What Leaders Need to Know about Extreme Events: Leadership Training for Inclusive Preparedness and Crisis Response

Tasked with carrying out emergency preparedness training for workers in public health departments, hospitals, home care agencies, and community health centers, the authors drew on previous experience and chose to target emergency preparedness or bioterrorism directors, coordinators, and program staff. These public health workers that have been tasked with coordinating preparedness efforts must recognize the importance of, and be recognized as practitioners of, leadership skills. While the specialized functions such as disease surveillance and acute care delivery are essential, public health preparedness must grow beyond this focus that has been required by dominant funding deliverables. Public health preparedness, or population- or community-based preparedness, requires systems thinking and abilities to reach out to diverse communities and organizations and include their voices, needs, and resources that can actually help prevent and respond to disasters and public health crises. The authors and other content experts planned and delivered a two-day program addressing 39 original preparedness leadership competencies. Independent evaluation included pre- and post-training self-assessment by participants addressing all of these competencies. Evaluation results are leading to improvement of the format, setting, and delivery of future trainings; has provided some validation of the newly developed competencies; and has shown that the target audience find the competencies necessary, capable of being advanced through such training, and in need of continued development.