that local research findings were largely consistent with the Team’s research findings at the international and national levels (see the accompanying report, Best Practices from National and International Perspectives for complete findings).

Recommendation 1: Link Programs with Target Audiences

Overview: Linking Specific Needs with Specific Approaches

Preparedness programs must be developed to clearly link their community engagement approaches to the specific needs and characteristics of the populations or groups they are targeting. By better understanding their audiences, program managers can develop unique preparedness approaches that are more relevant—and effective—to respective community needs. This approach will minimize the possible disconnects between the approach for meeting the goals of the programs and the particular needs, vulnerabilities, and strengths of the target population(s). Generally, assessment participants reported that programs aimed at covering all populations with one approach are often ineffective, as “one size (or approach) does not fit all.”

Social Marketing

The application of marketing along with other concepts and techniques to achieve

behavior change for a social good.

Communications Outreach

Strategies, tactics, and activities involved in getting a desired message to an intended audience.

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Research Context: Vast Bay Area Diversity

The Bay Area’s cultural, geographic, and political landscape is extremely diverse, not only from one county to another, but also within neighborhoods, family units, and cultural enclaves.

Purpose of Recommendation: To Ensure Specific Programmatic and Organizational Direction

This recommendation aims to ensure strong compatibility between the goals of the organization, the approach of the program to promote meeting the goal of preparedness, and the target population.

Sub-Recommendations and Findings: Program

1. Require Specific Program Goals: When given a choice of 10 program objectives, most survey3 respondents chose some combination of program objectives. Forty percent of respondents identified all four of the most cited objectives (training, education, community outreach and organizing, and volunteer coordination) as objectives of their preparedness program(s). (Survey)

2. Develop or Adopt a Consistent Preparedness Protocol: Allow for a variety of strategies and messages that take a community’s unique circumstances into account, but develop or adopt a consistent preparedness protocol so contradictions from program to program are minimized. (IDI)

3. Differentiate Type(s) of Preparedness: Depending on demographics, some believe that being prepared is tangible, such as having shoes under the bed or having an emergency kit, while others believe it is a state of mind. For instance, focus group participants reported a difference between being physically prepared and psychologically prepared. Other types of preparedness could include mental, technical/technological, social, and financial. A program should recognize which preparedness is most important and meaningful to its constituents and ensure it is delivered. (Focus Groups)

4. Encourage a Range of Preparedness Opportunities: A wide range and scale of preparedness opportunities should be available to communities, from training to education materials, applying to situations from personal emergencies to large-scale disasters. (IDI)

5. Allow for Varying Time Commitment Levels: Programs requiring shorter time commitments can be as effective as lengthier programs, but different program lengths are necessary to appeal to different constituent groups. (IDI)

6. Seek Cost-Effective Opportunities: To overcome economic barriers, encourage preparedness activities that require limited or no funding, such as creating a family communication plan or using a water heater for water in an emergency. Continuously seek to create services and trainings that do not necessarily require a monetary investment from participants. (IDI)

7. Consider the Importance of Psychological Preparedness: Often discounted, psychological preparation activities can also be effective and include concepts of how to be emotionally resilient, things one can do to keep his/her community whole, the types of words or phrases to utilize, stress management, etc. (IDI)

8. Know Your Constituents: Past experience in a disaster by individuals or communities was reported as either a potential catalyst OR a dampener of future preparedness efforts. Some recognized the

3 The ICF/CirclePoint SUASI Emergency Preparedness Survey listed the following 10 program approaches that local practitioners could choose from for meeting the goals of their program: Education, Community Outreach/Awareness, Media Awareness Campaigns, Media Education Campaigns, Training, Certification, First Response Coordination, Volunteer Coordination, Plan Development, and Grant Management.

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extent of disaster impact and vowed to be prepared the next time. At the same time, those who survived relatively unscathed “gained a sense of invincibility that inhibits their preparedness efforts.” Programs should understand whether, and how, such experiences of past disasters affect their constituents and create strategies to utilize or overcome these feelings. (Focus Groups)

9. Educate on Collective Disaster History: Groups reported a lack of collective memory of disasters experienced in the Bay Area. People forget the impact of an emergency over time, or a new generation has no way of recalling the impact of, and response to, a disaster. A program should know whether this is a factor for its audience and develop approaches to overcome this. (Focus Groups)

