SW Ohio Regional Safety Summit

This past Friday, Nov. 3rd, Erie Emergency & Crisis Consulting had the pleasure of attending and participating in the South-West Ohio Regional Safety Summit, made up of Butler, Hamilton, Clermont, and Warren Counties. The Summit was a chance for emergency management and safety personnel from counties and private industries from across the region to gather for a day of learning new and upcoming technologies while sharing multiple lessons learned from work throughout the past year.

The attendees were treated to very informational presentations including sessions on Unmanned Drones, Gas Pipeline safety, and first-hand accounts from a representative from Madison schools to discuss their 2016 active shooter situation. Erie delivered 2 separate presentations, one on secondary trauma and Compassion Fatigue and another on the value of learning Business Continuity, and its value to the Emergency Management and Safety fields.

Compassion fatigue or secondary trauma is the emotional duress that results when an individual hears about the firsthand trauma experiences of another. Its symptoms mimic those of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Business Continuity is traditionally defined as encompassing planning and preparation to ensure that an organization can continue to operate in case of serious incidents or disasters and is able to recover to an operational state within a reasonably short period. While this was pushed, the addition to this was that the discipline is also applicable for the local emergency manager or the safety officer.