Emergency Preparedness.

The purpose of this assignment is to understand how your practicum organization\’s emergency responses coordinate with local, state, and national emergency responses.

In a 900-1,200-word essay address the following:
1.Explain each component in the four phases of emergency management.
2.Describe the policies and procedures that your practicum has in place for emergency preparedness and disaster planning.
3.Identify and describe local, state, and national emergency preparedness resources or plans.
4.Describe how your practicum organization\’s responses coordinate with local, state, and national emergency responses.
5.Describe emergency services that should be made available to the population in an emergency.
Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.
For this assignment use Hurricane Harvey in Houston, 2018.Texas. For the number four part my practicum setting is Magnolia Psychiatry clinic, so you may want to align the organization with the mental health impact of Hurricane Harvey on the population.

Emergency Preparedness

1. Explain each component in the four phases of emergency management.

There are four components of emergency management that make up a continuous cycle of planning and taking action to ensure that a comprehensive approach to emergency management is maintained while maximizing the safety of the whole population. The first phase is mitigation. It is a cost efficient method for targeting hazards and reducing their impact. It applies physical risk assessment in which the hazards are identified and evaluated. Emergency Preparedness Discussion Paper  The higher risk hazards are considered as most urgent with the focus being on targeting their specific vulnerabilities through mitigation efforts. The second phase is preparedness. This is a continues cycle that involves applying improvement, evaluation, exercising, equipping, training and organizing activities. This is intended to allow the entity/organization to ensure the effective coordination and enhancement of capabilities to mitigate against, recover from, respond to, protect against, and prevent disaster events identified in the analysis of hazard vulnerabilities. The organization develops action plans to manage and counter risks while taking action to build essential capabilities to apply the plans (Lindell, 2019).

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The third phase is response. This involves mobilizing the identified emergency personnel, to include the first responders, to an external or internal event that could impact operations. Pre-determined response procedures are presented at the organization to include disaster plans linked to the preparedness phase. The response plan must remain flexible in nature owing to the variations in prevailing circumstances at any given time, such as number of available personnel. The response plan and procedures are constantly evaluated and revised with tests conducted in live events, tracers, exercises and drills. The fourth phase is recovery. It focuses on restoring the affected areas to their previous state. It is concerned with decisions and issues that need to be addressed immediately following the event. It is primary concerned with the actions that involve repairing, reemploying and rebuilding destroyed property and other essential infrastructure, and restarting the core activities of the organization (Lindell, 2019).

2. Describe the policies and procedures that your practicum has in place for emergency preparedness and disaster planning.

The practicum has applied the four phases of emergency management. The primary site is a psychiatric clinic that maintains a comprehensive approach to emergency management through a continuous cycle of planning and action undertaken by the clinic’s emergency management team. In the mitigation phase, the clinic has a business continuity plan that includes mitigation plans and strategies development by the emergency management team to ensure operational continuity in areas such as medical supplies, staffing, medication, water, food, communications and utilities when a disaster scenario occurs. In the preparedness phase, the clinic has developed a plan around its hazard vulnerability analysis results. It has developed plans for action to counter and manage risks while taking action to build the necessary capabilities to implement the plans. Capabilities have been built using continuous cycle of improvement, evaluation, exercising, equipping and training activities. In the response phase, the clinic has developed pre-determined response procedures that inform every person at the facility what to do in case of an emergency that could have an impact on client/patient care operations. Response to internal and external incidences are directed by the emergency management team, and are regularly reviewed and updated through exercises and drills. In the recovery phase, the clinic’s emergency management team takes the responsibility of undertaking actions targeted at repairing and rebuilding destroyed infrastructure and property to ensure that essential operations continue (Lindell, 2019).

3. Identify and describe local, state, and national emergency preparedness resources or plans.

Houston City in Texas State is prone to experiencing emergency situations caused by natural disasters. In fact, one of the more recent disasters is Hurricane Harvey that occurred in 2018 resulting in economic losses estimated at around $90 billion. Although each emergency situation is unique, the awareness that emergency disaster situations cannot be guarded against has resulted in emergency preparedness resources being put into place. The first resource is the guidelines for creating a weather preparedness plan. The guidelines are presented by the Houston City chapter of the Associated General Contractions of America, and they help in ensuring that each organization has the resources and tools to support preparedness efforts. The second resource is the evacuation plans and procedures presented by OSHA. This is intended as a real-time update tool to guide the city residents to the nearest shelter locations against different emergency events. The third resource is the disaster assistance services offers by the emergency management office and mayor’s office. It is intended to provide detailed information about the types of disaster assistance services available to the city residents who are impacted by emergency events. The fourth resource is the NOAA updates that prevent forecasts on emergency events such as hurricanes. The final resource is the hurricane and food cleanup guidelines presented by OSHA to assist residents with the information targeted at fall protection, heat, personal protective equipment, general response and recovery, hurricanes, and floods (AGC Houston, 2020).

