File: Transcript --- Well, hello and welcome. My name is Chad Garrett and I am the health programs manager with the National Institute of corrections. We are thrilled to have you join us for this informational series building effective pre incident coordination with 1st responders. Local offices of emergency management and related programs. Before we begin today's session, I'd like to cover a few legal and housekeeping rules. This presentation is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal medical or policy advice, the views and opinions. Preston's presentation or those of the speaker and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the National Institute of corrections. US Department of Justice or any affiliated government agency. The NIC does not endorse any specific policies programs or commercial entities referenced in this presentation while every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy accuracy and reliability of the information provided, the NIC. Makes NO warranties expressed or implied regarding the contents. Attendees and viewers are encouraged encouraged to consult with legal medical or subject matter experts before implementing any practice or policies discussed here in. This presentation may include discussion of legal or regulatory issues, however is not intended to be a substitute for professional legal council. This webinar is scheduled to last approximately 1 h. It is being recorded and captioned. And once made five oh eight compliance, it will be made available on our website and you will be notified that the recording is available. This is a listen only event, meaning that your microphones are muted. However, we strongly encourage you to engage through the Webex chat feature. To use the chat feature, I see some of you are already over there chatting away. If you could go down at the bottom of your screen on the bottom right to hit that chat and let us know where you are from just so we can see that that works. We also like to see some emojis while we're going through. You could find those emojis again, at the bottom of your screen, it's called reactions. If you hit on that button, you can give us a big thumbs up, big smiley face. Or even that thumbs down as we're going on. If you have any audio difficulties, we're recommending that you connect to the webinar via the telephone using the number provided in your registration confirmation email. There will be a post course survey for you to complete. The link will be placed in your chat and it will be covered on our final slide, provides us with very valuable information and remember we do review every comment. This is your programming and your opportunity to be heard and help guide the future endeavors of the NIC. With our next slide, normally Mary would give you an overview of the library, but says she already did that so nicely. Chris, if you can. That's my queue. That's your queue. So this reminds me of a quote from Louis Door favors to prepared mine. Preparedness is not just about being ready for challenges, it's about being equipped for and creating opportunities. Preparation to me, it's a mindset and a willingness to explore, experiment. Sometimes missed the mark and continuously improve and flourish. I encourage you to see preparation from this novel perspective. Our speaker today has never feared challenging the status quo and rolling upstream, even when it be easier just to go with the flow. It is my esteemed pleasure to introduce you to our speaker for today is both good friend and a recognized expert in emergency management of the carsonal setting. Mr. Christopher Smith has more than 20 years of correctional experience. The last 15 have been with the federal Bureau of Prisons. His career has taken him through four federal institutions. He has extensive experience working at almost every custody level for maximum security penetratories to low security institutions giving him a brilliant insight into the multitudes of factors that differentiate and categorize the everyday experience of correctional staff on the front lines. And the executive staff develop a policy. Currently, he's stationed in Washington DC at the National Institute headquarters, whereas an NPA he produces and facilitates a myriad of national endeavors which vary from educational webinars, e learning courses, national workgroups, and thank tanks. ICS correctional guide books, reviews on restrictive housing, operation medical response for everyday correctional staff, and even staff's ability. Mr. Smith continues to innovate and move forward with a myriad of exciting adventures. In the future regarding emergencies emergency management within the commercial setting, as we at the NIC plan into 2028, all I can say is that mr. Smith has developed a very exciting blueprint for the future. The future is a moving target, but when you keep your mind prepared, when you stay curious to keep adding tools to. You're too boat, you're not just waiting for the future to happen. You're preparing yourself to be the person that the future needs. With that, my friends, the mic is yours. Thanks Captain Garrett. Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for being here. As Captain Garrett has said, my name is Christopher Smith, and I'm an NPA here at the NIC. Normally I'm your host for these webinars, but today, today I'm your speaker. Today we're gonna talk about a topic that sits. Right at the heart of emergency readiness and corrections, building effective pre incident coordination with your local 1st responders. The statement on your screen is today's lessons central thought. Operational readiness for emergency starts long before the emergency. If you're waiting until the emergency to start building a relationship with your community. Community response partners, you're already behind the power curve. Today's webinar is going is part of our ongoing everyday, everyday correctional emergency management webinar series. But just like the other sessions, this one stands entirely on its own. If you weren't in episodes one or two, you're still in the right place and you won't be missing anything. However, if you'd like to make up those last webinars, they will once they're made a five oh eight compliant, just like this one will be on our website, so keep an eye out for them. So with, as, as Captain Garrett said with all NIC trainings, there will be a survey near the end of the webinar. We'll put the address into the chat and it'll be on the near the last screen near the last slide. So please be sure to complete it before you leave. So as I said, this is the 3rd episode and a four part series that we were doing this year. Episode one focused on the value of structured exercising using fema's HC program. Episode two overview of focused on the overview of oemiss, offices of emergency management, who they are and how they can support correctional institutions. Today. This episode episode three moves us forward into practice. How facilities build real operational relationships with their community response partners before an incident happens, and not just with OEMs, but also with local fire, EMS law enforcement, any other agency or company that you may need to spot respond during an emergency. And then in episode four, we're planning on looking at extended emergency operations that go beyond beyond one operational period or about 8 h. And and we're also going to cover some basics of ICS 304 hundred concepts. So just to clarify, the distinction between this episode and episode two is that episode two explained. Who the OEM is and how they can assist correctional institution. Today's session moves forward into practice. How corrections can build operational working relationships long before an incident occurs, not only with the OEMs but also with local 1st responders and other agencies and companies that support emergency response. It's important to start by acknowledging right up front that every correctional institution is different. Correctional emergency response is not a one size fit all concept. Your coordination needs, your coordination needs with community responders depends on your local threats. And by threats, we simply mean any potential. Emergency that is possible to impact your or your institution. So other things that contribute to, to what your needs maybe as community governmental structure and the resources available in your area. So there is NO one size fit all approach. What we're covering today are adaptable starting points, not a rig rig rigid set of checklists. These are starting points that you can tailor and adjust to your facilities. Needs, whether you're working at a small county jail, a large state prison or a federal institution, it's the starting line for better coordination with your local community emergency responders. I know what your thought is at seeing this slide is what Corrections need support? No, we got this. But if you thought that remember, there are emergencies that can initiate both inside and outside of our fences that can impact us so hard that we do need help. On emergencies like these, our best chance. This for success, begins with long before the emergency initiates. It begins when we understand that there will be emergencies in the future that we need our emergency response partners to help us with. Corrections faces unique challenges during emergencies. We operate inside secure perimeters movement is controlled, populations are vulnerable, medically diverse, and often. Unable to self evacuate. We rely on systems like water, power, and secure access that can be stressed or even disrupted during emergencies. Emergencies today evolve faster and less predictably than it did even a decade ago. A good example of this is modern weathering changes. Now, now look, we're not going to get into the policy. Of why the weather's changing or if it or or to what extent the weather is changing, but let's just take a moment to talk about how the changing weather can impact our correctional world. A good example of how weather is changing right now is how Tornado alley is moving more easterily in recent years. Whereas tornado Alley used to be centered over Texas in Oklahoma. In that region primarily. I've seen news reports on how tornado Alley is becoming more active in an eastworthy direction, and now seems to be more centered over like Mississippi, Illinois, and Indiana and that region of the country. Being aware of how weather is changing and how that can impact our facilities can aid us in preparation and response to emergencies. But in this case specifically weather related emergencies. Fire, EMS hazmat response, law enforcement, state and local governments, all of those outside agencies and partners play. Critical roles during major incidents is our facilities, whether it's a fire, a medical surge, a weather evacuation, or an infrastructure failure. Corrections often cannot respond alone, and those are the responding agencies that we usually think about. But there maybe more. There maybe also the other agencies or companies that need to respond to your facility during emergencies. Depending on your institution and the possible emergencies in your area, you should think about the additional agencies or companies that you may need to build a relationship with. Agencies are companies like public health