Certified Emergency Management Specialist (SEM)

Graduates are Certified as a "Specialist in Emergency Management"

Managing Emergencies in Your Facility - Private/Public Liaison

An emergency can be anything that injures or has the potential to injure your employees, the environment, or your facility itself. Emergencies take the form of accidents, HAZMAT spills, fires, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, terrorism, earthquake, and virtually any other event that may injure people, the environment, or property. You may be prepared to apply your resources to emergencies that involve your facility, but are you prepared for emergencies that require resources beyond those of your company? Are you prepared for emergencies that affect your entire area or community?

Many facility safety professionals are unaware of the many other agencies and resources that are available in the event of an emergency or disaster. Therefore, they are unprepared to take advantage of the assistance available or to deal with the government and private agencies involved. This is illustrated by a safety professional who developed an elaborate site specific emergency response plan, and trained and equipped his emergency response team only to have his first incident degenerate into chaos and confusion as his plan collapsed. When a petroleum spill occurred and the local fire, police, and EMS departments, the local fire marshal, the state fire marshal, state EPA, state OSHA, and the US Coast Guard all showed up he was surprised and unprepared. When he was later told that these agencies should be a part of his emergency plans and that an Integrated Emergency Management System and Incident Command System was available that would make the arrival and deployment of these outside agencies nearly seamless, he realized his mistake. He had planned in a vacuum by planning as if an emergency would only involve is company's personnel and resources.

Managing emergencies on behalf of your facility may involve interaction with a multitude of government agencies. Some are there to help you with a vast array of equipment, expertise, and funds. Others are there to enforce laws and regulations on you. Regardless of their function and motivation you must be prepared to work with them. These agencies include local city, county, state and federal agencies, as well as a multitude of private nonprofit corporations. There is a wealth of assistance available to you, your employees, and your facility from these sources.

The primary purpose of this series of courses is to introduce you to a broader scope of emergency management in order to make you aware of the resources available to you and your employees, and to help prepare you to be a good corporate citizen in planning and dealing with emergencies in your community.

The course includes five modules:

  1. Emergency Preparedness
  2. Emergency Program Management
  3. The Incident Command System
  4. Disaster Assistance
  5. Emergency Response to Terrorism

The fee for SEM certification is -

Downloadable version - $245.00
Shipped CD -              $245.00 + $12.95 S/H

There is an exam that can be faxed or e-mailed to NASP for grading. The estimated time required to complete the course is 30 hours, but can be done at the student's own pace. Students will be given six months from time of purchase to complete the course.

Four (4) CEUs are offered through the University of North Carolina at Wilmington for this course. If you are interested in receiving CEUs for this course, upon successful completion of the exam please obtain form and instructions from a Member Services Representative by calling 800-922-2219 (Extension Four).

If you are in the US, enroll now and download your course or
 order it on CD
If you are outside the US, please enroll with our
international order form

Emergency Management Specialist Course Outline

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National Association of Safety Professionals, a division of the International Association of Safety Professionals. Call us at (800) 922-2219