Slide 1: Continuity of Operations (COOP) Awareness Training

Slide 2: Objectives
?	Provide an understanding of COOP, COOP terms, and benefits of COOP planning
?	Explain elements of a viable COOP capability
?	Provide information about how a COOP event might affect you, your organization, 
and your family

Slide 3: Training Topics
?	COOP Definition and Scope
?	Authority for COOP
?	DHS's Role in COOP
?	COOP Overview
?	Elements of a Viable COOP Capability
?	COOP Impacts
?	Course Evaluation

Slide 3: COOP:  Definition & Scope
COOP includes. . . 
	The activities of individual departments and agencies and their sub compartments to 
ensure that their essential functions are performed

Slide 4: COOP:  Definition & Scope
COOP activities include:
?	Plans and procedures to ensure that essential functions are performed.  
?	Tests, training, and exercises essential for 	ensuring a viable COOP capability

Slide 5: COOP Authority
?	Legal Basis:  Executive Order 12656, "Assignment of Emergency Preparedness 
Responsibilities"
?	Applies for Federal Executive Branch departments/agencies, but COOP concepts:
?		Guide the Legislative and Judicial Branches.
?		Can be adopted for State and local levels.

Slide 6: DHS's role in COOP
?	Lead agent for Federal Executive Branch COOP
?	Has designated FEMA as lead agent

Side 7: DHS's Role in COOP
FEMA is responsible for:
?	Issuing COOP guidance.
?	Promoting understanding of and compliance with COOP requirements in FPC-65.

?	FEMA'S Office Of National Security Coordination (ONSC) is DHS's implementing 
organization for its COOP Lead Agent responsibilities

Slide 8: COOP Overview
FPC-65 guides COOP planning in the Federal Executive Branch

Slide 9: COOP Overview:  Benefits
COOP is a good business practice.  It enables agencies to continue their essential 
functions across a broad spectrum of hazards and emergencies:
?	Natural
?	Manmade
?	Technological
?	National security emergencies

Slide 10: COOP Overview:  Planning Objectives
?	Ensure continued performance of essential functions
?	Reduce loss of life/minimize damage
?	Ensure succession to office of key leadership
?	Reduce/mitigate disruptions to operations
?	Protect essential assets
?	Achieve timely recovery/reconstitution
?	Maintain TT&E program for validation

Slide 11: COOP Overview:  Planning Considerations
COOP plans must:
?	Be capable of implementation anytime, with and without warning.
?	Provide full operational capability for essential functions not later than 12 hours after 
activation.
?	Be capable of sustaining operations for up to 30 days.
?	Include regularly scheduled TT&E.

Slide 12: Elements of a Viable COOP Capability
?	Plans and Procedures
?	Essential Functions
?	Delegations of Authority
?	Orders of Succession
?	Alternate Facilities
?	Interoperable Communications
?	Vital Records
?	Human Capital
?	TT&E
?	Devolution
?	Reconstitution

Slide 13: Elements of a Viable COOP Capability
Essential Functions are those functions that enable an organization to:

?	 Provide vital services.
?	 Exercise civil authority.
?	 Maintain the safety of the general public.
?	 Sustain the industrial and economic base.

Slide 14: Elements of a Viable COOP Capability
Essential functions:
?	Most important planning element
?	Basis for determining resource requirements:
?	Staff
?	Vital information/critical systems
?	Equipment
?	Supplies and services
?	Facilities
Elements of a Viable COOP Capability

Slide 15: Identifying/Prioritizing Essential Functions
?	Agencies must determine functions that must be continued in all circumstances.
?	Essential functions include those that:
?	Cannot be interrupted for 12 hours.
?	Must be resumed within 30 days.

Slide 16: Elements of a Viable COOP Capability
Essential functions include all functions:
?	Explicitly assigned by law or order of the President.
?	Determined by the agency head to be essential.
?	That provide vital support to another Federal Executive Branch department or agency.

Slide 17: Elements of a Viable COOP Capability
Staff required to support essential functions:
?	 Number
?	 Skills
?	 Experience
?	 Availability
?	 Timing of requirement

Slide 18: Elements of a Viable COOP Capability
Delegations of Authority:
?	To ensure the continued operation of departments/agencies and their essential 
functions
?	To ensure rapid response to any emergency situation requiring COOP implementation

Slide 19: Elements of a Viable COOP Capability
Delegations of Authority specify. . .
Who is authorized to make decisions or act on behalf of the department/agency head and 
other key officials for specific purposes during COOP emergencies

Slide 20: Elements of a Viable COOP Capability
Delegations of Authority  
Purposes:
?	Approving emergency policy changes
?	Approving changes in SOPs
?	Empowering designated representatives to participate as members of interagency 
emergency response teams to act on behalf of the agency head

Slide 21: Elements of a Viable COOP Capability
Purposes:
?	Making personnel management decisions
?	Approving commitment of resources
?	Signing contracts

Slide 22: Elements of a Viable COOP Capability
Orders of Succession are. . .
?	Provisions for the assumption of senior agency leadership positions during an 
emergency  when. . .
?	The incumbents are unable or unavailable to execute their legal duties.

