The Office of Partnership and Engagement (OPE) mission is to ensure a unified approach to external engagement through coordination of the Department of Homeland Security’s outreach efforts with critical stakeholders nationwide. OPE partners and conducts strategic engagements and outreach with state, local, tribal, territorial (SLTT) governments, elected officials, the private sector, faith-based and mission driven organizations, academia, and communities. OPE advocates and represents interests of these stakeholders through the Department’s policy making process and serves as a conduit for the Secretary to engage with stakeholders and to share information. Additionally, OPE oversees five (5) advisory councils: the Homeland Security Advisory Council, the Tribal Homeland Security Advisory Council, the Faith-based Security Advisory Council, the Homeland Security Academic Partnership Council and the Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security Board.
- Assistant Secretary, Office of Partnership and Engagement, Scott G. Erickson
o Faith-Based Organization Security Coordinator, Scott G. Erickson
o Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Vacant
o Chief of Staff (acting), Susan Schneider
o Deputy Chief of Staff, Cynthia J. Briscoe
o Deputy Assistant Secretary, Office of Intergovernmental Affairs (acting), Brian Hyer
o Deputy Assistant Secretary, Private Sector Office (acting), Patrick Schmidt
o Executive Director (DFO), Homeland Security Advisory Council (acting), Alexander Jacobs
o Executive Director, Office of Strategic Partnerships and National Campaigns, Karinda L. Washington
o Director, Committee Management Officer, Mike Miron
o Director, Partnerships, Nicole Rosich
Office of Intergovernmental Affairs
The Office of Intergovernmental Affairs (IGA) promotes an integrated national approach to homeland security by coordinating and advancing federal interaction with state, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT) governments. IGA is responsible for opening the homeland security dialogue with executive-level partners at the SLTT levels, along with the national associations that represent them.
Private Sector Office
The Private Sector Office (PSO) provides the Secretary and Department leaders with advice on issues relevant to the private sector, including academia, non-profits, mission driven organizations, and businesses.
The Private Sector Office:
- Engages businesses, trade associations and other mission driven organizations to foster dialogue with the Department.
- Advises the Secretary on prospective policies and regulations and in many cases on their economic impact.
- Promotes public-private partnerships and best practices to improve the nation's homeland security.
- Promotes Department policies to the private sector.
Loaned Executive Program
The Loaned Executive Program is a special opportunity (unpaid) that provides top executive-level talent from the private sector an opportunity to share their expertise with Homeland Security. Through the Loaned Executive Program, Homeland Security is working with the private sector on innovative solutions to our homeland security challenges. The Department is looking to the nation’s top executives and industry experts to partner with us as we strive to solve problems, improve processes, and fully realize our mission.
Committee Management Office
The Committee Management Office (CMO) exercises control and lends oversight to all DHS Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) related committees; equips the Designated Federal Officials (DFO) and Alternate Designated Official (DFO) of each committee with the tools necessary to carry out their committee duties, facilitates stakeholder discussions; offers innovative solutions to FACA issues; and routinely provides the Department’s senior leaders with a snapshot of the FACA program.
Homeland Security Advisory Council
The Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC) leverages the experience and expertise through national and global connections of the HSAC membership to provide the Secretary and senior leadership organizationally independent, strategic, timely, specific, and actionable advice to support decision making across the spectrum of homeland security operations. The council is comprised of national, academic, and private sector leaders as well as senior level officials from state, local, and tribal governments. The HSAC currently has six active subcommittees: the Foreign Fighter Task Force, the DHS Employee Task Force, the DHS Grant Review Task Force, the CBP Integrity Advisory Panel, the Faith Based Security and Communications Subcommittee, and the Cybersecurity Subcommittee.
The Office of Strategic Partnerships and National Campaigns
The Office of Strategic Partnerships and National Campaigns (SPNC) fosters community engagement across the Department’s mission space. SPNC coordinates outreach with community, faith-based, and mission driven/nonprofit organizations to build trust and establish a routine process for collaboration with community leaders.
SPNC also oversees a national public awareness campaign, the “If You See Something, Say Something®” campaign to educate on the indicators of terrorism, terrorism-related crime, and domestic violent extremism.
