Continuing from last week’s post, introducing the Crisis Communication Continuum, we move onto the first step: Before Preparations before an incident occurs is the most important aspect of the Continuum. Proper planning and preparation ensures a concise response that helps manage the adrenaline and stress that inevitably accompanies an emergency. 1. Review Best Practices What can you learn from the experiences of your peers? Learning what does and does not work will improve your planning process. 2. Establish Crisis Communications Policies It is critical to establish the guidelines that will direct what happens when an emergency does occur. Your emergency communications policies should answer at least the following questions: What warrants a full mass notification? Who is authorized to send an alert? What information should be communicated? Do different groups receive different information? 3. Assemble Your Crisis Communications Team (CCT) Having the right people in the loop to participate in the resolution of the crisis is important for multiple reasons. Before the incident, the team members can collaborate to craft the communications and messaging that needs to go out to different groups. The initial message should be scripted to provide enough information to instill calm and awareness to the population. Each Crisis Communications Team should include at least an authority from each of the following groups: Campus Safety Student Affairs Public Relations Administration Legal Representation 4. Create Scenarios in your e2Campus or Omnilert Once policies have been written based on best practices, and your Crisis Communications Team is assembled, it is now important to create Scenarios based on each of the possible situations you have defined. Scenarios are a preconfigured series of actions that can be initiated with one click from the web, or via mobile app. Using Scenarios empowers a quick response using thoughtful language for messages, can trigger the next set of actions in your emergency response, and enable instant unified command for the Crisis Communications Team to collaborate. Keep in mind that Scenarios are best used for the first communication to your community. Because every second counts, getting information out quickly establishes control and situational awareness. Below is an example of how a school can use a Scenario for a Lockdown: A text message is sent to all students informing them of the Lockdown An outbound conference call and web conferencing session is initiated to connect the Crisis Communications Team The school homepage is updated with the Lockdown […]
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