CCROA
Programs
The mission of Corporate Crisis Response Officers Association (“CCROA”) is to create local networks of trained private and community sector individuals called Crisis Response Officers (“CROs”) that link to and augment the local public sector response networks by leveraging best practices and local resources and volunteers during the critical first 72 hours of crisis.
CCROA will work with federal, state and local government agencies, non-governmental institutions, faith-based groups, academic and the private sectors to develop the corporate position and description of responsibilities of the CRO; and then to recruit and train CROs to support the responder network using current technology, resources and expertise that augments local capability beyond what the public sector can do alone.
CCROA will collaborate with public sector leadership to nominate CROs into a National Stakeholder Community Access Network ("NSCAN"), proposed in December of 2005 at a joint stakeholder meeting at the National Counter Terrorism Center, as a community partner network to responder and law enforcement networks to receive and send critical information during crisis over the Essential Public Network ("EPN").
CCROA undertakes three programs to bring together the stakeholders and partners to create the networks to strengthen community preparedness:
* Regional and Annual meetings: CCROA will co-host regional meetings across the country, and one annual meeting in Washington, D.C. where the CROs can participate in developing new training and best practice recommendations for local demonstrations conducted with various cities and counties during the year. Discussions and planning will take place at the meetings that identify barriers and solutions to participation, as well as other challenges facing local companies and organizations when dealing with community and business continuity issues during and after crisis.
* Community Training and Demonstration program: Multiple times each year, CCROA will participate joint demonstrations of the best practices developed in collaboration with partner organizations through the ReadyCommunities Partnership. These pilot projects are public/private demonstrations of the concepts and best practices discussed and developed at regional meetings in conjunction with the state and federal partners, and made available to other communities as preparedness and response templates. The templates form the core of the training metrics for CROs, taught through local academic partners using qualified local responders as adjunct professors.
* Essential Public Network & NSCAN: CCROA is the primary partner to develop the NSCAN database through a nomination process utilizing responders and public officials to identify the primary contacts (CROs) in corporate and community organization facilities such as churches, hotels, manufacturing plants, retail outlets, nursing homes, urban and fraternal organizations, etc. These CROs are trained locally, and given permissions and privileges through NSCAN for access to the Essential Public Network, a secure, single-sign on portal that, among other things, allows two-way messaging for training and crisis and for standing up a local Virtual Surge Depot to locate and itemize local assets, volunteers and vulnerable/special needs locations.
CCROA will raise operational contributions from corporations that sponsor CROs into the NSCAN and participate in the regional and national training and demonstration projects. Each company will separately cover the expenses of a CRO for travel, training, demonstrations and contributions of technology and materials. Additionally, CCROA will charge a small fee for each of the regional and national events, the balance after expenses to be used to cover staff and development overhead
CCROA also works with private sector partners to maintain the EPN and NSCAN, using annual subscription fees to cover the maintenance and development cost of the network, and has a board of directors and advisory board who have specific experience in the financial, regulatory, governmental and public policy arenas, and who will provide the overall guidance and governance for the programs. |
