Trauma-Informed Emergency Management

Admissions: 1-877-UMA-1234 ext. 3465 or (207) 621-3465
Advising Center: 1-877-UMA-1234 ext. 3149 or (207) 621-3149
Coordinator: Kati Corlew
Website: https://www.uma.edu/academics/programs/tem/

Program Objectives

The Trauma-Informed Emergency Management (TEM) program seeks to educate the next generation of multidisciplinary emergency managers and crisis workers, with an emphasis on 1) effectively managing all steps in the emergency preparedness and response cycle; 2) the psychological impacts of and responses to trauma; 3) creating resilient communities; and 4) processing and communicating data in emergency situations.

The TEM program offers a Master of Science (30 credits) and a Graduate Certificate (16 credits) in Trauma-Informed Emergency Management, with concentrations in Community Resilience, Data Analytics, Emergency Management and Preparedness, and Mental Health. TEM students will receive an introduction to all topics and their interrelations before beginning their concentration coursework, thus preparing students to effectively work in a field that spans government, industry, and population needs.

Students in the TEM program will matriculate through the University of Maine at Augusta. Distance courses (video conference and online) will be taught from various institutions throughout the University of Maine System by leading experts in the field. The TEM program faculty are committed developing leaders in Maine and beyond by supporting students’ education, professional development, and networking opportunities.

The TEM Program offers a Master of Science degree and a Graduate Certificate. These program offerings are aligned such that MS students will achieve the Graduate Certificate as part of their degree progress; additionally, Certificate students who choose to pursue the Master’s degree will have already completed a significant portion of the Master’s curriculum.

Mission Statement

The Trauma-Informed Emergency Management program is dedicated to providing high quality, applied graduate education in the interdisciplinary fields relating to community and societal preparedness and response to disasters, crises, and emergencies.

Vision Statement

The Trauma-Informed Emergency Management program (TEM program) is Maine’s first graduate program in the interdisciplinary field of emergency management. The TEM program collaboratively draws expert faculty from across the University of Maine System schools to offer a robust curriculum aimed at increasing emergency management capacity and professional expertise in the state of Maine and beyond.

The TEM program holds a dual emphasis on specialized and generalized knowledge through shared core courses, followed by discipline-specific concentration coursework. In this way, the TEM program cultivates professionals who can lead in their field and effectively collaborate with the complex network of emergency management stakeholders.

The TEM program curriculum is rooted in the Emergency Management Cycle, recognizing the essential roles of preparedness, resilience, mitigation, adaptation, response, and recovery in all emergency management related fields. The TEM program integrates a trauma-informed perspective, recognizing the substantial impact of trauma to individuals and communities, as well as to the emergency responders themselves.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this program, students will be able to:

Understand and communicate the perspectives, values, vocabulary, and priorities of different types of providers active in emergency and trauma response
Articulate and apply community-oriented, trauma-informed practice, including differences in experience, diagnoses, and different types of trauma inherent to emergency situations
Understand and apply the Emergency Response Cycle within the context of natural disasters and other emergency situations
Use crisis communication to interface and build connections with emergency planners and responders across disciplines and institutional settings
Demonstrate data literacy in emergency management

Concentration-specific Learning Outcomes

Community Resilience Concentration

Engage with communities, including learning local ways and building rapport and trust
Demonstrate cultural responsiveness to exacerbated vulnerabilities in a disaster setting, particularly with marginalized, minority, and/or vulnerable populations including consideration of intersectionality
Articulate psychological responses common to emergency, disaster, and climate change, including social and political norms and perspectives
Articulate methods to increase resilience and make recommendations for building resilience for individuals, communities, cities and infrastructure, industries, and first responders
Understand the perspectives, values, and priorities of communities in emergency situations, with specific consideration of marginalized, minority, and/or vulnerable populations, and engage with cultural humility and responsiveness

Data Analytics Concentration

Use geospatial tools and best practices to understand and communicate about hazards and risks, build scenarios, and plan responses
Apply data science with consideration of the scale in planning and response, including city, town, rural, remote, and island populations
Demonstrate participatory mapping techniques in GIS such as asset mapping, scenario building and assembling priorities
Demonstrate GIS and modeling for emergency situations

Emergency Management and Preparedness Concentration

Understand the structure and organization of crisis intervention services in Maine and how to access those services
Understand the policies, hierarchies, and pragmatics of working with homeland security, national incident management systems, and how the FEMA hierarchy works, in an emergency
Create emergency plans, near term and long term, with consideration of pre-emergency response, transportation/access/mobility issues, community resources, mitigation and adaptation for resilience
Develop operational responses for emergency scenarios
Identify and demonstrate ability to write grants for public agencies for emergency planning, response, and recovery