10. Plan for Specific Population Needs and Barriers: Participants stressed that different groups have different barriers to preparedness and planning efforts, and programs must take these into account. The disabilities community has physical and economic barriers, while the elderly community is often less mobile and consequently unable to attend trainings. A monolingual immigrant community is generally lower income, less educated, and likely to distrust government. Use different forms and functions in preparedness trainings for different populations. (Focus Groups)

11. Investigate Preparedness in Unexplored Populations: Every county in the Bay Area has a main jail along with several auxiliary detention facilities. Marin County and Solano County have large prison populations that remain highly underrepresented in community-wide preparedness efforts. Participants expressed concern for the lives of the individuals within the walls, but also for the danger inherent in potential inmate escapes during a disaster. (Focus Groups)

Sub-Recommendations and Findings: Organization

1. Ensure Goals Are Realistic: Preparedness programs must demonstrate an understanding of the legislative, policy, and financial constraints, for instance, that affect the ability of their target audiences to prepare. An emergency medication supply might be impossible to store due to legal or insurance policy constraints on the frequency of prescription filling. (IDI)

2. Engage Community Leaders: Preparedness efforts are bolstered by individuals who are trusted by the community, know the community’s priorities, and can ingrain preparedness into an organization or community’s culture through their own stature and buy-in. (IDI)

3. Employ All Life Experience of Organizations’ Staff Members: Three-quarters of the respondents have lived in the Bay Area for more than 15 years, and half have worked in their professions for the same amount of time. The amount of time working directly with preparedness declined dramatically, however, with just over half (52 percent) working in preparedness for 5 years or less. (Survey)

Sub-Recommendations and Findings: Relationships

1. Build Rapport: For a variety of reasons and experiences, marginalized or demographically divided communities may distrust or fear government agencies. To combat this, ensure organizations targeting these populations understand this dynamic and are explicit in their methods for establishing trust with their targeted audience. (IDI) (Focus Groups)

2. Recognize Cultural Nuances to Preparedness: Cultural responses of immigrants to a disaster, ingrained by past experiences in the home country, have heavy implications for the group’s perception of, and reaction to, a disaster. During the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, for instance, focus group participants reported that many in the Mexican immigrant community ran out from their buildings, refused to stay in shelters, and chose to stay in open parks. It came to be

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understood that the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, where many buildings fell as a result of poor building codes and the age of buildings, impacted the behavior in 1989. (IDI) (Focus Group)

3. Develop and Augment Constituent Networks: Encourage preparedness activities that help develop personal networks of peers and allow participants to share personal experiences. Also, recognize and use existing cohort groups instead of imposing arbitrary networks, when available. (IDI) (Focus Groups)

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Possible RFP Questions

Organizational Capacity

� What is the organization’s background and mission? � How long has the organization been engaged in disaster preparedness efforts? � How long has the specific preparedness program been in operation? � Can this program or elements of it be tailored to its target audience? Please explain how. � How do the staff composition and skill sets reflect the needs of the target audience? � Who will be responsible for implementing the disaster preparedness program?

Program Basics

� In one or two sentences, what are the goals of the organization’s preparedness program? � How did you identify the need within the community for this preparedness program? � How long do you expect the program to operate? � What program elements can be tailored for different communities and different languages? What elements can be scaled for a broader audience?

Constituents/Program Audience

� What are the defining characteristics of your target audience/constituents? Please list any defining or highly relevant attributes in areas such as (but not limited to) geography, language, income, culture, or mental or physical capabilities.

� How will these factors influence your constituents’ reactions in a disaster? � What are your constituents’ key concerns, specific needs, and primary disaster vulnerabilities? How does your approach specifically respond to these?

� What factors affect your constituents’ ability or willingness to participate in preparedness programs? � What is the relationship between the constituents you currently serve and your preparedness project’s target population?

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Recommendation 2: Develop a Tailored Outreach and Communications Plan

Overview: Tailor Outreach and Communications Activities

Develop a concise outreach and communications plan tailored to the program’s approach and audience. Utilize proven communications strategies, methods, and messages while encouraging innovative techniques for engaging hard-to-reach, highly vulnerable communities. A concise communications plan that is responsive to the requests of the Bay Area SUASI guidelines, if any, will help maintain or build consistency with messaging throughout the Bay Area while ensuring information is conveyed in a simple manner.

Research Context: Eager but Uninformed Population

Assessment participants reported an inclination—and even eagerness—to participate in preparedness activities, but many are simply unaware of available options. Preparedness programs suffer low capture and retention rates because they have an untargeted approach to reach those who may not already be actively involved in preparedness activities. As such, these programs tend to only attract a segment of the population already engaged in preparedness.

