Emergency Preparedness Planning

Post-COVID-19 Regional Preparedness Planning

Prior to COVID-19, the regional understanding of the role of Emergency Preparedness Program staff during an emergency was to provide some technical assistance while towns collectively managed their individual response (EPP staff are overwhelmingly grant-funded–traditionally, there has been no funding to pay FRCOG Preparedness staff to provide direct response coordination).

The level of technical assistance and operational coordination required of the FRCOG and the Emergency Preparedness Program was unprecedented, and required thoughtful analysis to inform our organizational role in the region during future large-scale or long-duration states of emergency.  With that role more clearly defined, we can pursue the necessary mutual agreements and funding to plan for the future.

Throughout 2022, the FRCOG engaged in organizational and programmatic After-Action Reviews to evaluate:

• The role of the FRCOG overall, as well as the role of the Emergency Preparedness Program, in regional response coordination, a need evidenced by COVID-19
• The efficacy of current Emergency Dispensing Site Plans and planning processes
• The impacts of multiple preparedness planning groups advising the FRCOG and Emergency Preparedness Program

The FRCOG contracted with Ardent Decisions Group, an established and respected consulting firm with decades of experience in post-incident analysis. Ardent worked with the FRCOG to design and conduct stakeholder surveys, interviews and focus groups amongst all communities and government sectors within the region.

Local public safety (police, fire, EMS), Emergency Management Directors, Town Administrators, members of Select Boards, Boards of Health, Health Directors and Agents, Public Health Nurses, as well as regional leaders from the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office, Northwest Incident Management Team, and the FRCOG Council participated in this process, resulting in final recommendations from Ardent Decisions Group in November of 2022.

In 2023, the FRCOG and it’s Emergency Preparedness Program staff will work to present and discuss these findings with our member communities to arrive at mutually understood and agreed-upon roles for the FRCOG during incident and events that strain the capacity of local municipal management and existing mutual aid.