National Preparedness Goal a paradigm shift?
Like many of you, I've been wading through the recently issued National Preparedness Goal. From my somewhat cynical perspective, I think it's going to pretty much put a final nail in the coffin of the Comprehensive Emergency Management model that has guided our programs since 1978. Instead of the four phase model of mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery we now have five preparedness missions: prevention, protection, mitigation, response, and recovery.
Changing paradigms is not necessarily a bad thing. If you accept the fact that the "war on terror" needs to be a central focus for preparedness, then a change makes sense. If, however, you believe as I do that emergency managers deal with consequences and that prevention and protection could be legitimately placed under the original definition of mitigation (actions taken to prevent or minimize the impact of disasters), then one has to question the wisdom of such a change.
Please understand that I am not fighting a last ditch effort to save an old paradigm. Those of you who have read my book know that I think that a misunderstanding of the CEM model has created a number of problems in our emergency planning. What I am concerned about are the hundreds of emergency plans that have been based on the CEM model that will now be revised to focus on the five missions. This will happen despite that fact that the five missions are national goals and not specific to emergency plans and despite the assurance of trusted colleagues at the Department of Homeland Security that this is not the intent. This means we will need to address them as a community, as we are expected to do with standards.
So what does this all mean? I wouldn't run out and start revising plans just yet. However, I would look at how your emergency management program addresses the five mission areas. Focusing on core capabilities makes sense and this is where you should put your effort.