Module
4
Museums Emergency Programme Education Initiative
Teamwork
for Integrated Emergency Management Course |
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Objectives
The
objectives for the course are:
- To
be able to understand, assess, and manage risk to cultural
heritage sites, specifically as it relates to the participants'
institution and region
- To
identify methodologies for risk and vulnerability assessment
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To develop and implement emergency preparedness plans
and strategies for before, during, and after an emergency
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To create professional and technical alliances with local/national/regional
emergency preparation and response providers
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To create public awareness and social, political, and
economic support .
Course
Methodology
Teamwork for Integrated Emergency Management is a
three-phase course that spans an approximately eight-month
period of collaborative learning and capacity building.
The
First Phase of Teamwork is a two-week workshop carried out
on a regional basis. Programme topics for the first phase
include:
- Module
1-Introduction
-
Module 2-Risk Assessment
-
Module 3-Emergency Planning
-
Module 4-Risk Mitigation
-
Module 5-Emergency Preparedness
-
Module 6-Response and Recovery Procedures
The
goals of Phase 1 are to provide a foundation of knowledge
in risk assessment, emergency preparedness, and response.
The collaborative activities of the workshop are also intended
to create a sense of community and common purpose amongst
participants, allowing them to sustain the momentum of learning
and practice throughout the programme.
Phase
2 is a seven-month distance learning period during which
participants, working in their own institutions, follow
a programme of practical work that takes them through the
processes of a museum risk assessment and the basic steps
of an emergency plan. The Phase 2 work assignments are designed
to allow participants to pursue their other job responsibilities
at the same time.
At
the end of this seven-month period of active learning, participants
take part in Phase 3, a follow-up workshop, in order to
review progress and gain additional information and support
from their colleagues.
At
all stages of this learning and work process, participants
are able to share their experience with their regional colleagues
and be guided by teachers and mentors with experience in
risk assessments and emergency planning within museums.
Team
Teaching strategy and curriculum
Team
Teaching Strategy
Because
risk management itself requires interdisciplinary team work
on the part of museum personnel, emergency professionals,
and community interests, instructors, and mentors will likewise
work within a collaborative interdisciplinary framework
when developing the specific teaching and learning goals,
content, and methodology of the curriculum. A 'team teaching'
approach figures into both classroom-based teaching and
the distance mentoring elements of the course. For the course,
team teaching will allow each section of the course to draw
upon the expertise of several instructors with complementary
expertise. It is also a useful way to demonstrate cooperation,
negotiation, and teamwork methods that can be applied to
real life situations.
Curriculum
The
topics that will be covered by the TIEM curriculum will
elucidate the intellectual and practical processes that
museum personnel pursue in the course of developing integrated
emergency management for an institution. The curriculum
will take into account the fact that institutions have differences
in resources, size, culture, traditions, etc. Teaching will
therefore emphasize how museum teams can adapt approaches
to integrated emergency management to their particular situations.
These
are the curriculum topics that have been considered for
the first pilot course launched in Asia in August 2005,
that, according to different context and regions, is intended
to be adapted and modified:
- introduction to the concept of integrated emergency management
addressing museum buildings
- collections and institutional operations
- terminology and definitions
- integrated emergency management process/cycle
- different types of risks and their nature
- risk analysis exercise
- methodologies for risk and vulnerability assessment
- risk perception
- creation of professional and technical alliances with
local/national/regional emergency preparation and response
providers
- creation of local support and alliances: social, political,
economic
- development and implementation of emergency plans and
strategies before the emergency (prevention and mitigation),
during the emergency (response actions), and after the
emergency (recovery)
- risk transfer: insurance consideration for museums
- building maintenance strategies
- techniques for handling the collections
- aids for emergency response planning
- local tradition(s) for the mitigation of risks
Specificities
of the TIEM course
The partners tried to develop a course which could offer
something different and/or complementary to other training
offered on the same subject. For the time being, some specificities
have been identified, which give the TIEM course its "raison
d'être" towards the protection of cultural heritage:
Regional
approach: South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia
This pilot TIEM course has been launched in Asia. Being
a large and complex region, it has turned out to be a perfect
ground for testing the TIEM approach. The language diversity
has been transformed from an expected communication difficulty
into an asset for the development of meta-communication
tools such as hands-on exercises, mock exercises, simulations,
illustrated case studies, etc.
Respect
for local traditions
The TIEM approach emphasises the importance of respecting
local traditions in risk management. Throughout the whole
course, traditional-and sometimes forgotten-mitigation measures
to manage risks will be identified, collected, and discussed.
At the end of the course they will be diffused at an international
level.
Participation
of two universities for local development and diffusion
of training methodology
In order to spread out the TIEM course approach and methodology
at national and regional levels, two universities have been
invited to participate during the duration of the course.
By being training institutions, they will be able, during
the overall process and for the final evaluation, to contribute
to the improvement of the programme by identifying lacunas
in the curriculum topics and the general course approach
and by giving more emphasis to the local geographical and
cultural diversity.
Participation
of two institutions from another country outside Asia
The participation of two institutions from another country
outside Asia, in this particular case from Canada, has contributed
to an extra-regional dialogue and to the identification
of some issues that are common beyond borders and can be
approached in different ways in the risk management field.
Diversity
among the participating museums
The participants of the course are institutions rather than
individuals in order to obtain a major local sustainable
effect and to implicate the trained institutions in training
other museums in the same region.