Mental Health Concentration

Articulate and apply crisis theory and practice
Practice trauma-informed interventions, including Psychological First Aid, suicide prevention, substance abuse and recovery, and deescalation
Assess trauma in emergencies, including vicarious trauma, with consideration for subpopulations that may have increased vulnerability, such as children, veterans, people with disabilities or mental health diagnoses, refugees, ethnic minority groups, etc.
Understand the cognitions inherent in traumatic experiences, including impacts to cognitive functioning for responders and the affected population
Demonstrate assessment skills specific to conducting a crisis assessment, including mental status, affective/cognitive/behavioral components, and stages of intervention, and mini mental status exams

Academic Advising

TEM students are advised by full-time faculty members. Students are encouraged to continue to meet with their advisors on a regular basis to help ensure a productive and meaningful graduate experience. Master of Science students may have an additional Capstone Project advisor.

Career Opportunities

The Master of Science and Graduate Certificate are appropriate for current and future emergency managers, crisis workers, town planners, not-for-profit and community-based organizations, educators, school board members and administration, data managers, counselors, and others in private and public sectors who seek to increase their organization’s or community’s preparedness for emergency.

Admissions Requirements

Graduate Certificate

The UMA Graduate Application
Resume or CV
A brief (2-4 pages) essay including a short autobiography, the applicant’s reasons for pursuing this degree, professional goals, and how this degree will contribute to these goals.
Transcripts from all colleges or universities attended, excluding the seven campuses of the University of Maine System (Follow instructions on application)
Interview with Program Coordinator or Faculty

Master of Science

The UMA Graduate Application
Resume or CV
A brief (2-4 pages) essay including a short autobiography, the applicant’s reasons for pursuing this degree, professional goals, and how this degree will contribute to these goals. Additionally, the applicant should identify a preferred concentration and potential capstone advisors from among the TEM faculty.
Transcripts from all colleges or universities attended, excluding the seven campuses of the University of Maine System (Follow instructions on application)
Interview with Program Coordinator or Faculty

Graduation Requirements

To successfully complete the program, TEM students must complete the curricular requirements for their degree or certificate, achieve a B- or better in each TEM course and a cumulative G.P.A. of 3.0 or better.

Graduate Certificate students will complete 10-12 credit hours of core courses, as well as 6 credit hours of Concentration specific courses.

Master of Science students will complete 18 credit hours of core courses, including a Capstone, as well as 12 credit hours of Concentration specific courses. Master’s students will achieve the Graduate Certificate in pursuit of their Master of Science.

Students are expected to maintain continuous enrollment and fulfill their curricular requirements in the timeline outlined in the Graduate Academic Policies .

Accelerated Program

The TEM Accelerated Program allows University of Maine at Augusta (UMA) undergraduate students to get a jump start on their graduate career by taking TEM courses before graduation. Students will apply for provisional acceptance into the Graduate Certificate or Master of Science in TEM and take four of our graduate courses (12 credits) which will apply toward their undergraduate degrees. Students will then apply for full admission to the TEM program for the academic year following their baccalaureate graduation, at which point these courses would transfer in to apply to the Certificate or Master’s in TEM.

Benefits of the TEM Accelerated Program:

Save time - fewer overall credits
Access to faculty, advising, and extracurricular resources available to all TEM students

Admission Requirements:

Current enrollment in a degree program at UMA
Minimum 60 credit hours completed
Minimum Cumulative G.P.A.: 3.0
Completion of Accelerated Program Application

Students must achieve a B- or better in each TEM course and a cumulative G.P.A. of 3.0 or better for the Accelerated Program credits to confer toward their graduate degree or certificate. Please refer to the to the Academic Policies and Graduate Academic Policies for additional information.

Each 3 credit TEM 500-599 course will be applied to the student’s undergraduate degree progress as an Upper Level Elective, unless a specific substitution is approved by the student’s Major Coordinator. A substitution form may be required.

To apply to the Accelerated Program, contact kate.corlew@maine.edu .

Programs

Master of Science

Trauma-Informed Emergency Management, MS

Graduate Certificate

Trauma-Informed Emergency Management, Graduate Certificate

Accelerated Graduate Program

Trauma-Informed Emergency Management, Accelerated Program