Emergency Response Management Training Course

Duration 10 days 18 modules · 65 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Emergency Managers, Business Continuity Managers and others
Fee from USD 2,200 KSh 190,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 9 Nov 2026 Course code SD-DRM-005

Before you join: Participants should have basic experience in operations, health and safety, security, business continuity, facilities, public administration, humanitarian work or emergency services.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Major emergencies place immediate demands on leaders, responders and support functions while information is incomplete, resources are constrained and consequences may extend for weeks or months. Floods, industrial incidents, earthquakes, disease outbreaks, cyber disruption and energy failures can affect people, facilities, supply chains, public services and reputation simultaneously. Organisations need more than an emergency plan: they need people able to assess conditions, establish command, coordinate partners, protect life, communicate clearly and sustain operations through recovery.

This course develops the practical management skills expected of personnel assigned to emergency management, incident coordination, business continuity, security, safety, resilience and crisis leadership roles. Participants use the Incident Command System, ISO 22320 principles, emergency operations centre methods and risk assessment techniques to structure a response. They learn to set incident objectives, produce incident action plans, manage resources, make defensible decisions, coordinate public information, account for vulnerable groups and transition from response to recovery.

Instruction combines short technical briefings with case analysis, facilitated planning work, table-top scenarios and timed response simulations. Participants progressively build an emergency response management portfolio based on a realistic incident affecting their own sector, such as a flood at a municipal facility, refinery fire, hospital evacuation, humanitarian emergency or prolonged power outage. They leave with a completed emergency response management plan, incident command arrangements, decision tools, communication materials and recovery actions that can be adapted for workplace use.

The course suits professionals who already contribute to safety, security, continuity, operations or public emergency arrangements and now need to manage larger, multi-agency incidents. It is particularly relevant where organisations operate critical facilities, serve communities, manage hazardous processes or depend on complex supply networks.

What you will be able to do

  • Assess emergency scenarios using hazard, vulnerability and consequence analysis
  • Establish incident command structures using Incident Command System principles
  • Develop incident objectives and operational periods for a major emergency
  • Produce an incident action plan with assigned resources and control measures
  • Coordinate emergency operations centre information, decisions and tasking
  • Apply crisis communication protocols for staff, authorities, media and communities
  • Design recovery priorities using damage assessment and business continuity data
  • Present a complete emergency response management plan for senior review

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Greater confidence directing emergency teams during uncertain and fast-moving incidents
  • Practical experience producing incident action plans under time pressure
  • Stronger credibility when briefing executives, responders, regulators and community representatives
  • Reusable methods for coordinating emergency operations centres and field response teams
  • A workplace-ready emergency response management portfolio for professional progression

For your organisation

  • More consistent command arrangements during major incidents and operational disruptions
  • Faster escalation, decision-making and resource allocation under emergency conditions
  • Clearer coordination between operations, security, safety, communications and continuity teams
  • Better documented incident actions, decisions and recovery priorities for assurance purposes
  • Improved readiness for multi-agency exercises, regulatory scrutiny and real emergencies

Course modules

18 modules over 10 days

Participants can explain the emergency management cycle and define management responsibilities during major incidents.

  • Emergency management cycle: prevention, preparedness, response, recovery and mitigation
  • Major incident characteristics: uncertainty, urgency, interdependence and cascading consequences
  • Duty of care, legal authority and delegated emergency powers
  • Distinguishing emergencies, crises, disasters and business continuity disruptions
  • Command, coordination and control roles during escalating incidents
  • Emergency management functions within public, private and humanitarian organisations

Participants can prioritise emergency scenarios using documented risk assessment criteria.

  • ISO 31000 risk process applied to emergency scenario prioritisation
  • Hazard identification using historical events, inspections and threat intelligence
  • Vulnerability analysis covering people, facilities, systems and supply dependencies
  • Consequence matrices for life safety, service disruption and environmental harm
  • Risk registers linking preventive controls, preparedness actions and accountable owners
  • Bow-tie analysis connecting threats, barriers, top events and consequences

Participants can structure an emergency plan with clear authority, roles and activation arrangements.

  • Emergency plan architecture aligned with ISO 22320 coordination principles
  • Activation thresholds, notification routes and incident classification criteria
  • Roles, responsibilities and deputies documented through a RACI matrix
  • Mutual aid agreements, memoranda and partner contact arrangements
  • Plan maintenance schedules, review triggers and controlled document ownership
  • Readiness assurance through training records, drills and corrective actions

Participants can establish an incident command structure appropriate to incident scale and complexity.

