Schools can learn these crisis PR strategies to reduce stress for parents and students.

There are some simple ways that schools can keep everyone calm during COVID times, and that is by using the same techniques companies use for crisis management. In this episode, I will share best practice deployed by corporations and also from my experiences of how the schools in China handled the daily crisis of pollution impacting schools.

There is plenty of documentation online to help prepare. In the UK the Government has developed the Digital Resilience Framework and publishes guidance to schools, and schools too are sharing openly like Singapore the American School. I share the work being done by the Girls Day School Trust which is using Issu online magazine software to share information.

Crisis management is all about continuity, and I share practical guidance on how to create timed, structured and coherent plans for schools and other organizations as we head back to school and work, and show our kids that we've got this crisis under control; relax and have fun.

About the host:
SPEAK|Pr is for business owners to unlock the value in their business brought to you by entrepreneur and Founder of EASTWEST Public Relations Jim James.

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Transcript

Jim James: 0:04

Imagine if crisis communications was easy. Imagine if COVID-19 and your children going back to school was not causing you masses of stress. Imagine if your kids felt 100% confident about returning to school, having fun with their friends and studying, that though they're surrounded by this imminent threat, actually, they feel that their parents and their school were all completely in control. My view is that's possible. COVID-19 is just another crisis for us to manage, and today, I'm going to share my ways to manage crisis communications. The key is it's all about preparation. So, I'm g ing to share with you over 25 y ars of experience of managing cr sis communications for clients and give you a methodology that you can use for your organiza ion during CO Crisis communications has one very simple rule, and that is preparation. Preparation is the key for crisis management, because during a crisis itself, the organization and the individuals that run the organization are probably going to be busy managing the crisis. They won't have time to sit back and think about how to author and prepare the content that's ready and necessary. In my experience of over 25 years of public relations, I've worked with a number of clients on crisis communications plans. Since many of us are parents or may be running educational institutions, this will give some guidance and some expertise all with the aim of reducing anxiety for parents, the children or the students, the caregivers in the school as well, the people driving the schoolbuses, the people working in the canteen, and the teachers themselves. There are a large number of stakeholders and in our SPEAK|pr program, we talk about the three different audiences for any communications. We talk about the internal, the partners, and the external. In this case, in schools and education, just as they are within companies, we're really talking to the internal and to the partners. The kids actually are the internal audience and the rest of us, parents, teachers, drivers, administrators, we're partners with the children getting them through this. In the UK, there is a lot of communication back and borth between the government and schools around the protocols they've got to adopt. One of the stories and rumors circulating in the UK is about how parents will be fined if they don't send their children to school. Now, there are many frightened and anxious parents out there, especially those that have got children that might be vulnerable. So, the question to answer is, how do we reassure all the different stakeholders as we go back to school? COVID-19 is a crisis that's happening, but we're managing. It's a crisis that has hit us all and has made us all change our lives. But now that we're going back into the water as it were, we need to be prepared for what happens if there's another attack. The key really to the crisis communications, whether it's about COVID or anything else, is about thinking through the scenarios and the potential outcomes. As I always say to my clients, crisis communications is about continuity management. Continuity is what we're all really looking forward to, and crisis communications isn't necessarily about trying to solve the crisis. It's about trying to ensure there's continuity of operations, so that the crisis doesn't become fatal, and we can do that in a number of different ways. First of all, we need to decide who the stakeholders are. I've mentioned before, we have the parents, the people in school involved in making sure that school happens, and we've got the pupils themselves. As education is taking place both in school and sometimes now within these bubbles, one of the key issues with crisis communications is about time. We need to have some protocols and some infrastructure set up that enables us to communicate within certain timeframes. Ideally, communication takes place within regular school hours as much as possible, because that's when people are expecting that communication. What's also good, of course, is to ensure that people understand when communication might be sent out. For example, it's possible for a school to ensure that there would be a certain time of day when there will be an announcement in case of an emergency. When we lived in Beijing, the pollution levels would get so bad that sometimes the AQI or the Air Quality Index would go above 300. If it was over 140, then kids were not supposed to go to school. The school set up a protocol so that at eight o'clock every morning, we would all get an announcement whether school was cancelled or not. The catchment area meant that people could get to school if they left home by eight o'clock. We'd all know that if, at eight o'clock, we hadn't had an SMS from the school, that school was taking place. Setting a regular time when there's an agreed announcement pattern is important, because it's reassuring. One of the issues with a crisis is that people become less rational, that fear makes them take action or not. Sometimes, there's paralysis, and a big part of crisis communication and continuity is to ensure that everybody continues to behave in a rational and calm way, because as we've seen in major events like fires or shootings, it's the panic that causes more damage than the actual problem itself. So, once we've established a time of the day when everyone expects to receive some information, then you decide how to send it out. You could use a broadcast software, or you can send an email, but mobile is really the best platform, because everybody's got a mobile phone and they may not be checking their emails regularly. Communicating with everybody at the same time, and having as well some coding as to the level of alert is paramount. I'll come back to my experience in Beijing where we would have bright red, amber, yellow, green, and blue codes pertaining to the different AQI levels. This is useful for people that weren't familiar with the numbers, but also for the children