Author: Stephen Stassen

Purpose for Professional Certifications in Emergency Management

With 38 state organizations and the International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM) having some form of professional emergency management certification, the question arises: What is the point of all these professional certifications?

This will be the first in a series of posts exploring these certifications. The series will refer to the general idea of these certifications as CEM (certified emergency manager). It will start with understanding the purposes of any professional certification like a CEM. Next we will evaluate how successfully the CEM certifications meet these purposes. Then we can take a look into the consequences of the current CEM requirements. Finally, we will turn to the future by making some recommendations on how to develop better professional emergency manager certifications.

What do these Certifications Claim to do? 


The first in the blog series is to talk about the purposes. After looking through all the public purpose statements of issuing organizations, three main categories were found as well as a few other commonalities. These purposes can be generalized to most certifications, as any certification serves at least one of these. 


Raising the Profession/Professional Standards: 

International Association of Emergency Managers: 

“The International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM) created the certification program for emergency managers to raise and maintain professional standards; it is a program to certify achievements within the profession.”

17 of the 39 CEM issuing organizations mentioned pushing the profession forward in some way, either on the recipient level or as a whole profession. Betterment of the profession is an admirable goal. To accomplish this, the certifications should push the recipient to continue to learn and grow in their understanding as well as share these insights with others inside and outside the profession. This objective is the most significant reason for having the certification in the field.

Recognition of Professional Achievement

Mississippi Civil Defense Emergency Management Association:

“The primary purpose serves to encourage personal improvement, recognize achievement and promote our State Association.”


Recognition of achievement is found in 17 of 39 certification objectives. The CEM frames what emergency managers should strive to become while providing positive reinforcement to the recipient for contributions to the field. Recognition generally is used as the greatest reason for recipients to pursue these certifications. However, it is important to note the sole purpose of an award is for recognition. As a result, recognition should never be the primary objective of a certification, merely a side benefit.

External Recognition

Colorado Emergency Managers Association

“The certification program is a peer evaluation program that measures an applicant’s education, training, experience and professional contribution. It provides an emergency manager the ability to be recognized for their abilities, increases marketability in career opportunities, aligns with the International Association of Emergency Managers certification program and increases the overall professional standards of the discipline.”

Emergency managers need to interact with many people outside of the field. In these interactions having some way to show you are a respected professional can be important. Hiring managers, journalists, and the general public are unlikely to know enough about emergency management to determine if the person is credible on the topic. One way to give credibility is through professional certifications. The commonality of these certifications giving designations (CEM, CO-CEM, PEM, ext) is one way they serve this purpose. 

Other Notable 


IAEM is noted directly by seven of the certifications, either stating the state level certification is a stepping stone to the IAEM certifications or saying that some degree of certification requirement is not necessary or unrealistic for emergency managers. The most common example is saying that a 4 year degree is not required for the state level certification. Only 2 of 38 states have degree requirements to get the certification. All other state certifications either do not require a degree or allow for a degree to be offset by years of experience. 

Four state level CEM exist because of some law requirements. For example a state law requires county coordinators to be certified in Kansas. Kansas Certified Emergency Manager meets the requirement. Other states have similar requirements and the certification is primarily used to meet the law requirements, but does not preclude the CEM from trying to fill some of the other certification objectives.

Six certifications reference a minimum level of competency. These are in contrast to raising the professionalism field objective found in more CEM objectives. These minimums are saying that if an emergency manager has just this certification they can be expected to be able to perform well enough in the role. Many certifying organizations try to meet this need with a lower level certification (Associate emergency manager for example). These minimum level CEM are based on training almost exclusively. However these minimum level competency CEM have their own unique problems that will have to be covered at a future date. 


Lastly 6 of 39 issuing organizations provided no justification or objective of their certification. For example South Dakota Emergency Management Association:


South Dakota Emergency Management Association (SDEMA):

“There has been a growing movement nationwide to provide for methods of professional certification of emergency managers (CEM) […] To address this potential need in South Dakota, the Executive Committee of the South Dakota Emergency […] decided to pursue formulating guidelines for emergency manager certification.”

SDEMA seems to have made their certifications because they saw the trend and thought they should have something as well. I would argue that any certification with no clear purpose is next to useless, but a deeper explanation is another post for some other day. 

Final Thoughts

The objectives of emergency management certifications are all over the place. However, some commonalities can be found through all of them. They serve to push the field (and the professional) forward, recognize the effort of recipients, and give some credibility to recipients when interacting outside the field. Issues arise when organizations seem to not think through why they are issuing certifications or simply recreate the IAEM certifications. 

An Example of ASD in Conversation.