Slide 23: Elements of a Viable COOP Capability
Orders of Succession
?	Should be established for:
?	The agency head
?	Officials down to and including office directors responsible for performing 
essential functions
?	Are required by Presidential Executive Order for the heads of cabinet-level 
departments and agencies

Slide 24: Elements of a Viable COOP Capability
Alternate Facilities are:
Locations, other than the normal facility, used to carry out essential functions in a COOP 
situation.

Slide 25: Elements of a Viable COOP Capability
Alternate Facilities
Desirable characteristics:
?	Located at a safe distance from and secured against worst-case and most-likely 
scenarios
?	Can be operational in 12 hours or less
?	Provide sufficient space, equipment, supplies, and services to support COOP personnel 
in the performance of essential functions

Slide 26: Elements of a Viable COOP Capability
Alternate Facilities
Desirable characteristics:
?	Supports required communications and IT infrastructures
?	Provides for food, lodging, health, sanitation, and security needs of COOP personnel 
on site or nearby

Slide 27: Elements of a Viable COOP Capability
Interoperable Communications are:
Communications that provide the capability to perform essential functions, in conjunction 
with other agencies and organizations, until normal operations can be resumed.

Slide 28: Elements of a Viable COOP Capability
Interoperable Communications
?	Support performance of essential functions
?	Provide capability to communicate within the organization
?	Provide connectivity to outside agencies/ customers
?	Ensure access to data, systems, and services

Slide 29: Elements of a Viable COOP Capability
Vital Records are:
Electronic and hardcopy documents, references, and records needed to support essential 
functions during a COOP situation.  The two basic categories of vital records are:
?	Emergency operating records.
?	Legal and financial records.

Slide 30: Elements of a Viable COOP Capability
Emergency operating records:
?	Plans and directives
?	Orders of succession
?	Delegations of authority
?	References for performing essential functions

Slide 31: Elements of a Viable COOP Capability
Legal and financial records:
?	Personnel records
?	Social Security records
?	Payroll records
?	Retirement records
?	Insurance records
?	Contract records

Slide 32: Elements of a Viable COOP Capability
Vital Records
?	Every Federal agency must have a vital records program.
?	An effective vital records program provides for the identification, protection, and 
ready availability of:
?	Vital records
?	Databases
?	Hardcopy documents

Slide 33: Elements of a Viable COOP Capability
Human Capital Management is:
The sum of the talent, energy, knowledge, and enthusiasm that people invest in their 
work.

Slide 34: Elements of a Viable COOP Capability
Human Capital Management
?	The right people in the right jobs to perform essential functions
?	Ensures that all employees have a clear understanding of what to do in an emergency
?	Includes protocols for identifying/assisting special-needs employees

Slide 35: Elements of a Viable COOP Capability
Human Capital Management
?	Invests in training and development to build skills and competencies to increase 
employee flexibility
?	Considers alternate assignments for nonemergency employees

Slide 36: Elements of a Viable COOP Capability
Human Capital Management:  
Non-ERG Members
?	Tell non-ERG members:
?	Where to go.
?	What to do.
?	Include employee accountability procedures
?	Include recall/activation procedures

Slide 37: Elements of a Viable COOP Capability
Tests, training, and exercise program includes:
Measures to ensure that an agency's COOP program is capable of supporting the 
continued execution of its essential functions throughout the duration of the COOP 
situation.

Slide 38: Elements of a Viable COOP Capability
TT&E Program Goals
?	Train ERG members in functional areas of mission readiness
?	Provide opportunities to acquire skills and knowledge required to perform assigned 
ERG role
?	Build team unity
?	Reflect lessons learned from TT&E events, current COOP information, and training 
needs

Slide 39: Elements of a Viable COOP Capability
Devolution is:

The capability to transfer statutory authority and responsibility for essential functions 
from an agency's primary operating staff and facilities to other employees and facilities 
and to sustain that operational capability for an extended period.

Slide 40: Elements of a Viable COOP Capability
Reconstitution is:
The process by which agency personnel resume normal agency operations from the 
original or replacement primary operating facility.

Slide 41: Elements of a Viable COOP Capability
Reconstitution
?	Inform all personnel that the threat no longer exists, and provide instructions for 
resumption of normal operations.
?	Supervise an orderly return to the normal operating facility or movement to another 
operating facility.
?	Report status of relocation to agency partners/customers.
?	Conduct an after-action review.

Slide 42: COOP Impacts
COOP Impacts
Impact on the Organization:
?	Leadership
?	Operations
?	Security
?	Communications

Slide 43: COOP Impacts
You and your family:
?	Uncertainty
?	Personal and family security
?	Job security
?	Economic well-being

Slide 44: COOP Impacts
Employee and Family
COOP and family support plans should:
?	Include personnel accountability procedures.
?	Provide a means for keeping employees informed.
?	Provide information to all employees so they can develop their family emergency 
plans.
?	Provide information about family support services near the alternate site.

Slide 45: COOP Impacts
Employee and Family
Family emergency plans should include:
?	Contact and communications information.
?	Immediate Emergency Checklist:
?	Medical 
?	Financial 
?	Automobile/Transportation
?	Legal/Administrative
?	Important documents

Slide 46: Course Wrap-up
?	The COOP program provides the capability to continue essential government services 
through any emergency
?	Viable COOP programs include comprehensive plans, tests, training, and exercises to 
ensure desired capabilities are achieved/maintained.
?	COOP emergencies can disrupt all organizations for a time and can threaten our well-
being and that of our families.
Course Wrap-up