administration, error medical evacuation services, the power company, or even. Your local train company. Let's take a moment to also thank. About how these things that we do great and that make us strong can also impact our community response partners. Our secure areas and perimeter fences can complicate responder access. Our controlled movement restrictions require coordinated entry exit procedures. Our management of vulnerable populations can also raise special. Medical or even evacuation needs. Now maybe you work at a jail and you have both male and female inmates and both convicted inmates and citizens that are still going through trials. These can dramatically complicate your coordination with community response agencies when you have multiple groups that need to be separated during emergency response. All right. I'm gonna hand you back over now to Captain Garrett. He has the 1st of our polls. So to access our polls, what I need you to do is go to the bottom of your screen. There's gonna be three dots. Hover over those, it's gonna say some more, you are gonna go up and you are gonna click on Slido. Slido will allow you to then take our polls. We have our 1st poll open. What unique challenges do you have at your facility? We'd like to hear what you're dealing with specifically in your facility. And again, to access that, if you go to the bottom of your screen and you slide over to the right, you will see those three buttons and you can access that and then go up to hit Slido. And you can go ahead and enter those results. And if you have a trouble finding it, you can hit me up in chat real quick and and we can. Okay, we've got a couple votes coming in. This is one of those free writing ones, so it may take a minute. This is one that I expected to hear a lot of staffing. Yep, certainly a challenge. Nope, not enough help in emergencies. That's definitely, I think something that we would find in common. So if you guys wanna go ahead and continue to put your answers in there, I'm gonna leave this open for just a minute or two. But Chris, if you wanna continue to monitor this for you. Appreciate it, and we appreciate you guys participating in our polls. We like to keep it a little interactive where we can. So now let's be honest about some of the barriers that can make coordination between our facilities and our community responding partners difficult. Our staffing shortages, high turnover mobility and movement challenges being far from response hubs, limited training time, legacy mistrust between agencies, and maybe the biggest one on this short list complete competing priorities. If it's a community wide emergency, our responding partners will have other responses beside. It's our facility that they will be required to respond to as well. Schools, hospitals, retirement homes, and neighborhoods can become competing priorities during a community wide emergency. But these challenges of so many more are real and acknowledging them actually makes coordination easier because it sets realistic. Expectations and be able to build our goals off of that. Our goal today is simple. Start small, start smart, build forward, build systematically. So the 1st step is to recognize and acknowledge the realistic challenges that your institution faces up front. Relationships established today will shape tomorrow's response. Here are a few hypothetical emergencies that will require outside support. A hazmat trained derailment near your institution. If you have a pre established relationship with your local trained company, it means you have a communication line already set up. That can help you make better decisions on what response is best. A weather driven evacuation, having pre established relationships and moas and MoUs with your local agencies can make a successful evacuation even more likely. A multi agency medical surge, having pre established relationships with agencies like public health and your your local OEM office. Services could help you better respond during a pandemic or other medical surge. I think the challenges that we all face during COVID is the proof of this putting. A countywide boil order impacting your water supply. Having a pre established relationship with agencies like public health can be a game changer for something like a boil order. Any impa impact to a. The facilities water supply can make a massive impact to our facilities. It could affect both your drinking water and your non drinking water. Supplies, as you know, having drinking water and non plottable water for things like hygiene and showering are critical to keeping inmates healthy. The takeaway is straightforward. The relationships you develop now will heavily. Shape how your facility manages situations like these later. So I say again, relationships established today will shape tomorrow's response. So today's session is organized around four core areas of pre incident coordination. Operational familiarization, interoperability and logistics, organizational relationships, and community and cultural integration. We'll walk through each area why they matter as far as risk reduction, faster operations, and. Produce ambiguity, what they look like in practice, what can go wrong without them, and how officers, supervisors, and res and administrators can all play a role in these steps. Operational familiarization reduces confusion, shortens response time, and improves safety for everyone involved. If community emergency responders don't know your layout, your gates, your movement restrictions or your expectations, they will lose time. Time and interblind, their ability to respond to your emergency can be severely impacted, which can affect lives. Familiarization