Course Info

Keeping Our People Safe/Helping Our People Recover:
Hazardscape Emergency Management Training for First Nations & Inuit

Occurrences of major wildfires and flooding are on the rise in Arctic, Subarctic, and coastal communities. Emergency situations have a major impact on community members’ physical, mental, spiritual, and financial well-being, and on the Nation’s and community’s sovereignty and cultural integrity.

Hazardscape is committed to partnering with First Nations and Inuit communities to provide Emergency Management training and services purpose-built for their needs. We believe that Emergency Management in a First Nation and Inuit context needs to respect and learn from the experience, history and culture of the community in which it takes place.

This introductory course on Emergency Management does just that. We’ve taken the industry-standard “all hazards” approach and adapted it to the needs and challenges of First Peoples.

Who is the course for?

Members and/or staff of First Nations and Inuit communities who are newly responsible for or involved with the Emergency Management function in their community.

What will participants learn?

The full course consists of nine modules, all of which include group activities and class discussion that give learners the chance to learn from each other, as well as from the facilitator.

1. What is Emergency Management?
   The full course consists of nine modules, all of which include group activities and class discussion that give learners the chance to learn from each other, as well as from the facilitator. 

2. Emergency Management – Past, Present and Future
   How Emergency Management practice has developed from a top-down, hierarchical system to a more collaborative one, and how it can be adapted to the First Peoples realities through a sovereignty-focused and trauma-informed approach.

3. Emergency Management in the Community
   How to act as an Emergency Management resource to community members through relationship-building and coaching.

4. Emergency Management Partners
   A look at the various government agencies and Non-Government Organizations in the Emergency Management field and how to work with them while maintaining sovereignty and cultural integrity, with special emphasis on working with Indigenous Services Canada and Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada.

5. Hazards and Risks
   How to identify hazards and assess risk, including incorporating traditional community knowledge into the “all hazards” process.

6. Prevention and Mitigation
   The first phase of the Emergency Management cycle – how to prevent or reduce risks associated with hazards.

7. Preparedness
   The second phase of the Emergency Management cycle – how to plan and prepare for emergency incidents, including regulatory standards and purposefully building a resilient community.

8. Response
   The third phase of the Emergency Management cycle – how to respond to emergency incidents while maintaining your community’s cultural integrity and sovereignty.

9. Recovery
   The fourth phase of the Emergency Management cycle – how to restore your community’s physical, mental, financial and cultural well-being after an emergency incident.

Course delivery and approach – What to expect

This is an in-person course, delivered on-site at communities or as events with participants from multiple communities. Depending on which modules are covered, learners will be in class from one to three instructional days.

While this course is instructor-led, it is not a lecture course. The instructional approach is collaborative, respectful, and focused on the needs of learners. Each learner will receive a Learner Guide as a resource during and after the course, along with regular email follow-up activities.