New Jersey's State Homeland Security Exercise Strategy

The New Jersey State Homeland Security Exercise Strategy (the Strategy) is based on New Jersey’s State Homeland Security Strategy which guides our preparation, response and recovery for the consequences of intentional and unintentional emergencies, disasters, or catastrophic events.

The Strategy provides guidance, centralized coordination, bridges between public, private and NGO sectors, widely disseminated lessons learned, and, standardized base exercise scenarios in order to build and improve capabilities and to enhance coordination across the state and within the region.
 
The Strategy enables a coordinated statewide exercise plan under central authority with supportive data collection and knowledge management programs, focused homeland security funding.  The end result is an increase in exercise effectiveness, reduction in costs and better service to the public, private and NGO sectors.

The Strategy supports federal exercise and grant requirements.

Exercise Types

There are seven types of exercises defined within HSEEP, each of which is either discussions-based or operations-based. Discussions-based Exercises familiarize participants with current plans, policies, agreements and procedures, or may be used to develop new plans, policies, agreements, and procedures. Types of Discussion-based Exercises include:

• Seminar. A seminar is an informal discussion, designed to orient participants to new or updated plans, policies, or procedures (e.g., a seminar to review a new Evacuation Standard Operating Procedure).
• Workshop. A workshop resembles a seminar, but is employed to build specific products, such as a draft plan or policy (e.g., a Training and Exercise Plan Workshop is used to develop a Multi-year Training and Exercise Plan).
• Tabletop Exercise (TTX). A tabletop exercise involves key personnel discussing simulated scenarios in an informal setting. TTXs can be used to assess plans, policies, and procedures.
• Games. A game is a simulation of operations that often involves two or more teams, usually in a competitive environment, using rules, data, and procedure designed to depict an actual or assumed real-life situation.

Operations-based Exercises validate plans, policies, agreements and procedures, clarify roles and responsibilities, and identify resource gaps in an operational environment. Types of Operations-based Exercises include:

• Drill. A drill is a coordinated, supervised activity usually employed to test a single, specific operation or function within a single entity (e.g., a fire department conducts a decontamination drill).
• Functional Exercise (FE). A functional exercise examines and/or validates the coordination, command, and control between various multi-agency coordination centers (e.g., emergency operation center, joint field office, etc.). A functional exercise does not involve any "boots on the ground" (i.e., first responders or emergency officials responding to an incident in real time).
• Full-Scale Exercises (FSE). A full-scale exercise is a multi-agency, multi-jurisdictional, multi-discipline exercise involving functional (e.g., joint field office, emergency operation centers, etc.) and "boots on the ground" response (e.g., firefighters decontaminating mock victims).

In order for an entity to be considered HSEEP compliant it must satisfy four distinct performance requirements:

1. Conducting an annual Training and Exercise Plan Workshop and developing and maintaining a Multi-year Training and Exercise Plan.
2. Planning and conducting exercises in accordance with the guidelines set forth in HSEEP Volumes I-III.
3. Developing and submitting a properly formatted After-Action Report/Improvement Plan (AAR/IP). The format for the AAR/IP is found in HSEEP Volume III.
4. Tracking and implementing corrective actions identified in the AAR/IP.

2013 State Exercise

The New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness will host a biennial Statewide Exercise in November 2013.  The scope of this exercise has not yet been defined.  More information will be made available as it is received.

Exercise Resources

*Baseline Assessment Tool

The purpose of this on-line assessment tool is to provide a standardized approach for New Jersey stakeholders at all levels and across all functions to measure the effectiveness of their response activities. The assessment can be completed in about 2 hours.

The tool does not measure or compare you against other organizations, but gives the user a meaningful and comprehensive baseline assessment of their capabilities.  The capabilities measured by this tool are derived from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Target Capabilities List and other best practice criteria.

The outputs from the assessment will provide valuable information to improve processes, procedures, and training within your organization, community, and across the state.

To access the Baseline Assessment Tool, please go to http://metis.nj.gov.

*METIS

https://hseep.dhs.gov/pages/1001_Toolk.aspx