The Canadian Centre for Emergency Preparedness (CCEP) has a new website, which addresses all forms of emergency preparedness issues regarding pandemic and disruptive events, including those that effect Small Businesses Enterprises (SMEs) and Non-Profit Organizations (NPOs).

The SME and NPO sectors employ about half of all workers in the Canadian private sector and CCEP is dedicating much of its resources to address the emergency preparedness needs of these two important contributors to our economy.

The new website includes tools and templates to be downloaded in order to ready SMEs and NPOs for disruptive events of all nature – flu pandemics, hurricanes, ice storms, power outages, fires, floods, earthquakes, business disruptions are only some examples. The goal is for these two sectors to be able to survive (i.e. to plan for, to mitigate, respond to and recover from) disruptive events – large or small, local or national, natural or human induced.

The Small Business and Non-Profits windows carry “Six Steps to Preparedness”, plus Employee Preparedness sections. As well there are sections on H1N1 Pandemic Information and Resources – with links to support sites.

The “Six Steps to Preparedness” section includes a downloadable Worksheet for each step, as well as an example worksheet, of a business entitled “The Flower Shop”, to guide the viewer through the individual steps. CCEP is in the process of developing other industry specific models.