ICS, Emergency Preparedness, and Pandemics

By Stephanie Koroscil

 

As part of my role as an Incident Command System (ICS) Instructor, I have worked collaboratively with Biigtigong Nishnaabeg to host training initiatives. More recently, I provided support as their community mobilized in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. I am humbled and honoured to be included in this journey.

 

ICS allows people from all backgrounds and experience levels to come together using the same terminology and structure to manage emergencies and events. This system is broadly used across North America and internationally; Parks Canada uses ICS to manage a wide variety of incidents, including: wildfires, search and rescue, hurricane recovery, and commemorative events.

 

I have used ICS for over a decade. I embrace the structure that ICS lends to emergency management environments, and introduce myself as a proud “ICS nerd” when instructing courses! In 2018, I was approached to instruct an introductory ICS course for Biigtigong Nishnaabeg, as they sought to build emergency response capacity within their community. The following spring, I worked with Biigtigong Nishnaabeg to deliver the second level of ICS training to a combined-class of community members and Pukaskwa National Park staff. Cooperative course-deliveries improve the experience for everyone involved, as class discussions are richer when participants have varying backgrounds. As courses conclude, I always offer future support to course participants should they want to it, and hope that I have inspired at least one new ICS nerd.

 

In March 2020, Biigtigong Nishnaabeg was mobilizing as a community, using ICS to manage their response to the COVID-19 pandemic. I received a text message asking whether I could provide some feedback/suggestions regarding the use of ICS for this type of incident. Of course, the answer was yes! So began the adventure of remotely assisting with incident mobilization. I provided suggestions by phone and text message, for example: where certain functions might fit in the organizational chart, including hastily-sketched organization charts. Later, I was asked to attend and help facilitate an ‘After Action Review’ of this incident response.

 

Daniel Michano, Capital Housing Director in Biigtigong Nishnaabeg describes how things went:

“With the ICS structure in place, leadership, management, and staff remained confident with decisions coming forth from Section Chiefs. One of our main goals was to allow the experts to handle their Sections and not be influence by political pressures, but remain focused on the ever changing factors we were dealing with.  I fully credit the [ICS] model that allowed that to happen.”

 

As an instructor, it is wonderful to see former students successfully using ICS, but this story is not about me. This story is about an entire community proactively approaching emergency preparedness and successfully implementing their plan in a time when most of the world was scrambling. The people filling roles in Biigtigong Nishnaabeg’s incident management teams are not people who work in emergency management every day – they are teachers, community health professionals, finance and maintenance staff, students, etc. This community completely embraced the use of ICS, hosting and participating in training courses, using ICS for annual pre-planned events, and then reviewing how things went to make improvements for next time. This is a wonderful example of what community preparedness and incident management should look like.

 

To learn more about ICS contact ICS Canada or reach out to Stephanie Koroscil.

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