4. Describe how your practicum organization’s responses coordinate with local, state, and national emergency responses.

The practicum organization is Magnolia Psychiatric Clinic. It recognizes that disasters are an inevitable truth of life, and although preventable are not completely avoidable. The disasters and emergency situations can range from manmade events (such as terrorism) to natural calamities (such as earthquakes and hurricanes). The occurrence of disasters has a substantial effect on the mental and physical health of the affected population. Given this awareness, the clinic has liaised with the local government authorities in readiness to handle disaster mental health needs of affected populations. This is based on the principle of prevention that shifts away from simply providing post-disaster relief to presenting a multi-dimensional holistic care approach. This is based on the awareness that every disaster response follows predictable phases that include the heroic, honeymoon, disillusionment and restoration phases. Much public support is typically available during the heroic and honeymoon phases with the media attention galvanizing support in the form of shelter, free food, free medical aid, compensation packages and rehabilitation promises that provide immense sense of faith and relief to the survivors (Math et al., 2015). The two phases last for between 2 weeks and 2 months. At the end of the honeymoon phase, media attention and public support starts to reduce as the relief resources and materials are weaned. This is the disillusionment phase when survivors at faced with the ruthless reality of the disaster and implications for their life. At this time, the survivors are faced with a myriad of emotions to include suicidal ideas and death wishes, substance use, mental illness, fear of losing control, survivor’s guilt, and complicated grief. If left unaddressed, these emotions could interfere with the healing process as well as occupational, social and biological functioning. The clinic liaises with the local authorities to intervene in the disillusionment phase by educating them on how to present proper closure of missing persons and facilitate the mass grieving process through religious and cultural death rituals of grieving. In addition, the survivors are assessed and offered grief- and trauma-focused interventions if required (Math et al., 2015).

5. Describe emergency services that should be made available to the population in an emergency.

When an emergency occurs, the emergency services required will depend the specific phase of the emergency. Initial efforts are typically targeted at caring for the wounded, resorting lifelines and providing basic services, before moving on to restoring livelihoods and reconstructing communities. These services can be structured in three phases. The first phase is the response phase in which search and rescue services are provided, as well as rapid damage and needs assessment. Besides that, first aid services are provided at this phase followed by opening and managing temporary shelters and providing humanitarian assistance for the homeless survivors. The second phase is the rehabilitation phase in which lifelines and basic services are restored, even on a temporary basis to include helicopter landing sites, ports, airports, bridges, road network and other essential facilities. The third phase is the reconstruction phase whereby precise assessment of infrastructure is conducted for destruction and damages, and reconstruction services are started for needed infrastructure to restore the livelihoods of affected persons (Lindell, 2019).

References

AGC Houston (2020). Emergency Response Resources. https://agchouston.org/AGCH/About/Pubs/Emergency_Response_Resources.aspx

Lindell, M. (Eds.) (2019). The Routledge Handbook of Urban Disaster Resilience: Integrating Mitigation, Preparedness, and Recovery Planning. Taylor & Francis.

Math, S., Nirmala, M., Moirangthem, S., & Kumar, N. (2015). Disaster Management: Mental Health Perspective. Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine, 37(3), 261-271. https://doi.org/10.4103/0253-7176.162915

Emergency Preparedness.

The purpose of this assignment is to understand how your practicum organization’s emergency responses coordinate with local, state, and national emergency responses.

In a 900-1,200-word essay address the following:

1.Explain each component in the four phases of emergency management.

2.Describe the policies and procedures that your practicum has in place for emergency preparedness and disaster planning.

3.Identify and describe local, state, and national emergency preparedness resources or plans.

4.Describe how your practicum organization’s responses coordinate with local, state, and national emergency responses.

5.Describe emergency services that should be made available to the population in an emergency.

Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.

For this assignment use Hurricane Harvey in Houston, 2018.Texas. For the number four part my practicum setting is Magnolia Psychiatry clinic, so you may want to align the organization with mental health impact of the hurricane Harvey on the population.  Emergency Preparedness Discussion Paper