I recently ran across one of the simplest examples of what it is like to have Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in general conversation.

DISCLAIMER I can only describe my experiences with ASD and not much on others. ASD is a spectrum not just on how functional but also on experiences with different symptoms. Just note that I do not pick up on tonality, inflection, and body language very well. The following might not be the same for everyone on the spectrum.

I was watching The Martian (2015) and a scene jumped out at me. The scene has two characters trying to decipher the meaning behind a text sent by another. The one says the statement twice and asks what way the texter probably meant.

Here is the scene in question

Here is where it gets funny from my perspective. I did not pick up any real difference between the two readings. In my mind the same exact statement of “Are you kidding me?” was stated three times. One in text and then two times verbally, but no significant difference.

Want to have a gimps into what that feels like? Take this scene. Turn the sound off. Subtitles on. Focus on the text. Only watching the actors in your peripheral vision (or turn the quality all the way down so you cannot read the faces). That is much closer to how I hear/feel the scene.

From the dialog it is easy to know that there is a difference. However, with just words and little else, there is no real way to know how it was meant.

-Stassen

Thoughts On Preparedness Education After Reading Unthinkable.

Unthinkable by Amanda Ripley is one of the first “classics” in Disaster-ology that I have read. (Classic arbitrarily defined as one of the books recommended by Dr. Samantha Montano and that I have heard other references to) The short of it: great books, anyone getting into Emergency Management should read it and anyone that might find themselves in an emergency (that is everyone) should read it. I am not going to talk about it in the context of the average person reading it, instead I am going to focus on it in the context of emergency management and what it means for preparedness education


What does this book bring to an emergency manager? 

Emergency Management tends to get one of two extremes. Either a hyper focused case study of one person’s experience during one emergency/disaster or a 30,000 foot focus on how a general population will respond to a general disaster. Unthinkable on the other hand is much more of a look at why people have the internal reactions they have. How those trends manifest in the general cases. Lastly, how to potentially control them. 


One of the main conclusions that stands out to me is the idea of “Train Your Brain”. This is the idea that one should think through emergencies and what will happen and how they would like to respond. Going through the motions of responding to an emergency will increase the likelihood that in an event a person will be able to do what is needed. For the average person this is knowing how to evacuate a building (and doing it ahead of time) or where to go during an active threat.

Training your brain is backed up by Chris Hadfield in his book “An Astronaut’s Guild to Life on Earth Guide to Life on Earth”. Chris Hadfield is a former Canadian test pilot and astronaut (going to space 3 times). If an EM wants to get a look at the extremes of emergency planning NASA is an interesting case study. In his book, he states that preparing for as many bad outcomes as possible leads to a less stressful life. Though this idea comes from his experience as a test pilot and as an astronaut, he uses it throughout as much of his life as possible. Unthinkable is not to this extreme but is more focused just on emergencies.

I think that it makes for an interesting case study. For emergencies being prepared mentally leads to better outcomes. The area that I have a bit of contradiction is when we start getting into longer term disasters. It is notable that no example in unthinkable is longer term focused. I think that when it comes to disasters, a different model starts to take over that is not fully described in the book.

Aaron Titus’ book “How to Prepare for Everything” (a title I partially disagree with) makes an argument that the way most EM approaches preparedness is unproductive. The cover even states “This book does not contain doomsday scenarios, zombies, or nightmarish predictions. Proceed with happiness and a sense of hope.” The argument of this book is that focusing on “the big one” does not help the average person prepare. Instead a planning for disturbances (lack of transportation, power failure, ect) is more effective strategies can be developed more easily and implemented in combination for whatever disaster the prepper faces.

The disturbance model is in some contrast to the idea that a person should visualize and practice for an event. There are some similarities, for example both talk about the importance of community and some form of planning.  I do not think these methods are truly in conflict with one another. Instead are solutions for different scales and need to be used in tandem, something that EM does not do well in its communication.

Immediate response to an emergency, it is more useful to have mentally prepared. In a disaster, a more disturbance based preparedness is more useful. Using one for the other, could lead to worse outcomes. Not mentally preparing for evacuating a fire, would lead to less effective evacuation. Thinking about how to respond to a house being destroyed by a tornado does not lead to covering the basis of all the disturbances that will have to be solved.

As an emergency manager, I personally will try to work at making the distinction between when to train/educate on the two models. On a personal level, I am always finding the emergency exits in new places, but also use more of a disturbance model for longer term disasters. As I learn more, I will change my mind (for goodness sake I am only 2 years into studying EM, I know very little). These are my personal thoughts, and I recommend everyone do their own research. 

-Stassen