• Set up and operate JIS/JIC with partners.
• Craft messages using risk communication best practices (clarity, empathy, actionability).
• Manage media briefings, press releases, and stakeholder updates.
• Monitor and counter misinformation; coordinate with legal and leadership.
• Produce a Crisis Messaging Playbook with pre-approved templates.
  
  

• Incident commanders, operations chiefs, communications unit leaders (COML), dispatch supervisors, field supervisors.
• Industrial site emergency teams (refineries, petrochemical plants, utilities).
• City/county emergency management staff, fire/EMS/police, HSE.

Short lectures, case studies, tabletop exercises, role-play message drills, technical planning labs (radio channel plans, ICS forms), and a capstone simulation.

Day 1: ICS & Communications Essentials

• ICS structure and common operating picture
• Communications unit roles (COML, COMT)
• Plain language & minimizing jargon
• Exercise: radio discipline & message brevity
  
  

Day 2: Interoperability & Radio Systems

• Conventional vs trunked systems; talkgroups & patches
• Cross-agency interoperability gateways
• Failover and redundancy (mobile repeaters, mutual-aid)

Day 3: Message Management & Documentation

• Incident logs, SITREPs, mapping information flows
• Priority/urgency triage; confirmation & read-backs
• Exercise: dispatch-to-field play; incident net control rotation

Day 4: Synchronization with EOC & PIO

• Linking field, EOC, and JIC; rumor control
• Coordination rhythms: briefings, shifts, handovers
• Exercise: cross-functional coordination injects

Day 5: Capstone Simulation & After-Action

• Full exercise with escalating injects
• Evaluate ICP, interoperability, documentation
• After-Action Review (AAR) & improvement plan
• Deliverable: Incident Communications Plan + AAR

CDGA attendance certificate will be issued to all attendees completing minimum of 80% of the total course duration.