Description

Participants will learn how to establish and sustain comprehensive school safety efforts that attend to both physical and psychological safety. The workshop addresses critical components needed to develop, exercise, and evaluate safety and crisis teams and plans and to conduct building vulnerability assessments. The model also integrates school personnel and community roles in providing school-based crisis preparedness and response activities. Additional topics addressed include media and social media, communication, reunification, students with special needs, culture, and memorials. After this workshop, participants will be better prepared to improve their school’s climate, student resilience, and the crisis response capabilities of school personnel. With updated research and strategies, this workshop makes a clear connection between ongoing crisis prevention, mitigation, protection, and response.

Learner Objectives
This session will help participants:

• identify the mission phases of crisis management;
• understand the critical importance of and components necessary for a balanced approach to comprehensive school safety and crisis preparedness;
• identify how to evaluate and implement physical and psychological safety efforts;
• identify the purpose, functions, and guiding principles of developing comprehensive safety and crisis teams and plans to include prevention, mitigation, protection, and response;
• understand the critical components, including when developing specific functional and threat- or hazard-specific protocols;
• identify the major functions of the Incident Command System (ICS).