Commentary
Crises come in all shapes and sizes. They don’t always involve a violent act, but can take the form of natural disasters or political controversies.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, many schools and government institutions have reviewed policies and procedures for crisis management. Key government leaders and corporations know, from painful experience, that preparing for a crisis allows organizations to react quickly, restore public confidence and address internal concerns. Effective crisis communications planning ensures that the public receives timely, accurate information.
A good crisis response plan:
• Ensures the flow of accurate and timely information to staff, the media and the public during a crisis.
• Provides the media with a reasonable level of access, if appropriate.
• Make it possible for key communications staff to develop unified messages.
• Minimizes unnecessary damage to the integrity and reputation of the parish or organization.
• Counteracts inaccurate criticism by providing accurate and honest information.
Responding to a Crisis
Responding to a crisis appropriately requires preparation before you ever encounter a crisis. To be effective, consider following these simple steps.
- Establish a crisis planning team. This initial small team should include at least one person from the staff beside you, a chief volunteer, a priest or religious sister, and a professional grief counselor.
- Identify and define crisis situations. A crisis is any emergency or situation that can affect the integrity, reputation or public confidence in your parish or organization. Examples include natural disasters, the death of a young person, the death of an adult who ministered within the community of young people, or the death of a church leader (priest, bishop, etc.) The crisis planning team should define what constitutes a crisis. The plan should clearly articulate the times in which the crisis response team should activate its plan. In those situations when it is unclear whether a situation qualifies as a “crisis,” the crisis response team or a designated leader should determine whether to activate the plan.
- Identify potential calamities and develop action plans. The team should identify scenarios that would require activation of the crisis plan. Individual action plans should be developed, giving step-by-step guidance on how to approach communications during and after each emergency. The plans should include:
- A crisis response leader. This should be someone who has the authority to make decisions and commit resources. The leader is responsible for determining if a crisis response team should be deployed. The most qualified person to serve as the leader may be someone who is visible or it could be a “behind the scenes” person.
- A spokesperson. This should be one or two people trained in responding to media questions. They must be given continual guidance on what information can be released. Media inquiries should go directly to them to ensure a consistent message.
- Team members. Appoint team members for each action plan. They may include staff, volunteers, or counselors. Distribute information for each response team member, including personal cell phone, pager and e-mail data, to other members. Team members should keep specific plan and team contact information with them, especially when away from the office.
- A customized communications strategy. Develop specific plans for disseminating information to various forms of the media for each potential crisis.
- A common message. Develop fact sheets and talking points for relaying information to the media, parents, and general public. Identify potential questions and develop appropriate answers.
- A communications center. Designate a room available for press conferences, briefings and press relations. The room should have technical capabilities to support print and broadcast media. Its location should allow the crisis response team to work without interference.
- Information for key constituencies. Make sure the appropriate people know about the communications procedures in advance. Train staff on handling crisis communications. Distribute general crisis response information to the team members. The overall plan should be distributed to members of response teams. Once a plan has been activated, staff should be briefed on specific actions taken, where to direct parents and the media inquiries and how to handle questions if the spokesperson is unavailable.
- A process for post-crisis evaluation. Shortly after a crisis, the planning and response teams should assess the strengths and weaknesses of the plan. Changes to the plan and the overall response to the crisis should be made based on feedback from the post-crisis meeting.
4. Practice, evaluate, and revise. Practice makes perfect. Schedule periodic crisis exercises once or twice a year with a “mock crisis” and put the crisis communications plan into action. Evaluate your plan. Were you able to respond in a timely and efficient manner? Were you able to keep key audiences apprised of the situation? What went wrong? Why? Then make the necessary changes so that when a real crisis strikes, you have already learned from your mistakes.