Capability Based Planning Methodology and Tool
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) requires local, state and regional jurisdictions to have a program for assessment of risks and capabilities prior to receiving grants. DHS has not proposed any unified format and therefore receives many applications with incomplete and disorganized data. They are unable to prioritize grants and distribute the money where it will be of the most value. What is needed is a planning methodology and tool that will allow jurisdictions to assess their capabilities and needs. This tool will also be of great interest to industry (power plants, chemical, petroleum, metals and pharmaceutical) and commercial facilities (banks, shopping malls, office buildings, hospitals and schools) as they try to become more responsive to the number of emergencies they will face in the future.
The Johns Hopkins Applied Physical Laboratory researchers were tasked with developing a comprehensive planning methodology and tool to aid jurisdictions and others in planning for emergency responses. The methodology provides a systematic way to map local needs to the public safety groups responsible for preparing for and responding to those needs and the operational capabilities disciplines require. The methodology also allows the jurisdiction to specify required capability enhancements for specific hazards and disciplines. Lastly the methodology produces a list of the needed capability improvements to support improvement plan management.
The CBPMT contains a 7 step methodology:
1. Hazard Characterization – List the hazards/risks for which the user must prepare. Users select from a pull-down list and/or enter new hazards with additional descriptive information.
2. Select Emergency Support Functions (ESF) per Hazard – for each hazard, identify the ESF- groupings of government and private sector capabilities into an organizational structure that would be involved in preparedness and response to that particular hazard.
3. Select Target Capabilities (TC) per ESF/Hazard – for each hazard/ESF pair, select the TC (from a list prepared by DHS) – these are capabilities required to perform key homeland security prevention, protection, response and recovery tasks.
4. Review Recommended Capability Elements – users review the levels of capability elements categories of resources, equipment, personnel, training, exercise, policy and procedures) recommended by DHS.
5. Define Jurisdictional Capability Element Goals - users modify DHS recommendations to specify capability element levels required for their specific jurisdictions.
6. Capability Gap Analysis - for each ESF and TC, users review their required capability levels documented in step 5 and specify the gap between required levels and that which they currently are assessed to possess. The set of all gaps comprises the total set of all capability improvements needed.
7. Improvement Plan – the tool produces as an output a list of all capability gaps from step 6, and shows how each maps to Capability Element, ESF and to Hazard. Fields are provided so that the output can be used as a tasks management tool for implementation of improvement plans, and fields are provided to facilitate that, such as: priority, lead agency, and milestones, etc.
Ms. H. L. Curran
Phone: (443) 778-7262