2023-2024 NET Program Changes

.THIS PAGE IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION AND NOT FINAL..

Jeremy Van Keuren here.

This is a "read ahead" page for NET volunteers and others reviewing proposed changes to the Portland NET program. A feedback survey link will be posted to this page after the presentation on November 8, 2023.

BACKGROUND: The case for making changes to the NET program

Both PBEM and the City of Portland are undergoing (and undertaking) the most sweeping bureaucratic changes seen in decades. This is resulting in reprioritizing and movement of resources, and that does impact NET programming directly. Expanding our view beyond City government and into the sociological, the COVID pandemic and climate change has made permanent changes to how we view disaster, resilience, and community organizing.

People are accustomed to meeting and organizing on virtual platforms

It's difficult to believe that before the pandemic, virtual meetings were still a relative novelty. Sure, we had Skype (remember them?) but that was more often used to connect with your granny living thousands of miles away. Today, we're meeting over Zoom with people sitting literally in the next room.

From the NET community organizing perspective, there are both pros and cons to plan around. On the plus side, meeting online reduces obstacles to NET participation. Where a parent used to have to book childcare to take part in a NET meeting, now they can join online. Where someone who doesn't speak English fluently might feel self conscious requesting live interpretation, it's simpler for PBEM to detail a live interpreter to an online meeting. Where a less committed ATV might groan at the prospect of getting off the couch to go meet with neighbors, joining online may feel more palatable. And so on.

There are a few problems as well:

• There's an old saw that 80% of communication is nonverbal. That may oversimplify thing a bit, but the notion is still relevant. Even if online communication doesn't deaden nonverbal communication it does stymie it. Blotting nonverbal communication makes misunderstandings and misfired social behaviors more likely.
• AI bots are taking notes. Some of you may have noticed that folks are sending surrogate bots to take notes instead of arriving themselves. I think any reasonable person would agree that doesn't constitute "active participation". But it's better than not participating at all.
• Virtual meetings make hands-on team training more challenging, though certainly not impossible.

My position is that meeting online is not as good as meeting in person, but that online meetings are here to stay and teams should accommodate neighbors who need to use it. PBEM recommends that NET teams, team leaders, and PBEM address challenges:

1. PBEM should help develop best practices for NETs to do hybrid meetings. Hybrid meetings are still challenging, but they're getting easier.
2. PBEM encourages each team to get their own free Google Meet account. PBEM can no longer support a paid Zoom account for NET (though we are retaining a single Zoom account that NETs might use for exceptionally large, long, or complicated meetings).
3. NET Team Leaders should accept that not all volunteers (active NET/BEECN/ATV) will participate in person. But they can/should reasonably request occasional "all hands" in person meetings.
4. PBEM should work with NETs/FPN to develop team training/exercise curriculum that can work for online and hybrid audiences.

The urgency of climate change resilience is supplanting earthquake resilience in Portland

NET is an all-hazards response resource and responding to the threat of a CSZ earthquake will always be the standard PBEM wants to train NETs to. But an earthquake hasn't killed anyone in Oregon for at least three centuries. Meanwhile, extreme weather events in Oregon linked to climate change, such as the 2021 heat dome, have killed hundreds and contribute to ongoing health problems for many.

NET doesn't need to "choose" between preparing for an earthquake and climate change resilience, so we won't. But, NET training and outreach should reflect and incorporate the threats posed by extreme weather events.

• PBEM should offer a proportionally appropriate number of training events relevant to extreme weather event response and climate change resilience. This might include shelter response training, polishing training for heat illness response, outreach, and more.

Neighborhood-based response teams exist for no other purpose than to respond to an earthquake

Every NET deployment since 1994 has been centralized through PBEM. PBEM sets the volunteer position descriptions, the shift schedules, and the NETs ultimately report to PBEM. The reason is that, per NET Guidelines, NETs will only self deploy if there is a citywide disaster and routine communication systems are disabled. In other words: an earthquake.

This realization opens a few other implications that help us organize our work:

1. Teams of NET volunteers exist really for only two divisible reasons: for local self deployment after an earthquake, and for socializing/training together.
2. NET "Operations Plans" are really "Earthquake Plans".
3. ATVs are a resource that NETs should recruit, but generally only as part of a Neighborhood Earthquake Plan.

With all these implications in mind, I suggest the following changes:

• Operations Plans now be called Neighborhood Earthquake Response Frameworks (NERFs...no, seriously)
• Team service area boundaries for earthquake response, instead of conforming to neighborhood association boundaries, reflect the block scale areas a team decides on.
• Developing a NERF:
  • Includes any interested NET volunteers, ATV, and neighbors inside a team service area;
  • PBEM develop curriculum to step teams through the arc of developing a NERF, to include initial community outreach/recruitment, progressive community involvement, response capacity analysis, and capacity planning.
  • PBEM develop an online system of reporting for every NERF/neighborhood team, taking into account their capacity planning, and providing a resilience score. This will give teams (and PBEM on a broader scale) quantifiable goals to meet.

NET meeting numbers are generally low

This was happening before COVID, but the pandemic certainly appeared to exacerbate the problem. Not all teams are in this situation, but many Team Leaders report low meeting turnouts. At the same time, PBEM fairly consistently sees high turnouts for deployments. So, we suspect the reason low meeting turnout is happening is not because volunteers are unengaged.

What are Jeremy's proposed solutions?

Phase 1 (what we're working on right now):

1. In progress: PBEM completes policies for Affiliated Trained Volunteers (ATVs) so that Active NET volunteers have a clear option to move to ATV status if they wish.
2. In progress: Finish NET active membership audit (i.e. confirm which volunteers are meeting criteria for active status).
3. Not started: Send Team Leaders revised rosters after audit is complete.
4. In progress: PBEM completes GIS contract so that teams can change/declare new service area boundaries.
5. Not started: Change NET Guidelines to reflect a clear distinction between Centralized Deployments and Earthquake Deployments

Phase 2 (a period of major change in NET, will take 3 - 6 months):

1. Not started: Develop NET Training Centers A NET Training Center is actually a person; a NET volunteer who holds training events (which they create on their own and/or draw from pre-made curriculum). My model for this is Mark Ginsberg, the TL in Woodstock. He periodically holds training events not just for Woodstock, but for anyone in a SE Portland team who would like to join.
   • PBEM requests neighborhood NET Training Centers from the NET community.
   • PBEM releases NET training schedule (including Basic NET).
   • PBEM publishes directory of NET Training Centers.
   • PBEM publishes citywide training calendar (either through MIP or through Smart Sheet, and through the Bulletin).
   • PBEM works with FPN to publish training "recipes" to the Wiki.
2. Not started: Develop the NERFs
   • PBEM/FPN work on development arc for block-scale NETs. Milestones will/may include:
     • Service area boundaries
     • Decide on radio frequencies
     • Capacity assessment (which VSFs do you have already?)
     • Capacity planning (which VSFs and how many)
     • Neighborhood outreach
       • PBEM develops solid plans around curriculum)
       • Many curriculum options, including the Community Resilience Workbook, PocketPrep, Speakers Bureau, Cool Blocks, Map Your Neighborhood, Pearl District Curriculum, postcard drops/neighborhood block parties..
     • Assembling a roster (which includes NETs, neighbors, ATVs)
   • Block-scale NETs declare intent to have a NERF, submit their service area boundaries

Phase 3 (long term projects/ongoing program maintenance):

• Create a revised NET Task Book that Training Centers can use as a tool.
• Emphasize development of most important VSFs: 02, 06, 08, 09, and 15.