Purpose of Recommendation: Increase Awareness of and Participation in Community Preparedness Programs

This recommendation aims to increase the efficacy of outreach efforts—and by extension, participation—by requiring applicants to delineate their approaches by discussing existing resources, innovative techniques, needs of the program and target audience, and messaging, among others.

Sub-Recommendations and Findings: Method

1. Define Key Information Points: Although these exist, assessment participants reported a lack of knowledge of a single source that delivers instructions and information before, during, and after an event. This ambiguity can lead to misinformation since messages could be coming from multiple agencies and/or individuals; such channels and sources of information should be clarified. (IDI) (Focus Groups)

2. Create an Authoritative Repository of Information: Community advocates reported on the lack of a centralized repository of Bay Area preparedness information where they can gather geographic resources, ideas on messaging, or general information. (Focus Groups)

3. Convey Messages Through Credible and Trusted Channels: Deliver messages to marginalized or demographically divided communities from the people of trust. Use personal follow-up by a trusted source to maintain engagement. (IDI)

4. Piggyback on Existing Venues: Target marginalized or demographically divided communities through classes and activities that already exist through their service providers. English as a Second Language (ESL) classes, for instance, consistently receive new students, presenting an additional opportunity to promote disaster preparedness to this community. (IDI) (Focus Groups)

5. Cover the Basics: Ensure consumers’ knowledge of the basic things they should do during a disaster, how to communicate effectively, and their communication options after a disaster.

6. Build Gradual Preparedness: Promote/deliver basic mitigation messages, such as how to prepare your surroundings (securing bookshelves, pictures not hanging over beds, etc.), then transition to preparedness practices such as creating/buying and maintaining disaster kits.

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7. Target Major Language Groups: The vast majority of programs report English as the predominant language of their constituents and a majority also serve Spanish speakers. Chinese, Vietnamese, Tagalog, and Russian are also represented, matching the five most spoken language groups in the Bay Area in that they are spoken by more than 1 percent of the population in any of the counties. Due to varying cultural expectations and experiences, different language groups may need not only a different format from which to convey information but also different information content and psycho-social messaging style.

8. Emphasize Word-of-Mouth: When questioned about methods for reaching their constituents, most respondents reported word-of-mouth was most effective, followed by community organizations and then schools and faith-based organizations. (Survey)

9. Search for Innovative Marketing Mechanisms: Respondents considered Internet ads largely ineffective, as well as email/listserv messages, flyers, and TV programs. (Survey)

10. Publicize New Activities and New Incentives: Some focus group respondents reported they would not participate in training because they do not think they can learn anything more than what they already know or could learn from the Internet. (Focus Groups)

Sub-Recommendations and Findings: Messaging4

1. Paint Preparedness as Civic Engagement: Successful community engagement is based on the desire to “do the right thing,” taking responsibility for one’s own community, and a drive for public service—not on payment or recognition. “When others see one doing it just because it needs to be done, then they will do it.” (IDI)

2. Remove Fear From the Message: Post-9/11 preparedness messages are fear-based, which eclipses the positive attributes of preparedness such as empowerment, community enrichment, leadership, communications skills, and post-disaster comfort. (IDI)

3. Stress Simplicity: Deliver the message that does not take long to be prepared. Emphasize the importance of knowing how to be prepared through simple, clearly defined, yet intuitively understandable ways. Materials and activities should be written at grade school language level, and should be graphic-rich and simple. (IDI)

4. Focus on Comfort Instead of Survival: Most people are expecting to survive in a major disaster, so survival should not be the primary focus. Instead, preparedness messages should ask individuals to consider whether they want to survive in comfort or discomfort (fresh water vs. toilet water, edible food vs. emergency bars, etc.) Also, having certain information (e.g. friends and family contact info) or entertainment supplies (cards, radio) could make a big quality-of-life difference after a major event.

4 The research findings of Dr. Dennis Mileti, Linda Bourque, Megumi Kano, and Michele Wood, as articulated in their presentation “Changing Disaster Preparedness Behavior,” were used as a reference in the development of Recommendation 2 and served as a guidance framework in the analysis of the data supporting this recommendation. Of particular significance to this recommendation with regard to approaches in creating messages was the “milling” concept; tailoring for diverse groups; developing believable and understandable messages; use of consistent messages; message delivery over diverse channels; ongoing coordinated communication stream; shaping risk perceptions for public action; facilitating and targeting “milling”; engaging in support actions; and evaluation of results to make appropriate changes.

