The National Exercise Division's mission is to support citizens, first responders, senior government officials, and the public and private sectors by providing exercise doctrine, programs, and resources needed to achieve the National Preparedness Goal and foster a secure and resilient nation with the capabilities to prevent, protect against, mitigate, respond to, and recover from all threats and hazards.
National Exercise Program
The National Preparedness System organizes actions to plan, organize, equip, train, and exercise the capabilities necessary to prevent, protect against, mitigate the effects of, respond to, and recover from those threats and hazards that pose the greatest risk to the security of the nation. The National Preparedness System is the instrument the nation employs to consistently build, sustain, and deliver those capabilities to achieve the goal of a secure and resilient nation. As a component of the National Preparedness System, the National Exercise Program is the principal mechanism for examining readiness and validating nationwide preparedness across the entire homeland security, public safety, and emergency management enterprise. The National Exercise Program consists of a two-year, progressive cycle of select exercises across the whole community anchored to a common set of strategic objectives that culminates in a national-level exercise.
More information on the NEP can be found here.
FEMA's Regional Exercise Officers are located at all 10 FEMA Regions and can also assist sponsors in the nomination process.
Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program
The Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program (HSEEP) doctrine consists of fundamental principles that frame a common approach to exercises. Applying these principles to both the management of an exercise program and the execution of individual exercises is critical to the effective examination of capabilities.
- Guided by elected and appointed officials
- Capability-based, objective driven
- Progressive planning approach
- Whole community integration
- Informed by risk
- Common methodology
More information on the HSEEP can be found here.