who didn't necessarily understand all the numbers, but could understand the displays on the school website what the likelihood was of a good or a bad air day. They could also understand whether or not they were going to do indoor sport or outdoor sport, if they were going to play with their friends or not, if they need to wear masks or not. There is a concept in the UK called the Digital Resilience Framework, which is a tool for organizations and policymakers to embed digital resilience into products, education, and services. I think this is a great toolkit and a great concept that organizations can adopt as well, because the next part of continuity is how to continue to serve the clients, how to continue to give children education if school cannot take place in the same way as it did before. What happens if there's an outbreak? Two children in one class or in a bubble could lead to the shutdown of an entire school, so how do you tackle that? Well, if a school has a resilience framework, it already has some protocols about what happens next, where the children should go to continue their studies, if it's online, or if it's in a separate bubble, if caregivers know how to execute any backup plan, and if parents have to then collect their children from school or make arrangements for the children to go to other places to stay until work is finished. Again, this comes back to planning. The Bradford local government instructions are written on a website, and it's very helpful. They have a set of instructions for schools which include a parent information kit that talks about school operations, student activities, security and safety, facilities and services, parent resources and advice, and school procedures and policies. In other words, they're prepared for all of the eventualities that may happen, and what's key is that everybody understands across the whole value chain what these signals are, when they're going to receive their signals, and what action to take. In the Second World War, when a siren went off to denote an air raid was taking place, everybody would go to the shelter, and the shelter warden would be there. Everybody knew which shelter to go to. Everyone knew where they were to stay in the shelter. Everyone was aware what was going to happen when the air raid was over and how they'd be informed. So, we need to create some very simple, very loud, very easy to understand actions, a sequence of events for people. These then need to become part of our behavior. Above all, the children who, in this case, of course, we're all concerned about need to see that the parents are in control. The children need to see that the school is being run well and that their education isn't being compromised. In this sense, the bigger picture of the coronavirus is our opportunity to demonstrate to the next generation how to manage a crisis, how not to buckle, how not to go silent, how to not descend into chaos by having some plans now. My daughters go to a school here called the Royal High, and it's a member of the Girls Day School Trust in the UK that runs 25 schools. They have some resources on their website, and the first thing you will see is a pop-up that says "Our students' safety is our top priority. We are confident in the safety measures we've put in place, and we're looking forward to welcoming the girls back in September." On the homepage, they have two brochures or online magazines, which are published on Issuu. In these magazines, they show the risk assessment and how the children will go to school, how they'll disembark from their transport, which colored areas they're going to go into, the timetables where different children will be going to different classrooms at different times, how they're going to handle the normality of sport, and how they're then also going to be proactive in teaching the children about personal hygiene, for example. What I also liked about the site was that it linked to the UK government site which has a guidance for full opening of schools. My sister is a head teacher at a school in London, and she was saying that these guidance documents can be literally hundreds of pages long. Clearly, there's a huge amount of content and consideration going into caring for our children, but the school's job as well is to ensure that the parents understand and are reassured about these policies. One of the few positive outcomes of COVID-19 that we can see is that the education sector is sharing best practices. In Singapore where I was living for 12 years and still keep an office for EastWest PR, the American School of Singapore has actually created a website with their best practices from their experiences. They really talk about the need for preparedness. They talk about the need for a resilience framework, for a communications protocol, and above all, reassurance for the children that the school, the parents, and all the people that are involved in ensuring that they're safe and well have composure and understand what to do when the situation escalates from a green to blue to a red. As we help children go back to school, I think that this is an important topic to cover, because without a sense of peace of mind, none of the children will be happy and none of the community in which the children live will be happy. It will mean that ultimately, we can't get on with our own jobs, because we are dealing with stressful situations when it comes to our children's schooling, and that is disruptive. So, crisis communications is all about preparation. There is really no excuse now for COVID to be considered to be a crisis. COVID isn't a crisis anymore. It's a situation for us to all deal with. In one of the articles and webinars I gave earlier in the year, I talked about the COVID mindset. I explained that, in my view, all PR in COVID time should be Compassionate, Optimistic, Values-based, Informative, and Digital. Public relations for schools and for all of the higher education, I believe, should have a COVID lens now. Ultimately, public relations is about communicating how an organization is managing situations to all of its stakeholders. This is probably one of the most complex and most universal communications campaigns taking place. All of us are communicating across generations, across cultures, and across geographies how we're going to manage healthcare. At the heart of that is probably one of the most important customer groups in the world, and that is the next generation. I think we can do this. I know we can. COVID is just another situation for us to prepare for. Sort out the messaging, decide who needs to say what and where, and give enough clues and clear guidance that's unambiguous to all those people that need to change their plans at short notice. With that, going back to school doesn't have to be stressful. It doesn't have to be unpleasant. But more importantly, going back to school can be permanent, and I hope this is useful for your school or your organization. If I can share this in a personal way, feel free to reach out to me at jim@eastwestpr. I hope your children return to school and that you are feeling relaxed and confident that you can tackle any issues. It may seem like a crisis, but because you're prepared, it will just s em like part of the normal d ily life.