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5. Consider Branding Elements of Preparedness: Though considerably problematic to entirely agree on specific messages and/or strategies, it was reported that the preparedness movement can benefit by coalescing around a brand name and product that includes consistent messages, seals of approval, universal symbols, and incentives. (Focus Groups)

Sub-Recommendations and Findings: Audience

1. Engage the Economically Vulnerable: Just under half of the respondents reported serving all economic and household categories, while others targeted one or a combination of populations. Those organizations that served economically disadvantaged populations reported lower activity by this population (11 percent) than the economically stable and general populations (30 percent and 41 percent). (Survey)

2. Know Participant Characteristics: Individuals and families (48 percent and 59 percent) made up a greater proportion of active participants than they did organization constituents (42 percent and 53 percent), a trend that was reversed for special needs populations or students (from 34 percent and 6 percent served to 26 percent and 2 percent active). (Survey)

3. Understand Competing Priorities: Being “prepared” is not a priority given day-to-day pressing needs and issues such as crime. There are perceptions that preparation will take a long time and a lot of money. (Focus Groups)

4. Motivate the Community: When looking further into the reasons for lack of engagement in preparedness programs, apathy leads as the most significant barrier. (Survey)

Sub-Recommendations and Findings: Tools and Techniques

1. Emulate Successful Communication Strategies: Mimic successful approaches taken to motivate people to change behavior, such as national antismoking campaigns. (IDI) (Tipping Point)

2. Emphasize the Role of Children: Especially in non-English speaking communities, children have already undergone “parentification,” whereby parents’ language barriers force children into an adult role as the primary source of information for a household. Outreach models can place an emphasis on children as providers of education. (IDI) (Focus Groups)

3. Outreach Proactively: Engage constituents proactively wherever possible. Social service providers for seniors, for instance, reported a need for continued activities for elders and a willingness to coordinate preparedness trainings. Other types of proactive outreach opportunities can be community events, such as block parties, church carnivals, and street festivals. (IDI) (Focus Groups)

4. Ensure a Quick Return on Preparedness Investment: Emphasize that all preparedness activities and trainings can have an immediate, tangible benefit. In receiving emergency small whistles and flashlights for key chains during a training, participants instantly take a tangible step toward preparedness. Similarly, focus on providing participants with a feeling that they will walk away with practical information that translates to their own lives. (IDI)

5. Make It Fun: Make preparedness training or activities fun, never referring to it as disaster or emergency training but as preparedness, replacing technical jargon with plain language. Participants should not feel like they are studying for a test. (IDI) (Focus Groups)

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Questions to Include in RFP

Current Outreach Activities

� What are the outreach methods that you currently use to engage with your constituents? � How do you determine your preparedness program audience? � In relation to your broader audience, how would or do your communication methods differ to engage preparedness efforts?

� How will your methods vary for different types of stakeholders, target populations, age groups, cultural needs, socio-economic issues, or language communities?

Level and Duration of Engagement

� What level and extent of engagement do you expect to achieve with your outreach? � What is the geographical reach of your program? Of your outreach effort? � How do you plan to maintain involvement in your program over the funding life?

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Recommendation 3: Leverage Existing Conditions and Resources

Overview

Although practiced widely, further encouraging closer collaboration with and between existing community and policy efforts—especially those removed from emergency management—can create benefits for all parties involved. Together the preparedness program and its partners may be more successful than if operating alone, while using limited resources more efficiently.

Research Context: Few Sources of Income for Preparedness Programs

Programs tend to concentrate on using federal grants as their main funding source, leaving other types of resources untapped.

Purpose of Recommendation: Efficiency

This recommendation aims to make more efficient use of existing SUASI, organizational, and community resources.