Partnerships Office
The Department conducts strategic outreach and engagement with mission driven organizations, faith-based organizations, civil society, and academia to foster collaboration and share DHS programs and policies. Visit the Partnerships page for more information.
Faith-Based Security Advisory Council and Faith-Based Organizations
The Faith-Based Security Advisory Council (FBSAC) provides organizationally independent, strategic, timely, specific, and actionable advice to the Secretary through the Assistant Secretary for Partnership and Engagement who also serves as the DHS Faith-Based Organization Security Coordinator (FBO). The FBSAC provides advice and recommendations to the Secretary and other senior leadership on matters related to protecting houses of worship, preparedness, and enhanced coordination with the faith community. FBSAC advice may include:
- Strategy and Policy: Recommendations for the development of strategies and policies that will further the Department's ability to prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from terrorist attacks, major disasters, or other emergencies.
- Information-sharing and Coordination: Recommendations for improving coordination and sharing of threat and security-related information and resources with and between places of worship, FBOs and non-profit entities, and the federal, state, local, tribal and territorial governments, first responders, the private and non-private sectors, academia, and research communities.
- Programs and Initiatives: Recommendations for the development and implementation of specific programs or initiatives to prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from acts of terrorism and targeted violence, major disasters, cyberattacks, or other threats or emergencies while preserving individual privacy and civil rights and civil liberties.
- Evaluation and Feedback: Recommendations for the efficiency and effectiveness of the Department's policies, strategies, and programs (including grant programs) intended to support the security and preparedness of places of worship, faith communities and FBOs. This includes providing feedback on how DHS can address the needs of faith communities against evolving and future threats.
Homeland Security Partnership Council and Academic Institutions
The Homeland Security Academic Partnership Council (HSAPC) provides organizationally independent, strategic, timely, specific, and actionable recommendations to the Secretary on key issues across the homeland security enterprise as they relate to the intersection of education and academia and the DHS mission. Recommendations may relate to, but are not limited to:
- DHS-wide funding opportunities, such as grants, scholarships, programs, and hiring surges.
- Safety and security, including prevention, response, mitigation, recovery, and other emergency management and preparedness measures.
- Improving coordination and sharing of threat and security related information including threats of violence, and targeted violence and terrorism prevention.
- Methods to develop career opportunities to support a 21st century DHS workforce.
- Enhancing and expanding research opportunities, such as the DHS Science and Technology Centers of Excellence and DHS/National Security Agency joint Centers of Academic Excellence.
DHS maintains numerous relationships with members of the academic community and directly engages with academic associations, school administrators, faculty, and students on a range of homeland security matters and policies that intersect with academia. Visit the Academic Engagement page for more information.
“If You See Something, Say Something®” Public Awareness Campaign
The "If You See Something, Say Something®" public awareness campaign works with federal, state, local, tribal, territorial, and private sector partners to enhance the public's awareness of suspicious activity related to terrorism and terrorism-related crime. To accomplish this, the campaign develops public awareness materials that encourage the public to report suspicious activity to the appropriate law enforcement authorities within their communities.
More from DHS
- The Office of Partnership Engagement is committed to providing accessible Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to individuals with disabilities, including members of the public and federal employees, by meeting or exceeding the requirements of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended (29 U.S.C. 794d). Section 508 requires agencies, during the procurement, development, maintenance, or use of ICT, to ensure that individuals with disabilities have access to and use of ICT information and data comparable to the access and use afforded to individuals without disabilities (i.e., “ICT accessibility”), unless an undue burden would be imposed on the agency. The Section 508 standards are the technical requirements and criteria that are used to measure conformance with the law and incorporate the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. More information on Section 508 and the technical standards can be found on Section508.gov.
- If you believe that the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) used by the Department does not comply with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, please go the DHS Accessibility Website for instructions on how to file a formal complaint.
- To enable us to respond in a manner most helpful to you, please indicate the nature of your accessibility problem, the preferred format in which to receive the material, the web address (URL) of the material with which you are having difficulty, and your contact information.
- If you have comments and/or questions related to the agency’s Section 508 program, please contact the Office of Accessible Systems & Technology