IS-909

FEMA IS-909
Name
Institutional Affiliation
FEMA IS-909: Community Preparedness
Community preparedness refers to the community’s ability to be ready for, to withstand, and to recover from public health incidents. This is mainly done by coordinating with the healthcare organizations, the emergency management teams, the behavior, and mental health providers, as well as the community and faith-based partners. The role of the bodies in community preparedness is to support medical and mental health systems that promote recovery. They also offer awareness training on how to prevent and manage public health incidents. The ability of a community to respond to an incident depends on the preparedness level of each member. According to a national survey, about 29% of citizens are not prepared since they think that responding to emergencies is the sole responsibility of emergency responders and that they should help them. In a real sense, emergency responders may not be able to help everyone in case of an emergency. The community prepared principles as established by the Citizen Corps are collaboration, volunteer service, integration, and both organizational and personal preparedness.
This course introduces one to a program that is aimed at promoting personal and community preparedness by engaging in activities for households, individuals, and neighbors. Some of the preparedness activities include disaster core preparedness topics, hazard reduction topics, and specialized preparedness topics (Emergency Management Institute, n.

d). The activities outlined in this course are made of building blocks that can be mixed and marched to meet the needs of the audience being targeted. It also has materials that contain critical information about the local dangers, warnings, and alerts and response protocols and resources for the local community. What is more interesting about community preparedness is that one can volunteer to assist the first responders and the community safety organizations in case of an emergency. When preparing the program, it is important to identify the target audience, determine their interests and needs, select the presenters, prepare the presentation, arrange logistics, and finally get the word out (Emergency Management Institute, n.d).

References
Emergency Management Institute (n.d). Community Preparedness: Implementing Simple Activities for Everyone. Retrieved from https://emilms.fema.gov/IS909/CP0101000.htm