  • Incident Command System principles, terminology and management span of control
  • Incident Commander authority, priorities and command transfer procedures
  • Operations, planning, logistics and finance administration section responsibilities
  • Unified command arrangements for incidents involving multiple responsible agencies
  • Command post location, security, access control and communications requirements
  • Organisational charts matched to incident complexity and operational periods

Participants can produce an initial assessment and verified situation report for command decisions.

  • METHANE reporting for initial major incident notification and escalation
  • Life safety assessment: casualties, evacuation needs and immediate hazards
  • Situation reports separating confirmed facts, assumptions and information gaps
  • Common operating picture inputs from field teams, sensors and partner agencies
  • Information validation methods for conflicting reports and unverified social media
  • Operational briefing format covering situation, actions, risks and priorities

Participants can write measurable incident objectives and assemble an operational incident action plan.

  • SMART incident objectives ranked by life safety and stabilisation priorities
  • Operational period planning cycle from briefing through reassessment
  • ICS 202 objectives form adapted for organisational emergency plans
  • Tactical assignments linked to locations, responsible leads and deadlines
  • Safety messages, contingency actions and decision points within action plans
  • Incident action plan approval, distribution and briefing control

Participants can organise an emergency operations centre to support command and coordination.

  • Emergency operations centre functions: coordination, support, information and policy
  • EOC activation levels matched to incident severity and support requirements
  • EOC layout, displays, communications channels and access arrangements
  • Tasking logs tracking requests, owners, deadlines and completion status
  • Decision logs recording authority, rationale, timing and follow-up actions
  • Shift handover protocols maintaining operational continuity and staff welfare

Participants can identify, request, track and demobilise emergency resources systematically.

  • Resource typing for personnel, equipment, supplies and specialist capabilities
  • Resource requests specifying capability, quantity, location, duration and priority
  • Staging area management for incoming responders, vehicles and essential supplies
  • Logistics planning for fuel, food, accommodation, transport and communications
  • Resource tracking registers recording status, assignment, availability and release
  • Demobilisation planning addressing handover, equipment return and cost records

Participants can select protective actions that account for hazards, population needs and available resources.

  • Protective action decisions: evacuation, shelter-in-place, lockdown and controlled access
  • Evacuation planning using routes, assembly points and transportation resources
  • Shelter management requirements for registration, sanitation, safeguarding and security
  • Vulnerable population assessment covering mobility, language, health and dependency
  • Personal protective equipment selection using hazard assessment and exposure controls
  • Responder safety monitoring through work-rest cycles and welfare checks

Participants can coordinate roles, information and priorities across responding organisations.

  • Stakeholder mapping for authorities, utilities, contractors, communities and voluntary agencies
  • Liaison officer responsibilities for partner coordination and issue resolution
  • Joint coordination meetings with agendas, action logs and escalation routes
  • Interoperability challenges across terminology, authority, data and radio systems
  • Common operating picture protocols for shared maps, reports and status boards
  • Mutual aid coordination for specialist teams and scarce emergency resources

Participants can prepare timely, accurate and coordinated communications for internal and external audiences.

  • Crisis communication principles: speed, accuracy, empathy and corrective updates
  • Audience analysis for employees, families, communities, regulators and media
  • Holding statements addressing known facts, protective actions and uncertainty
  • Message maps linking core messages, supporting evidence and anticipated questions
  • Joint information centre arrangements for coordinated public communications
  • Rumour management using monitoring, verification and corrective messaging

Participants can make and document proportionate decisions despite uncertainty and time constraints.

  • Recognition-primed decision model for time-critical emergency choices
  • Decision thresholds based on life safety, legal duty and operational impact
  • OODA loop application: observe, orient, decide and act
  • Escalation criteria requiring executive, regulatory or political decisions
  • Ethical triage principles for scarce resources and competing priorities
  • Decision records capturing options, assumptions, authority and review dates

Participants can manage response priorities during disruptions to essential infrastructure and services.

  • Critical dependency mapping for power, water, fuel, telecommunications and transport
  • Service restoration priorities using criticality, public safety and interdependency analysis
  • Utility liaison procedures for outage information and restoration forecasts
  • Backup power management covering generator capacity, fuel and load shedding
  • Alternative service delivery plans for prolonged infrastructure failures
  • Cascading failure scenarios affecting facilities, supply chains and public services

Participants can connect incident response actions with continuity arrangements for critical activities.

  • ISO 22301 continuity concepts applied during active emergency response
  • Business impact analysis outputs informing recovery time and service priorities
  • Critical activity recovery strategies: relocation, manual workarounds and alternate suppliers
  • Crisis management and business continuity interfaces during extended incidents
  • Continuity communication with customers, suppliers and essential service partners
  • Transition criteria from emergency command to normal management arrangements

Participants can establish recovery priorities from damage assessments and stakeholder needs.