eliminates that guesswork before the emergency even occurs, which can potentially save lives. Operational familiarization can reduce confusion, shortensed response time, and improve safety. For staff and responders alike. Some practical examples can include things such as ensuring radio compatibility or issuing temporary radios, issuing temporary radios, which could be as simple as having a few radios for responders at your back gate. Clarifying background checks or onboarding procedures for respons. Responders requiring controlled access. Maintaining equipment list for fire department and community responder trucks so that you know what all is coming into your institution and it can help you streamline your entry and exit procedures. Pre planning transportation, support for evacuations like MoUs and moas. Can mean the difference between having the ability to evacuate on a moment's notice or having to wait for the equipment to be available. Identifying staying staging areas and predictable access points, these details matter enormously during real incidents. Alright everybody, I'm gonna hand you back over to Captain Gary. He's got our next poll question. Outstanding, thank you very much, and I've already opened our poll, and the question is, have you ever worked with an external partner, like the fire department, police department, local sheriff, public health, when doing your operational exercises? And again, to do this poll, you wanna go to the bottom, bottom right, hit more panels, that little three dots on the, on the very bottom, and then hit on Slido, that'll allow you to open that up. So far, our answers are all yes, which is very, very positive that you guys are already. Be out there doing, the hard thing of bringing people in. I know the 1st time that we brought our fire department in, we discovered that our plan to hook their trucks up to our water, wouldn't work because their hoses didn't fit in our water spouts. Yeah, absolutely a problem. And that's one of the things we discussed today as well. Very good. Can do that way, but right now we are at a hundred percent for yes right now. Awesome. And in chat for those who can't access the polls, also I I'm seeing some yeses there. Good. Perfect. Awesome. Sounds like everybody's moving in the right direction. We'd love to hear that. All right, so these types of coordinations involves everyone. Officers need to know escort routes and entry points and how to manage responding equipment. Supervisors coordinate access routes and prepare briefing sheets. Administrators make sure policy supports regular familiarization visits. Every level contributes to smoother emergency operations when it comes to building lasting relationships with community partners. Without familiarization, responders weighted gates, they enter the wrong area. They waste time trying to locate hydrants or escorts. Confusion increases risk. These preventable failures, these are preventable failures. Familiarization solves them before they happen. And just remember that there is always a cost of not. Doing familiarization. Alright, let's talk about some quick wins within operational familiarization. Things your facility can start tomorrow that don't require major resources or complicated planning. The 1st is an annual walkthrough with your fire department EMS and law enforcement partners. A single walkthrough each year goes a long way. It gives responders a chance to see the layout. Out understanding movement patterns, look at key access points and ask questions while things are calm. Even one visit a year builds familiarity that pays off during an emergency. Next is keeping updated simplified maps for responders. This sounds simple, but outdated maps can be a big problem for responders who are coming. To your facility. At any time, any time a building changes, a fence is added or gate is moved or a hydrant is relocated, those updates should be reflected in the maps that you share. Responders shouldn't be learning about your layout during an actual incident. And finally, a yearly gate access test. This is something that many facilities overlook. A quick test. Just to make sure your fire trucks EMS unit and medical evacuation and flight support vehicles, and other responders can actually get through your gates without delay. It also confirms that things like sensory reliability, clearance width, turning radius, and how quickly staff can open and secure access points. None of these steps are complicated. For simple repeatable actions that dramatically reduce confusion, shortened response times, and make emergency operations safer for both responders and staff alike. Interoperability and logistics are where small mismatches create big problems. A bad radio channel, a delayed escort or a vehicle that doesn't fit through the access road can disrupt an entire emergency response. Remember that logistics failures multiply during emergencies. Some practical examples can include things like ensuring radio compatibility or issuing temporary radios to responders. Clarifying background checks or onboarding procedures with responders requiring controlled access, providing equipment lists for fire teams to streamline entry, pre planning transportation support for. Evaluations and identifying staging areas and predictable access points. These details matter enormously during a real incident. Just like familiarization, this involves all level all levels. Officers need to understand radio communication limitations. Supervisors need to ensure that responders can access the right areas quickly, and administrators formulize agreements MoUs or moas that establish responsibilities and standards. You