Aim and themes
EPN 4 is the latest in a series of Emergency Personnel Seminars (EPS), which took place as follows:
- EPS 1 Dublin 1997 (November)
- EPS 2 Brussels 1998 (November)
- EPS 3 New York 2000 (April)
At EPS 3 it was decided to change the name to “Emergency Personnel Network” (EPN), to reduce the emphasis on the meetings themselves and emphasise the ongoing nature of collaboration.
The aim of the Emergency Personnel Seminars is to improve the ability of participating organisations, both individually and as a community, to find, select, prepare, manage and retain personnel for emergency operations – in order to improve the effectiveness of emergency response.
The main theme of EPN 4 was:
“Finding, developing and retaining good field managers for relief assignments.” Field managers include both expatriate and national staff who manage programmes in the field.
The second theme of EPN 4 was:
“Ensuring the safety and security of field staff on relief missions.”