Assignment: Capella 12 Hour Strategic Objectives Plan Emergency Response Memo
INTRODUCTION
Disaster response and recovery involves the participation of many individuals and agencies to adequately manage the variety of complex issues arise during an event. Whether you are managing a natural or man-made disaster, the system to manage the incident is similar. The National Incident Management System (NIMS) provides the framework for the involved agencies and experts to work together to manage the response to an incident.
NIMS calls for the use of an emergency operations center (EOC) as a place for interagency coordination and response to major incidents. The use of an EOC allows for a consistent approach for decision-making and coordination of the many organizations involved in the response. By understanding the roles within an EOC and their functions, you will be more valuable to the emergency response efforts and contribute to the resolution of the incident.
The media piece, Riverbend City: Emergency Operations Center, linked in Resources, includes natural disaster and terrorism scenarios; you will develop a twelve-hour strategic objectives plan to respond to one of these situations. You will submit the plan in memo form. Memo templates are linked in Resources for your convenience; you may wish to review them before you begin.
For this assignment, you will assume a staff role in an EOC and choose the natural disaster or terrorism attack scenario to begin response planning.
The purpose of this assignment is to guide your understanding of how interagency coordination, resource management, and emergency operations plans (EOPs) are beneficial during the management of a disaster.
Note: There is no “right” way to complete this assignment, which is reflective of real-world critical thinking and decision-making in the EOC. However, your objectives and decisions must be based on the strategies listed in the EOP.
INSTRUCTIONS
Construct this assessment based on the natural disaster or terrorism situation from the Capella media piece, Riverbend City: Emergency Operations Center.
Pay attention to the types of issues that arise during the discussion within the EOP staff.
Identify your role as one of the staff members: incident commander, operations section chief, planning section chief, or logistics section chief. Your position is located in the EOC and part of an interagency group that is tasked with managing emergency response for one operational period.
After identifying the issues, refer to the Commonwealth of Virginia Emergency Operations Plan to clarify your understanding of how emergency personnel plan to address similar problems.
Using the perspective of your chosen role in the EOC, write a 1.5–2 page memo for a twelve-hour strategic objectives plan that responds to your chosen scenario. Structure your memo with these headings:
EOC Role:
Summarize (briefly) your emergency operations management role and how the position relates to the other command positions.
Objectives:
Construct four primary strategic objectives for the next twelve-hour operational period.
EOP Application
Apply the strategy in the EOP to support objectives 1–4.
Indicate the EOP strategy that supports each of your objectives. Describe the objective, personnel needed to accomplish the goal, and alternatives that may be taken to accomplish the goal.
Response
Summarize elements of an EOP that address interagency response activities in the field.
Summarize the agencies or service organizations and functions that may assist with response activities in the field.
ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS
Write clearly and logically, with correct use of spelling, grammar, punctuation, mechanics. Use spell-check and grammar-check to check your work before submitting this assignment.
http://media.capella.edu/CourseMedia/CJ3620/RC_EOC…
https://templates.office.com/en-us/Memos
You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.
Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.
Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.
The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.
ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS
Discussion Questions (DQ)
Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.
Weekly Participation
Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.
APA Format and Writing Quality
Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.
Use of Direct Quotes
I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.
LopesWrite Policy
For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.
Late Policy
The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.
Communication
Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:
Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.