The participating museums are all national museums with
many common issues to manage in spite of their diversity:
different types of collections (natural science, fine arts,
ethnographic…); different socio-economic backgrounds; different
sizes of staff members; different organisational frameworks;
different kinds of museums (university, eco-museum, etc.);
different building compositions (one single building to
many differentiated buildings); different ages of the buildings
(recent to modern or historic houses…)
Teamwork
in the participating museums
Each participating museum creates a team of people who will
act as the risk management committee. This committee should
be composed of people who represent the main functions of
the museum. They, in turn, will put together teams with
responsibility for safety/security, collections, the buildings
(including its systems and equipment), and administration/records.
Team
of instructors: multidisciplinary, intercultural, etc.
Teachers for the workshops include professionals from the
heritage and security/risk management fields coming, especially
but not exclusively, from the region where the training
activity has been put in place. Instructors for the TIEM
course are specialists with substantial experience in one
or more of the topics covered by the curriculum. Instructors
associated with the Asia Disaster Preparedness Center are
joined by colleagues with experience in integrated emergency
management for museums and other types of heritage. Instructors
and mentors with museum expertise are largely drawn from
ICOM International Committees for Security and Conservation.
The course's team of instructors therefore combines a range
of experience, reflecting regional as well as international
perspectives and practice. Some participants of the course
organised in Asia could become instructors in a next course
organised in another region of the world.
Course
facilities during the course
During the phase 1 workshop, a "MEP Library" was at the
disposal of the participants with specialised literature
and examples of Emergency Plans from all over the world.
Instructors, mentors, and participants also have access
to the MEP online project bibliography, which includes citations
of publications (in either print or web-format) on various
aspects of integrated emergency management. The bibliography
has been helpful to MEP partners and instructors in identifying
a selected 'shelf list' of key publications and other didactic
resources for reference and/or teaching. The MEP Bibliography
is available on the Getty website (http://gcibibs.getty.edu/asp/).
The Teamwork for Integrated Emergency Management course
web site-accessible to the partners, instructors, and participants-has
been set up to support the work of the second phase of the
course, serving as an important means of exchanging information.
Duration:
8 months through a combination of workshops and distance
mentored learning Acquiring knowledge and skill in integrated
emergency management is a long-term process that cannot
be effectively supported through short courses or workshops.
For this reason, the TIEM curriculum is realized through
an eight-month course that combines two classroom-based
workshops with a program of coordinated and mentored capacity-building
activities that is pursued by participants within their
own institutions. These activities allow participants to
engage in the processes associated with integrated emergency
management, and to adapt, put into practice, and test locally
the various ideas and information presented during the workshops.
Throughout all phases of the courses, participants maintain
contact with other colleagues, particularly those who may
be able to provide support through advice or mentoring.
This particular educational model will allow the heritage
personnel who participate in the TIEM course to gain knowledge,
skill, and confidence within a framework of increased thinking
and problem-solving over time.
Theory,
case studies, hands-on exercises
The Teamwork for Integrated Emergency Management curriculum
is realized through a combination of classroom-based teaching,
mock exercises, and hands-on activities, with distance learning
and practical work that will be carried out at participants'
own institutions. The curriculum engages participants in
the processes associated with various aspects of integrated
emergency management and allows them to adapt and implement
locally sustainable approaches to emergency preparedness.
Participants gain experience performing an institutional
risk assessment, forming contacts with emergency and security
personnel, and developing an emergency plan corresponding
to the specific situation of the institution.
A
national museum used for mock exercises, handling, etc.
The TIEM course has been conceived with the underlying idea
of having a museum, or part of it, available for use for
the total duration of the training, including beginning
and ending workshops. During the distance mentoring phase,
each participant has his/her own museum available for use
in risk assessment and other activities.
Institutional
commitment
The participants of the course have been drawn from museums
that have demonstrated a willingness to undertake risk assessments
and emergency preparedness within their institutions and
that have made a commitment to devote staff to this effort
over an eight-month period. Agreements with the institutions'
directors have been stipulated and the monthly reports are
signed by the directors themselves.
Integrated
approach
The TIEM curriculum has been developed considering all the
aspects that are associated to museum risk management, such
as: the local landscape and environment, the building, the
premises, the staff, the public, the stakeholders, the decision
makers, and the collections.
Community
involvement
Whether in a museum or another site within a community,
the protection and security of cultural heritage will be
the responsibility of a diverse group of people both within
and outside of the institution. These include personnel
responsible for administrative, technical, and support duties,
as well as local, national, or regional emergency responders
(i.e., fire and rescue departments, regional emergency prevention
units, the Red Cross, etc.), and various community 'stakeholders'.
The alliance of these groups of individuals is critical
to the creation of viable and sustainable integrated emergency
management strategies for cultural heritage. Therefore,
while the TIEM curriculum will be developed primarily for
the training of museum personnel, it intends to bring them
into contact with other cultural heritage and emergency
professionals as well as community representatives with
whom they must engage.
Learn
more about the first Teamwork for Integrated Emergency Management
(TIEM) course started in August 2005 in Bangkok, Thailand
Upcoming
Teamwork for Integrated Emergency Management Courses
After a successful regional TIEM project in Asia in 2005-2006, the target region for TIEM 2007-2008 is South Eastern Europe, and especially the following countries: Albania, Bulgaria, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Moldavia, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia. The Section of Museums and Cultural Objects of the Division of Cultural Objects and Intangible Heritage of UNESCO is supporting the initiative in the region.
Learn more about TIEM-SEE.
For
more information about the Teamwork for Integrated Emergency
Management Course, contact :
Cristina
Menegazzi: menegazzi@icom.museum
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