  • Rapid damage assessment methods for facilities, equipment and essential services
  • Recovery objectives addressing safety, restoration, livelihoods and community needs
  • Recovery governance: sponsor, programme lead, workstreams and reporting cadence
  • Prioritisation matrices balancing urgency, impact, cost and dependency
  • Financial documentation for insurance claims, grants and emergency expenditure
  • Build-back-better principles for reducing future hazard exposure

Participants can conduct a structured review and convert findings into tracked improvement actions.

  • After-action review process: what happened, why and what changes
  • Hot debriefs capturing immediate observations before staff disperse
  • Root cause analysis using five whys and causal factor charts
  • Lessons identified versus lessons implemented and verified
  • Corrective action registers with owners, milestones and evidence requirements
  • Plan revisions, training updates and exercise priorities from review findings

Participants can design an exercise that tests priority emergency arrangements and produces improvement evidence.

  • Exercise objectives derived from risk assessments and known capability gaps
  • Table-top, functional and full-scale exercise formats compared
  • Scenario inject design using timed decisions and escalating consequences
  • Observer guides measuring actions against expected performance criteria
  • Exercise safety, participant welfare and simulation control arrangements
  • Evaluation reports linking findings to corrective action management

Participants can build, review and present a complete emergency response management plan for a major incident scenario.

  • Scenario assumptions defining hazard, affected population, facilities and operational constraints
  • Incident command chart with delegated authority and partner liaison roles
  • Initial situation report identifying facts, priorities, risks and information gaps
  • Operational incident action plan with objectives, assignments and safety controls
  • Emergency communications package including holding statement and stakeholder messages
  • Recovery framework linking damage assessment, restoration priorities and governance
  • Peer review against ISO 22320 principles and organisational requirements
  • Senior management presentation defending decisions, resources and implementation priorities

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. Major emergency response management plan template
  2. Incident Command System organisational chart
  3. Incident action plan and operational period template
  4. Emergency operations centre activation checklist
  5. Crisis communication message map
  6. Post-incident review and corrective action register

Who should attend

  • Emergency Managers — need structured methods for directing major incident responses
  • Business Continuity Managers — need to connect crisis response with service recovery
  • Health and Safety Managers — need to manage escalating incidents beyond site procedures
  • Security Managers — need command, coordination and communication arrangements during disruptions
  • Operations Managers — need to protect critical services, people and assets under pressure
  • Public Sector Coordinators — need common procedures for multi-agency emergency management

Skills and tools covered

Incident commandEmergency operations coordinationCrisis communicationsResource managementRecovery planningMulti-agency coordination

Tools and standards

ISO 22320, ISO 22301, Incident Command System, ISO 31000

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor briefings to introduce standards, command methods and planning tools, followed by facilitated case work and group planning. Participants interpret situation reports, establish command arrangements, set objectives, prepare incident action plans and manage changing incident conditions through table-top simulations. Sector-specific cases may include public infrastructure failure, industrial fire, severe weather, hospital surge or humanitarian displacement. Individual application planning connects each method to the participant's own emergency arrangements and responsibilities.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have basic experience in operations, health and safety, security, business continuity, facilities, public administration, humanitarian work or emergency services. They should understand their organisation's emergency procedures and be comfortable discussing incident scenarios, operational decisions and stakeholder responsibilities. Previous participation in drills or incident management is useful but not essential. No prior qualification in emergency management, civil protection, incident command or business continuity is required. The course does not require technical rescue, medical response, firefighting or hazardous-materials operational experience.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

Participants should have basic exposure to organisational emergency arrangements, safety, security, operations, continuity or public service delivery. Specialist rescue, firefighting, medical or hazardous-materials qualifications are not required.

Participants should bring their organisation's emergency response plan, incident escalation process or business continuity documents where permitted. These materials help them adapt course tools to their own responsibilities.

The course is designed for managers and specialists who may coordinate, support or lead responses to significant incidents. It suits private-sector, public-sector, critical infrastructure, humanitarian and NGO settings.

Business continuity training focuses on sustaining and recovering critical activities, while crisis communications focuses on stakeholder messaging. This course concentrates on managing the active emergency, including command, objectives, resources, coordination and emergency operations centre activity.

Participants develop response materials throughout the programme, including command arrangements, action plan formats, communication tools and recovery priorities. These can be reviewed against existing procedures after the course and adapted with relevant internal stakeholders.

Each day runs from 08:30 to 16:30 and provides about 6.5 contact hours. The first part builds core command, assessment and planning skills; the second part applies them to coordination, recovery, exercises and the final capstone presentation.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

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