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On September 5, 2012, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Secure Community Network, in partnership with the Jewish Federations of North America and the Conference of Presidents hosted a national-level tabletop exercise for senior leaders representing dozens of Federations and national Jewish organizations across the U.S. (Read More)

This joint exercise with DHS was the first of its kind with a faith-based community and provided a valuable forum and exercise toward strengthening our existing partnerships with our federal, state and local homeland security and law enforcement partners. Nearly 100 community leaders and government officials, including DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano participated in the event.

One of the stated outcomes of the program was the development of the Sector Specific Tabletop Exercise Program (SSTEP), a packaged version of the tabletop exercise scenarios and discussion materials that would be made available to Jewish organizations and communities across the country to coordinate and facilitate their own tabletop exercises.

To request access to the program, please submit a request to SCN at scandesk@scnus.org.

In response to the tragic attack at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, Secure Community Network (SCN) coordinated and hosted two special webinars with the US Department of Homeland Security, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and experts on school security from Margolis, Healy & Associates.  The webinar reviewed and discussed lessons learned from past events, best practices and cost effective security recommendations that schools and other organizations should consider as part of their preparedness, crisis management and response planning.  

School safety and security information was reviewed to full-capacity webinar/conference calls of over 1,500 participants from institutions and organizations across the nation. While not every emergency and act of violence is 100% preventable, preparedness planning, training, testing and exercising our security plans can prevent and deter many situations and mitigate and lessen the impact of unavoidable events. We encourage you to review the timely and important slides accessed through the link below; and take the time to review and refresh your crisis response plan. 

Please visit our comprehensive "SCN Safe School Initiative" webpage for access to the January 10th webinar presentation and accompanying audio as well as valuable information on crisis and emergency planning.