Laura Myers, Lecturer, Clemson University, Larry Myers, Professor, Tri-County Technical College and Lorna Grant, Assistant Professor, North Carolina Central University
Abstract
Regional partnerships for regional emergency planning are relationships developed between disparate emergency planning stakeholders from multiple jurisdictions and with different missions. Regional partnerships are essential for the management of limited resources and for responding to large-scale disasters that can overwhelm local resources. Emergency response planners develop these partnerships as needs develop within their own jurisdictions or in response to lessons learned from previous disaster responses. This paper discusses a model process for developing or enhancing an all-hazards regional emergency planning network to create regional collaboration and resource allocation. This model process can be adapted and customised in any community to develop partnerships between communities, public agencies, non-governmental organisations, faith-based organisations and the private sector within a region. The model process and how to use it in communities will be discussed, including a qualitative analysis of its application.
Keywords
regional emergency planning, collaboration, partnerships, networks, all-hazards preparedness, resiliency
Laura Myers is a senior scholar and lecturer with Clemson University, South Carolina and a research fellow with Mississippi State University, Starkville, Mississippi. Her doctorate is in criminology from Florida State University. She has taught criminal justice and emergency management for over 20 years at the bachelors, masters and doctoral levels. She is a residential and distance learning educator, as well as a trainer for criminal justice and emergency response practitioners across the nation. She recently completed a four-year project as the principal investigator of a Southeast Region Research Initiative contract, in which a regional disaster response planning model was developed for disaster stakeholders, including police, fire, emergency management and the private sector.
Larry Myers is a criminal justice professor at Tri-County Technical College in Pendleton, South Carolina, where he teaches criminal investigation, crime scene investigation, evidence and criminal procedure, and criminal law. In addition to serving as a sworn law enforcement officer and detective in South Carolina, Dr Myers held several positions within the Crime Information Bureau of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in Tallahassee, Florida. Dr Myers recently completed a four-year project as the co-principal investigator for a Southeast Region Research Initiative contract in which a regional disaster response planning model was developed for disaster stakeholders, including police, fire, emergency management and the private sector. He recently published a textbook entitled ‘CJUS: An Introduction to Criminal Justice’ with Dr Laura Myers and has published numerous articles pertaining to computer crime, criminal justice education and regional disaster planning.
Lorna E. Grant is an assistant professor of criminal justice at North Carolina Central University in Durham, North Carolina. She earned a BSc in social work and an MSW in social work administration from the University of the West Indies, Jamaica, and a PhD in juvenile justice from Prairie View A&M University, Texas. In addition, she has conducted field research in emergency management.
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