Crisis communication

Course aim
This one-day course balances both the theory and practice involved in managing issues and crisis situations.  It enables you to understand appropriate actions before, during and after a major incident. The session will provide the skills and confidence to become powerful advocates for your organisation when faced with a major incident that threatens your public reputation.

This comprehensive course is the natural extension of the Handling Media Interviews course and provides practical guidance on handling the media and broader aspects of communication in times of crisis. The course also provides strategies around communications planning and how to make your voice heard when shaping incident response to an incident. 

Who should attend?
Anyone who is involved with crisis or incident communication, on behalf of their organisation, on behalf of clients or in briefing spokespeople to make responses. If you're responsible for managing the public reputation of an organisation or expected to deal with communications at the time of a major incident, you'll benefit from this session.

What to expect

• a highly practical course, giving you the chance to learn all the key lessons of crisis communication.
• a hands-on session with exercises that leads the group through crisis scenarios which demand a range of responses.
• use of case studies from real-life and of group work during the session to underpin the day's training.
• sharing of experiences and best practice advice.

Course objectives
Participation in the course will provide you with the wherewithal to:

• understand the nature of crises and the communications environment at the time of an incident
• resources placed ahead of a crisis and the processes to develop content for a crisis plan
• how to engage and manage media interest
• how to support colleagues when they are acting as spokespeople
• satisfy both the media agenda whilst achieving your business objectives
• communicate with impact and authority, and handle awkward questions under pressure 
• identify key stakeholders and create appropriate messages, recognising which media channels to use, how, and when
• understand the need for speed, accuracy and co-ordination of response, both online and offline.
• social media and crisis response