HLTH 6100 Week 2 Credentialing Discussion Post Example

Week 2 Discussion: Initial Post

Emergency Managers Should Be Credentialed the Way Public Health Practitioners and Engineers Are

Emergency management should require a recognized credential for anyone who leads a jurisdiction's program, as engineering and public health increasingly do for their practitioners. The reason is that the job now rests on a defined body of knowledge, from hazard analysis and continuity planning to grant management and recovery finance, and researchers have set out core competencies for the field that look much like those of other credentialed professions (Feldmann-Jensen et al., 2019). Without a credential, a county can appoint someone with no training to coordinate its response to a flood, and residents have no assurance that the person knows what federal planning guidance (Federal Emergency Management Agency, 2021) or a mitigation grant requires. Collaboration across agencies, which disasters demand, also works better when the leader shares a professional language with counterparts (Waugh & Streib, 2006). The strongest objection, which I do not think I can fully answer, is cost: many small and rural jurisdictions fill the role part-time, sometimes with the fire chief or sheriff, and a mandate without funding could leave those places with no emergency manager at all.

Reply to Laura K.

Laura, you picked up the cost objection and argued that a credential mandate would hit exactly the rural counties that most need trained managers. I agree that a mandate alone would. A partial answer might be to tie the requirement to federal preparedness funding, as some grant conditions already do, and to offer the training through state programs at no cost to small jurisdictions. That still leaves the time burden on a part-time manager. Would a regional credentialed manager shared by several small counties address your concern, or would it lose the local knowledge that makes a part-time manager valuable?

Reply to Tom R.

Tom, you asked whether there is any evidence that credentialed emergency managers perform better. I have not found a study comparing outcomes, and I should have said so in my post. The argument rests on the existence of a defined body of knowledge, not on measured results. A study comparing plan quality or grant success in jurisdictions with and without credentialed managers would test it, and I will look for one before the position paper.

Reply to Nina S.

Nina, you suggested that instead of credentialing individuals, we accredit programs, so a county's emergency management program would be judged on its plans, exercises and staffing rather than on one person's certificate. That shifts the question in a useful way. Program accreditation would capture what my post really cares about, whether residents are protected by a competent system, and it would let a small county meet the standard through a mutual aid agreement or shared staff. Its weakness is that it can be met on paper by a program whose plans are never used. I think the strongest version combines the two: a credentialed lead for any jurisdiction above a population threshold, and program accreditation for all. Would that answer the concern about small counties you raised in your own post?

References

Federal Emergency Management Agency. (2021). Developing and maintaining emergency operations plans: Comprehensive Preparedness Guide (CPG) 101 (Version 3.0).

Feldmann-Jensen, S., Jensen, S. J., Smith, S. M., & Vigneaux, G. (2019). The next generation core competencies for emergency management. Journal of Emergency Management, 17(1), 17-25. https://doi.org/10.5055/jem.2019.0393

Waugh, W. L., & Streib, G. (2006). Collaboration and leadership for effective emergency management. Public Administration Review, 66(s1), 131-140. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2006.00673.x