Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program

The Role of Exercises

Exercises play a vital role in national preparedness by enabling whole community stakeholders to test and validate plans and capabilities and identify both capability gaps and areas for improvement. A well-designed exercise provides a low risk environment to test capabilities, familiarize personnel with roles and responsibilities, and foster meaningful interaction and communication across organizations. Exercises bring together and strengthen the whole community in its efforts to prevent, protect against, mitigate, respond to, and recover from all hazards. Overall, exercises are cost effective and useful tools that help the nation practice and refine our collective capacity to achieve the core capabilities in the National Preparedness Goal.

Applicability and Scope

HSEEP exercise and evaluation doctrine is flexible, scalable, adaptable, and practical aid to stakeholders across the whole community. HSEEP doctrine is applicable for exercises across all mission areas: prevention, protection, mitigation, response, and recovery. Using HSEEP supports the National Preparedness System.

HSEEP doctrine is based on national best practices and is supported by training, technology systems, tools, and technical assistance. The National Exercise Program (NEP) is consistent with the HSEEP methodology. Exercise practitioners are encouraged to apply and adapt HSEEP doctrine to meet their specific needs.

Target Audience

The target audience for this training is those involved in planning, budgeting, management, design, development, conduct and evaluation of exercises or those involved in the following roles at all levels of the planning process including:

• Exercise planning team leaders/members who require a comprehensive understanding of the Exercise Planning Cycle.
• Controllers and Facilitators who are responsible for the successful control and conduct of an exercise.
• Evaluators who need to understand the evaluation processes, the supporting Core Capabilities and Exercise Evaluation Guides (EEGs) and be familiar with exercise conduct.
• Exercise managers who require an understanding of the Program Management and Improvement Planning process.
• Senior Officials responsible for the continued operation of their assigned agencies/organizations.

Prerequisites

Applicants are required to have completed IS-120: An Introduction to Exercises. It is also recommended that participants take IS-0130: Exercise Evaluation and Improvement Planning.

• IS-120.C: An Introduction to Exercises

  This course introduces the basics of emergency management exercises. It also builds a foundation for subsequent exercises courses, part of the National Standard Exercise Curriculum (NSEC), which provides the specifics of the Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program (HSEEP)

  IS-120.C Course

• IS-130.A: How to be an Exercise Evaluator

  This course introduces the basics and key concepts required to be an effective exercise evaluator. It also discusses tools and documentation necessary to be an effective evaluator.

  IS-130.A Course

ELK0146 HSEEP Course

The 0146 Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program (HSEEP) Training Course offer several delivery methods. These include classrooms at NDEMU campus (E type), in local jurisdictional classrooms (L type), and NDEMU anywhere via virtual classrooms (K type).

For each type, student and instructor information are identical, only delivery methods are different. Each are 16 hours in duration and offer 1.6 CEU credits.

• E0146: HSEEP Training Course

  Delivered at NDEMU in the Emergency Management Professional Program Basic Academy. Contact fema-empp-basic-academy@fema.dhs.gov​ with any course questions

  Find a Delivery

• L0146: HSEEP Training Course

  Delivered in a traditional classroom environment at a local jurisdiction, and managed through the State Training Officer.

  Find a Delivery

• K0146: HSEEP Training Course

  Delivered anywhere, in virtual classrooms, through Adobe Connect

  Find a Delivery

How to Apply

1. Coordinate

   Students coordinate HSEEP application through their State Training Officer (STO) at least six weeks prior to course.

2. Apply Online

   Students register though the NETC Online Admissions Application using their SID or PIV information

   • Upload your prerequisite IS-120 Introduction to Exercises certificate during registration
   • All NDEMU applications require an electronic approval from the head of your sponsoring organization. You will need the name, title, and email address of this person to submit the application.
   • Non-Federal applicants for NDEMU courses must use the appropriate State Training Officer (STO) as “Head of Organization”.

3. Complete the Application

   You will be notified of the selection status via the email address provided during application

Frequently Asked Questions

Preparedness Toolkit (PrepToolkit) & Exercises

• PrepToolkit is designed to support implementation of the National Preparedness System (NPS) and is a web-based platform.
• Exercise Tools are within the Validating Capabilities component.
• Exercise Tools utilize HSEEP which aids exercise planners with exercise development and execution.
• With PrepToolkit, you can manage central exercise data, map exercises to mission areas and core capabilities, identify objectives, track schedule, and export pre-populated HSEEP templates.

E/K/L0146 Recommended Instructor Qualifications

We no longer manage Instructor credentials for teaching the E/L/K0146 HSEEP course or an Instructor database, we only recommend Instructor qualifications. All Instructor requests are deferred to the STO who has the knowledge of Instructors within their State.

All Instructors for the HSEEP course are expected to have a thorough understanding of HSEEP methodology as well as direct experience in the program management, design and development, conduct, evaluation, and improvement planning of exercises. It is incumbent upon each course POC that sponsors an HSEEP course to verify their Instructors meet these baseline recommendations to ensure consistent and high-quality instruction:

• Recommend a minimum of three years of field experience in designing, developing, conducting, and evaluating HSEEP consistent exercises or as appointment as a Training Officer or Exercise Officer. 

• Recommend successful completion of the following courses:
  • E/K/L0146, Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program Course.
  • IS-100, Introduction to Incident Command System.
  • IS-120, An Introduction to Exercises.
  • IS-130, How to be an Exercise Evaluator.
  • IS-200, Basic Incident Command System for Initial Response.
  • IS-700, An Introduction to National Incident Management System.
  • IS-800, National Response Framework, An Introduction.

• Recommend having experience in the development of HSEEP consistent After-Action Reports/Improvement Plans.

• Recommend having recent (within the last 5 years) experience in conducting HSEEP consistent exercise planning meetings (Concept and Objectives Meeting, Initial Planning Meeting, Midterm Planning Meeting, Master Scenario Events List Meeting, Final Planning Meeting, and After-Action Meeting).

• Recommend having experience with the administrative demands of managing a course (attendance, logistics, course evaluation, etc.).

• Recommend having knowledge and experience with computers for classroom instruction.  Experience using Microsoft Office Suite products, including Power Point and MS Word.