Crisis Communications Planning - TCW Academy Course
Approximate Time to Complete Course: 20 minutes
This Course is Ideal for:
- CEOs / Presidents / School Superintendents and All Leaders
- Communication Directors
- Members of the Crisis Communications Team
- Media Liaisons
During an emergency, communication is a critical component of the response. So critical, in fact, that a separate crisis communications plan should be developed and referenced in your organization’s overarching emergency response plan. Your crisis communication plan will be leveraged by those in your organization tasked with communicating with multiple key stakeholders during an emergency and ensuring that critical two-way communication occurs between multiple response entities.
Your crisis communications plan will develop detailed responses for several scenarios identified in your emergency response plan and provide clearly defined responsibilities for all people assisting with communication efforts.
Crisis Communications Team: Understand the types of people and roles to include on your crisis communications team.
Stakeholders/Audience: Identify your organization’s primary internal and external stakeholders.
Communication Methods: Plan for how you will communicate with each stakeholder group.
Scenario-Based Responses: Learn to identify every possible emergency scenario you may face and determine how each of those scenarios will be handled.
Message Templates: Don’t wait until you have an emergency to begin crafting messages. Create templates now.
Media Relations: Understand how to engage the media during a crisis and when to call a press conference.
Prepare Your Crisis Communication
In this course, you will:
- Understand how to develop an effective crisis communications plan,
- Identify personnel to serve on your team & key stakeholders,
- Develop detailed communications solutions for possible emergency scenarios,
- Create message templates & distribution materials, and
- Prepare media response strategies.
Additional Resources

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