know, this seems like a good time. Take over what the difference is between an MOU and an MOA are for those who aren't not as knowledgeable about the difference. So an MOU or a memorandum understanding is a non binding agreement between two or more agencies that outline shared intentions, roles or expectations for cooperations. It establishes which each partner agrees to do but. Does not create a legal obligation. So an MOU is non binding, describes cooperation and shared goals, sets expectations, but does not legally require action. Useful for outlining coordination communication and general support. Now an MOA or a memorandum of understanding is a more formal agreement than an MOU. An MOA maybe legally. Binding depending on how it is written. It clearly defines responsibilities, resources, and operational commitments between agencies. So an MOA is more formal than an MOU. It maybe legally binding, it defines specific responsibilities and requirements and are often used as resources for personnel and operational. That are shared. And remember, MoUs and moas are easily confused. So if you're not sure, just ask for help. Not a problem. Now, let's look at what happens when an interoperability and logistics are not in place. These issues can be very real. 1st communications failures. If our radios don't match or we haven't established clear channels for fire, EMS and law enforcement, responders can't talk to us when they arrive. They maybe standing at a gate asking dispatch for help while our. Staff are trying to reach them on a channel they can't access. Even a small communication gap during an emergency creates confusion, slows down decision making and increases risk for everyone involved. Next, material or equipment being improperly staged. If responders arrive an equipment like fire hoses, medical supplies or hazmat gear is staged in the wrong area or not staged at all, operations slow down immediately. Responders end up hunting for space relaying equipment back and forth or trying to reposition large vehicles in tied areas. Most of these problems can be eliminated with simple pre planning and established staging zones. 3rd denied entry. A responder arrives at the gate, but the vehicle isn't cleared. The gate isn't ready or the staff member working the post isn't sure who the responder is or whether they're approved. That delay, even if it's just a few minutes, can significantly impact medical responder. It's fire control or tactical coordination, and finally duplicated effort. Without clear logistical planning agencies may repeat tasks or work on the same purposes together and not even realize it. E.g., correction staff maybe evacuating an area while fire crews are trying to enter it or EMS maybe triaging patients triaging patients in a different location for where supervisors expected it to happen. Coordination prevents responders from stepping into each other's areas. All of these problems are preventable. And they illustrate exactly why small proactive steps and interoperability and logistics matter so much. Here are a few practical low effort steps you can take to strengthen interoperability and logistics right away. 1st annual radio test. This is one of the easiest and most effective things that we can do. At least once a year, test your communications channels with fire, EMS law enforcement, and your local emergency management. Office. Make sure everyone knows which channels to use. Confirm that radios can transmit inside secure areas and verify whether responders need a temporary radio when they arrive. A simple radio check prevents communication failures in actual emergency. Next, updated contact lists. Emergency response slows when a staff have. Scrambled to figure out who to call. Keeping contactless current with direct numbers for dispatched supervisors, agency heads, specialty teams, and on call representative representatives ensures the right people can be reached quickly because turnover happens everywhere. Reviewing these lists a few times a year keeps them reliable. And finally, designated stages. Locations. Pre identifying where fire units should stage, where EMS should park, where hazmat team should set up equipment and where transportation assets should report should report eliminates confusion on the date of the emergency. Staging areas should be mapped, communicated and incorporated into walkthroughs and agreements. So responders. Know exactly where to go the moment they arrive. Each of these tasks, each of these quick wins takes very little time to implement, but dramatically reduces delays, increases coordination, and supports smoother operations when things get hectic. Strong leadership to leadership relations. Relationships reduce hesitation and streamline decision making. During emergencies, the responders want to communicate with people they already know. Familiarity reduces delays, friction and confusion. These leadership to leadership relationships are not just at the administrator level. These. There is benefit to gained by leaders at all levels that build organizational relationships together. Some practical examples of how you can build organizational relationships with your community partners are. You can attend regular meetings with fire chiefs, EMS leaders, sheriffs, you know, the lot. Participation in your local emergency management committees, standing communication pathways with these, with these agencies. Not an ad hoc communication that begins the minute when you're in the middle of a cri. Communication shouldn't begin during an incident, it should already exist. You have a poll that it was gonna open up It is how long do you think it would take to get