Every public safety organization is vulnerable to crises. The days of hiding under the desk and hoping for the storm to pass are gone and for good reason. Hope is not a strategy!!

Community members, the very people we serve expect more and quite honestly deserve more transparency, accountability, and responsiveness.

Every agency, regardless of the size, is just one crisis away from being thrust on to an international stage.  If you’re not prepared, you will incur more damage.

When I look at existing crisis management related plans while conducting a vulnerability audit (the first step in preparedness), what I often find is a failure to address the many communications issues related to crisis response.  Experience demonstrates that organizational leadership often does not understand that in the absence of adequate internal and external communications:

• Operational response will break down.
• Community members and stakeholders will not know what is happening and quickly become confused, angry, and negatively reactive.
• The organization will be perceived as inept, at best, and possibly criminally negligent, at worst.
• The length of time required to bring full resolution to the issue will be extended, often dramatically.
• The impact to the financial and reputational bottom line will be more severe.

The basic steps of effective crisis communications are not difficult, but they require advance work in order to minimize damage.  In this webinar we:

• Examine the anatomy of a crisis
• Examine Case Studies
• Discuss Messaging Strategies
• Discuss the manner in which community perception is developed over time.
• Discuss the importance of developing a cast of subject matter experts
• Discuss how to manage the media
• Discuss how critical it is to develop a crisis communication strategy
• Discuss the “3 R’s” of effective crisis management.
• Discuss strategies of leveraging both conventional and social media following a critical incident.