In response, I do agree with you that Barbera et al. are not asking too much from All Personnel (AP) since emergency operations also comprise most of their daily tasks and responsibilities. Again, I have noted that the development of emergency response programs, plans and strategies is the duty of Emergency Managers especially when it comes to chain of command, and coordinating emergency response based on the size of events. However, since we are here discussing the viability of competencies proposed by Barbera et al., and their impact on AP roles, then there are a lot of questions to be raised regarding the acceptability of competency frameworks amongst Emergency Managers.
According to Lucien Canton, there is no standard (generally agreed) competency framework, and those developed by academia are inconsistent since they tend to consider emergency managers as being equal and performing the same tasks. However, Canton (2014) is keen to point out that the development of competency frameworks and standards should be a role of emergency managers. He argues that the role of an emergency manager in a small town is not the same as that in a large city thus concluding that there are different levels of emergency managers. In this case, Canton (2014), proposes that different emergency managers need different levels of training and education.
Nonetheless, the competencies and consequent objectives developed by Barbera et al. may serve as a paradigm to train and educate AP and Emergency Managers on disaster handling and emergency response. The framework reaches the general conclusions of previous competency frameworks and also offers a greater opportunity for standardization in evaluation and training by creating a uniform approach to objective derivation, content creation, and evaluation.
References:
Canton, L. (2014). Why Do Emergency Managers Still Lack a Competency Framework?. Emergencymgmt.com. Retrieved 16 March 2016, from http://www.emergencymgmt.com/emergency-blogs/managing-crisis/Why-do-we-still-lack-a-competency-framework.html?flipboard=yes
On the other hand, I do fully agree with you that while the requirements highlighted by Barbera et al. for AP are clearly outlined, they can overload personnel with various unnecessary requirements. In this case, I feel that competencies defined for emergency response and disaster training and education should more or less relate to the roles played by personnel in a particular job group during emergency events. After identifying specific personnel job groups and their respective competencies, the next step should be to develop an overall program for all personnel and programs for each specific group. This move will help prevent overwhelming APs will all manner of competencies which might be inapplicable for the roles they play in emergency events (Brewster, 2010).
References:
Brewster, P. (2010). Disaster Education and Training, in K. Koenig & C. Schultz, Koenig and Schultz's Disaster Medicine: Comprehensive Principles and Practices (1st ed., pp. 24-25). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