a fire truck with a full crew onto your compound? The answers are 10 min 20 min, an hour, more than an hour or you would probably need to use a calendar 09:00. I'm gonna give you just a couple seconds to go through and answer. How long do you think it would take to get a fire truck with a full crew? Onto your compound. And this is one of those things that unless you've pre planned it, like Chris has said, that even a simple thing like this can take much longer than you think. Pre planning also gives you the opportunity to see if the truck will even fit inside your sally port rear entrance gate as well. And I'll let you guys go ahead and continue to answer that and you can answer it in the chat if you can't access the polls. Sorry, Chris, I know that with our technical issues we had a little problem with that, so I'll interrupt you cause I've got one more poll question coming up in a little bit that you may not be able to see, but if you guys want to continue to vote Chris, go ahead and rock on. Alright, we can do that. Organizational relationships don't just exist at the administrator level. They benefit everyone in the chain of command. When corrections and outside agencies already have established relationships, every level of staff feels the impact. For officers, strong interagency relationships means clear directions during an emergency. Officers don't have to guess which agency is doing what, where responders should go or who needs to be escorted. They receive clearer or faster instructions because the leadership on both sides already understands each other. There's capabilities and expectations. For supervisors relationships with outside partners lead to faster approvals and smoother coordination during fast moving incidents. Supervisors often act as the main bridge between line staff and external responders. When those relationships already exist, supervisors can coordinate more effectively Resolve questions quickly and make operational adjustments without delay. Confusion. And for administrators, these relationships create unified interagency decision making. When leaders already know each other, already communicate and already understand how the other agency operates, the decisions during emergencies become far more coordinated. It prevents conflicting commands reducing hesitation and keeps all responding entities moving in the same direction. The idea is that relationships established long before the emergency benefits staff at every single level of the institution. When strong organizational relationships. Second. When strong organizational relationships aren't in place before an emergency, here are some of the ways that responses can go wrong. The 1st is delayed coordination. When respond when leaders from different agencies don't already know each other, they hesitate, they second guess information, and they wait for confirmations, often and often spend precious minutes. Figuring out who is in charge of what. During a fast moving emergency, even small delays can slow down the entire response. Next, we see conflicting commands. Without pre established relationships fire EMS law enforcement and corrections may all issue instructions based on their own priorities. But those priorities aren't aren't aligned. Staff get confused. News responders get frustrated and operations can work at work against each other. Sometimes agencies unintentionally undo each other's progress simply because they haven't coordinated their roles in advance. And finally, there's uncertainty about capabilities. If agencies don't understand what corrections can or cannot do and make movement limits medic. Resources, lockdown procedures, transportation capabilities, then they may make assumptions. Those assumptions maybe wrong. Likewise, corrections agencies may not fully understand what other outside agencies bring to the table. That uncertainty leads to miscommunication, misaligned expectations, and slower decision making. All three of these, of these issues are preventable, and they reinforce one central idea, building relationships before the emergency is what keeps coordination tight. Communication clear. And our operations unified when it matters most. Alright, so here's just a couple of quick wins that you can do in res in response to our our organizational relationships. 1st quarterly partner check ins. You can also do the shared contact agency phone list. Also, schedule a meeting with one or more of your local responding partners. Alright community and cultural integration builds trust and reduces stigma. When your institution engages with the surrounding community, you build goodwill, credibility, and stronger willingness to help deal with real emergencies. Some practical steps that can include and. Inviting agencies to correctional workers week or open house events, participating in county level trainings, staying present and community preparedness efforts and establishing MoUs with where your institution can help support the community. Like we said in the last episode of the, of our webinar series, you know, there are ways that we. As institutions can help our community and their response and their recovery efforts. Of course, you'll have to do what your local laws and policy will allow you to do. You can, you can think of some very imaginative ways that you can build camaraderie with your community's 1st responders. So community and cultural integration isn't just administrative concept. It benefits all levels of staff in the institution as well. For officers stronger community relationships lead to more positive interactions with outside agencies. When officers see local responders and open house events, county