Emergency Management and Community Resilience Certificate Program

Remember, when disaster strikes, the time to prepare has passed.

- Steven Cyros

Who Should Attend

Professionals in any industry who are seeking to support their organization or community in preparing, managing, or responding to emergency situations. This program is of particular relevance to business, government, and community leaders, operations managers, communications professionals, and anyone interested in building the capacity of their organization to plan for and respond to a disaster.

What You’ll Learn

Upon completion of this program, students will have gained the knowledge to:

• Distinguish between a hazard and a disaster; understand the contributions of social science to the study of disasters; recognize and use the concepts of social vulnerability and community resilience; appreciate the role of cultural identities in disaster relief and recovery.
• Explore the emergency planning process within the context of diverse and complex community needs, changing hazard landscapes, and broader emergency management contexts and cycles.
• Identify, mitigate, and respond to organizational risks by building resilience capabilities and strategic relationships, using practical tools and techniques to strengthen your organization's ability to withstand and adapt to environmental threats.
• Understand the different geologic and climate-related hazards in our region; learn what and who is vulnerable, the likelihood, and the physical consequences.
• Understand how crisis challenges and psychology impact response efforts and how best-practice communication strategies can reduce harm and save lives.
• Become equipped with an actionable framework for crisis communications planning and explore practical techniques for communicating with diverse audiences to build community resilience and mitigate injury and loss during crisis.  

The certificate consists of the following modules:

Culture, Vulnerability, and Disaster Resilience
Understand the difference between a hazard and a disaster. Learn the disaster risk management cycle as a framework to apply this and subsequent modules of the program. Explore different types of vulnerability related to different disasters and underlying social inequalities. Examine the concept of resilience and learn what makes a person, family, or community more or less resilient. Consider key cultural factors that influence disaster experiences. 

Disaster Planning for Resilience
Understand resilience planning for hazards and cascading disasters. Learn how resilience is shaped by social, natural, and technological systems and the degree to which the interdependencies between these systems influence who is resilient, to what, where, and how. Explore multiple mapping tools and their application in community resilience planning and public policy. Examine actionable strategies at the individual, household, and community levels for enhancing resilience. More importantly, we will identify adaption options that promote systemic change and social justice in a changing climate.

Geology of Natural Hazards of the Pacific Northwest
This module focuses on the hazards in the Pacific Northwest that emergency managers may have to address. Students will leave with a better understanding of geological disasters (earthquakes, landslides, floods, volcanoes, coastal erosion) and climate-related storms (winter storms, tornadoes, hurricanes, and forest fires) we face in the Pacific Northwest.

Supply Chain Continuity Planning
To survive and prosper, organizations need resilience capabilities and strong relationships with other organizations. These capabilities and relationships allow them to cope with environmental risks. In this session, we will focus on how your organization can better identify, mitigate, and respond to risks, and apply tools and techniques to build a more resilient organization. 

Crisis and Strategic Communication
Building on what you have learned about pre-disaster planning, learn how to assess the positions and values of your stakeholders. Through the lens of public engagement, learn how to develop audience analysis and segmentation strategies. Learn skills for establishing credibility and expertise when communicating with stakeholders. Draft clear messages and message templates that adapt to the needs of audiences and present them back to the class. 

For more information on a graduate study in this area, visit PSU's Emergency Management and Community Resilience Master's Degree and Emergency Management and Community Resilience Graduate Certificate pages.