Sub-Recommendations and Findings: Policy and Decisionmaking Opportunities

1. Prioritize Preparedness Programs in Decisionmaking: Challenges exist regarding emergency preparedness’s place in the decisionmaking hierarchy of budgeting, politics, and sustainable platforms. “Emergency preparedness budgets are immediately reduced during budget reductions—if it doesn’t have a badge, there’s nothing sexy about it.” That is, during times of fiscal stringency, emergency preparedness can fall behind crime prevention and response as a primary subject of decisionmaking. Keep emergency management in a political subdivision that highlights its importance. (IDI)

2. Pursue Policy Opportunities to Bolster Preparedness: A proactive approach is encouraged to bolster the overall condition of Bay Area preparedness efforts by seeking existing policies that can be fused into preparedness. For example, despite a vast policy and legal framework regarding disabilities, assessment participants reported that the federal government can be reactive in incorporating people with disabilities in emergency and disaster planning, reacting to pressure and/or legal threats instead of utilizing existing policies as tools. (IDI)

3. Warn of Pending Funding Decrease: When funding streams for invaluable programs end, the program and its supporting administrative position also end. Therefore, develop a warning mechanism that will allow for program administrators to build momentum and lobby decisionmakers. (IDI)

4. Coordinate With Trusted Leaders: Coordinate education and outreach through individuals who are already in positions of trust and influence. For instance, as a key information and guidance resource for parents and teachers in a disaster, a school principal would be an ideal candidate for organizing a disaster preparedness effort.

5. Stress Regional Collaboration: Work closely with bordering political jurisdictions to share obvious geographically shared resources. (IDI)

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Sub-Recommendations and Findings: Human Resources

1. Create Incentives for Emergency Professionals: Volunteer-based programs fail because of the lack of resources for training and lack of incentives for involvement. As an example, a typical fire fighter would not voluntarily teach a CERT course when he can work overtime and be paid instead, according to one report. (IDI)

2. Leverage Partnerships: 90 percent of survey respondents described their knowledge of community preparedness as high or very high. Colleagues’ knowledge of preparedness was rated somewhat lower, only 62 percent of respondents rated colleagues’ knowledge as high or very high, and most of the others considered their colleagues average in their knowledge. (Survey)

3. Provide Tools to Leaders: Create a toolkit for community leaders seeking to include preparedness in their existing networks: “We need something that offers the same message in the same kit or same box.”

4. Uncover and Exploit Shared Networks: Many organizations are linked to others by extensive outreach lists that could be used to disseminate preparedness information. In the East Bay, Oakland Community Organizations counts 50,000 families in its outreach list. Other networks include Black Elected Officials & Clergy (includes nonprofits deeply rooted in the community) and labor organizations. (Focus Groups)

5. Tap Existing Neighborhood and Community Groups: Community preparedness is a natural addition to the civic focus of neighborhood associations and community groups such as the Lions, Kiwanis, and Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. These groups are natural partners for preparedness efforts. Participants noted their neighborhood groups would be interested in providing preparedness education, but no one has approached them to fill that role. (Focus Groups) (IDI)

Sub-Recommendations and Findings: Community Tools and Funding

1. Map and Use Existing Community Resources: Churches and other community-based organizations are successful alternative messengers, trainers, and shelter providers to the government. They are local community champions, maintain the trust of the community, and have understanding of and access to at-risk community members. (IDI)

2. Leverage Partnerships and Alternative Funding Sources: Although 34 percent of respondents felt they were currently funded sufficiently to successfully conduct basic operations, almost half felt unable to successfully carry out their programs because of a lack of funding, and 90 percent believed they could expand their programs with more funding. (Survey)

3. Utilize Existing Service and Care Networks: Typically immigrants and low-income individuals first go to their service providers for assistance when they are in trouble. Preparedness programs should use these pre-established relationships to deliver preparedness education. Target organizations and individuals who work at the ground level with specific populations. Offer them training and giveaways for their client bases.

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Sub-Recommendations and Findings: Media

4. Be Opportunistic for the Media Spotlight: Emergency management platforms are difficult to sustain because their efforts do not receive media attention unless a major emergency or disaster strikes. However, fire and police activities tend to receive constant media attention because they occur daily. When appropriate, police and fire officials, for example, could highlight preparedness efforts when commenting on an incident.

5. Engage Popular Media Channels: Focus Group participants suggested creating a high-quality documentary with testimonials from disaster survivors that could be screened at independent film festivals or on the Discovery Channel and publicized through video-sharing sites such as YouTube. Participants reported video documentaries on earthquakes in the Bay Area have been produced but few people had seen them. (Focus Groups)


Resources Assessment

� What current resources (e.g., stakeholders, community partners, supplies, historical knowledge) do you expect to utilize to implement your preparedness program? How?

� What additional resources (e.g., stakeholders, community partners, supplies) would be useful to acquire to make your program more effective? Sustainable?