exercises or joint trainings, those interactions help build familiarity. Officers recognize faces. Responders recognize them. And when an emergency happens, that familiarity improves comfort, communication, and trust. For supervisors, integration with community partner leads to smoother coordination. Supervisors are often the ones managing the move movement of responders, handling on. Seeing communication and organizing logistics during an emergency. When they've already interacted with partner agencies and non emergency settings, the coordination becomes faster and far less stressful. And for administrators, this type of engagement strengthens long term partnerships, participation in community community participation efforts, joint events are shared. Training builds credibility. It helps administrators establish the kinds of relationships that make interagency decision making smoother and more unified during major incidents. In short, community and culture integration pays off at every level from daily interactions to large scale emergencies. The more familiar agencies are with each other. They're outside of a crisis, the easier everything becomes during a crisis. So when community and culture integration isn't part of a facility's preparedness efforts, several challenges show up very quickly. The 1st is mistrust. If the community and partner agencies rarely interact with the facility except during crisis, then both sides may come with assumptions of uncertainty. Responders may not fully understand how. Corrections operate and corrections of staff may feel hesitant about outside involvement. That mistrust slows everything down because people aren't starting from a place of familiarity or confidence. Next, you can see slow communication. When agencies aren't used to working together, information doesn't flow smoothly. Messages may go through unnecessary layers or responders might not know who to call directly. During an emergency slow communication is one of the biggest operational risks. It delays prolongs confusion and increases the chance of mistakes. And finally, strained collaboration. If NO relationship exists before the emergency coordination during the emergency becomes more stressful. Agencies may unintentionally work against each other's priorities, misunderstand roles or interpret actions negatively simply because they don't have a history of cooperation. When people don't know each other, collaboration feels harder, even when everyone is. Trying to do the right thing. All three of these problems mistrust, slow communication, and strained collaboration are preventable. Community and cultural integration builds familiarity, reduces assumptions and makes emergency coordination smoother and faster and farless stressful for everyone involved. Here are a couple of quick wins that you can immediately strengthen your community and culture integration. These steps don't require a lot of time or resources, but they can make a major difference in how smoothly coordination feels during an actual emergency. 1st, invite your partner agencies to events. Something as simple as inviting fire EMS and law enforcement or emergency management. Partners to your corrections work events, open houses or facility tours creates familiarity and builds trust. When responders have positive interactions outside with outside agencies, everything runs smoother during an emergency. And second, participate in local training. County level exercises, regional emergency drills, emergency exercises. Is it's your facility and partner led training sessions are great opportunities for your staff to work alongside other agencies in a NO pressure environment. These joint activities help each other, each side understand how the other works, and they may reduce the learning curve when a real incident occurs. Finally, attend the community preparedness meetings. When, when correction institutions have a, have a presence at local emergency planning groups or community preparedness committees, it reinforces that corrections is a partner, not an island. These meetings help administrators and supervisors stay connected. Stay connected with local priorities. Emerging threats and planned response strategies giving you a seat at the table before decisions are made. Each of these quick wins increases familiarity, builds credibility and reinforces that corrections as part of a broader community safety system. Small steps like these create better interactions, faster coordination, and stronger partnerships with. An emergency does happen. Alright, as we've gotten a little bit of a late start today and we're closing in quickly on our hour, I'm not gonna go over all four, but I'm gonna go over the 1st two hypothetical scenarios. So let's just say scenario one severe weather evacuation requiring outside transportation. A fast moving wildfire or a severe weather system forces a facility considering. Partial or full evacuation. Facilities that have coordinated ahead of time know which agencies provide buses, where EVAC vehicles should be staged, which gate responders should enter, and export as expectations and movement patterns. For facilities that didn't pre coordinate this with their local. Partners, buses arrive that don't fit the access roads or the gate. Staging areas aren't clear. Responders waited the gate with NO communication and uncertainty can slow down decision making. This example highlights how pre incident logistics planning directly affects the ability to move people safely. Alright, so scenario number two, you have a hazmat trained derailment near your facility. A freight train carrying hazardous materials derails a short distance