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Recommendation 4: Develop Performance Measurement and Self-Evaluation Mechanisms5

Overview: Measure Results Against Goals

Preparedness programs should be designed to include mechanisms that can capture “lessons learned” from previous and ongoing efforts of community preparedness specific to the program for which funding is being requested. This includes developing specific goals, a self-evaluation mechanism, program metrics, and response strategy that incorporate independent feedback from program participants, SUASI staff, and/or independent parties to determine the degree to which goals were or are being achieved.

Research Context: Constantly Evolving and Fluid Context

Rapid transformation in community demographics and context demands that programs be adaptable and responsive. More than ever, this fluidity requires that programs understand and explain their programmatic directions based on recent lessons learned in relation to changes in the community.

Purpose of Recommendation: Responsive Programs

This recommendation encourages development of a mechanism that tracks program achievement through narrative reports, quantifiable markers, and review of pre-established goals. It also supports the program’s ability to correct and/or modify program deficiencies as well as highlight program successes.

Sub-Recommendations and Findings: Performance Measurement

1. Initiate Performance Measurement: Most interviewees noted a lack of performance measurement mechanisms in their programs and were hesitant about developing one as they did not want it to become their primary funding qualification. (IDI) Similarly, 12 survey respondents reported that they did not collect information about their preparedness programs’ effectiveness. (Survey)

2. Expand Evaluation Techniques: Interviewees reported minimal evaluation, generally passing out evaluation forms after trainings or workshops. (IDI) Within the survey, of those who have attempted to measure performance, surveys were the most utilized tool (59 percent), followed by open-ended and closed-ended written evaluations (45 percent and 32 percent). Other techniques such as interviews and independent assessments tended to supplement the more common evaluation techniques. (Survey)

Sub-Recommendations and Findings: Metrics

1. Quantify Participation in Programs as Well as Consequent Preparedness Actions: 60 percent of respondents were very sure that participation was increasing and 24 percent more somewhat agreed. But participation is only one small step along the way. If a person attends a meeting, then he or she has technically participated; however, a more crucial question is, “What did that person do to get prepared?” An evaluation of all programs would reveal more specific and in-depth trends in program dynamics. (Survey)

5 See Getting Started: An Assessment/Evaluation Workbook, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, available at: http://www.communitydevelopment.uiuc.edu/commsurvey/gettingstarted.pdf and Evaluation Workbook, Innovation Network, Inc. available at: http://www.innonet.org/client_docs/File/logic_model_workbook.pdf for user-friendly guidance on program evaluation.

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2. Measure the Leveraging of Resources: Throughout the Bay Area, neighborhood groups are already using neighborhood email lists to promote standing training classes. An evaluation component could shed light on the extent to which programs are using existing resources to reach out to new individuals. (Focus Groups)

3. Rate the Effectiveness of the Communications and Outreach Strategy: Participants suggested that repetition was a key to getting a message across and “people need to see things again and again before they get over their denial.” Program evaluations can analyze the amount needed. (Focus Groups)


Performance Measurement

� How does your program measure the extent to which you have achieved your goals? � How will you measure the effectiveness of the project? � What mechanism(s) do you have in place to track performance in your organization?

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5. Next Steps Based on the Team’s findings and assessment of international, national, local (Bay Area) preparedness program attributes, we recommend that the Bay Area SUASI consider the following next steps in order to leverage the information gathered in the Community Preparedness Assessment Project:

� Convene one-day working forum to showcase initiatives and increase coordination across community efforts. Forum topics may include:

– How to identify and map existing community networks and resources.

– Training on developing a program communication plan (“What’s your message?”).

� Develop Metrics Specific to Program Types

– Convene working group to help define metric for evaluating a program specific to program category.

– Enlist aid of local college/university graduate students and faculty to help construct data collection instruments and protocols.

� Develop and Execute a Citizens’ Emergency Preparedness Public Awareness and Education Campaign

– The campaign’s intent would be to bolster existing efforts to inform residents about disaster preparedness with a coordinated message across the Bay Area. It would seek to change the psychological preparedness perceptions of Bay Area residents.

– The goal of the campaign would be to increase individuals who identify themselves as “prepared” to at least 30 percent of those jurisdictions comprising the Bay Area counties.

– The objectives of the campaign should include formulating an integrated, cross-cultural public awareness and education campaign to advise the public about how to prepare for and respond to a major disaster or localized emergency; and ensuring that all messaging is relevant for the Bay Area’s high risk, vulnerable populations and is factually accurate, consistent, research-based, and crafted specifically for the target audiences.

– The campaign would not preclude local efforts to inform residents about preparedness, but rather complement and further facilitate ongoing efforts.

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