from your facility. Agencies with pre existing relationships can quickly can communicate quickly. OEM provides an immediate hazard guidance, fire hair. Asmat teams know the facilities shelter in place capabilities and facility leadership and OEM shared communication pathways. If you're the facility that hadn't set up these communication links, then OEM lacks critical information, population numbers, medical needs or evacuation routes. Responders don't understand in make movement limitations. And facility leaders struggle to get information on plumbed direction or pro or protective actions. This scenario shows how external coordination helps corrections make protective actions quickly and confidently. Alright, so let's turn aware, you've gotten all the information today, so let's start to work on turning awareness into action. Okay, so your homework for today is either by yourself or if there's a group of you here at the same institution, assess one partnership gap at your facility. Alright, then once you have that partnership gap, I want you to introduce the 30 day action challenge. Identify one inter agency partner and one concrete step to initiate within 30 days. Then using the four core coordinationaries to that you use to access the gap, I also want you to come up with that action plan and the 1st. Step did you can make. And remember, small steps count, one walkthrough, one radio check, one meeting. Those can be your concrete steps. Alright, does anybody have any questions? Let me go ahead and keep looking through the chat. I hadn't found any yet, but let me just double check here. Yeah, if you have questions, just go ahead and type them in the chat. All right. You can raise your hand and I can, give you the microphone for a second if you like. I mean, I would love to think that it was so clear the presentation today that nobody has questions. However, if you do, please feel free to ask. Well, apparently you did such a marvelous job. Alright, well we'll go with that thought. All right, now, now here's the exciting slide that I know everybody's been looking for for it too since I mentioned it earlier today. Here is the survey. Now, if you're at a place where you can use your phone, that QR. Your code is functional. Just zap it with your phone and you'll be able to take the survey. However, if you're in a place like inside of an institution where you can't have a phone, there is a link, here, but it will also be in your chat that you can click on to take you to surveymon monkey for the survey. Both places take you to the same exact survey. As as Kevin Garrett mentioned earlier, everybody from me all the way up to the NIC director looks at the surveys and the results. This really is how we use things to determine what trainings we give in the future, how well you like it, whether you thought I was a good speaker or not. This is your opportunity to pass the information on. So we really would appreciate if you could participate in the survey. I'm gonna leave it here for another moment or two. Again, it's in the chat. You can always copy and paste into Word the the link if if you want to do it in a few minutes, we're supposed to have you do it right now, but if copying and pasting it in Word would help you, but it'd give you some time a little bit later to do it, then we won't tell if you wanna go ahead and do that and just copy and paste it from the chat. I'll give you just another brief moment. I'm trying to keep you as close to the original hours we can, even though we started a little bit late. Alright, we're gonna go ahead and move forward. Alright, and here's my contact information. If you have questions, concerns, if you have. Topics for the future of this webinar series, please feel free to contact me. You'll also see the nic's website on, on there, your and and our on our social media link, feel free to, to get those and reach out to us. The more that you participate in in our activities, the better we are. And remember, we're here for you guys. We are, we build these trainings not for us. We build these trainings for you guys, so this is your way not just for me, but for anybody you can reach out and the more active you are with the NIC. The better off that you will be and will be. Alright, so I just want to take this real quick moment to thank everybody for joining. Like I said earlier, our next session is gonna move more into stuff that occurs beyond a n a 1st operational period. When it goes beyond that 1st 8 h or so, it will include some ICS 304 hundred concepts, but don't worry, you don't have to have already passed ICS 300. More than 400 to be able to learn not only learn but enjoy the webinar. So this is like I said, we got somebody coming that's gonna speak about what happens when you go past that 1st 8 h and what are some things you can expect. So, a couple of one last thought to close on, preparedness is progression. The relationships you build before the. Urgency shape what's going to happen after it. So I just want to say again, thank you. I look forward to you guys to seeing you in episode four and remember that today's work builds tomorrow's resilience. Thank you and have a great day. I appreciate you guys attending. Thank you very much. Feel free if you have any questions or thoughts you want to enter them in chat, please feel free to do so. And again, I want to take this one quick moment to say thank you again for attending. I appreciate it. I hope you guys learned something from it. Thank you very much. So don't ask what do I do, but I'm gonna challenge you to ask, why am I doing it and how can I do it better? Thank you guys for your time and attention. Have an excellent day.