Training – MGT 318- Public Information in All-Hazard Incident

This course examines the role of public information in all-hazards incident management and provides practical training in crisis communication techniques. In a major incident, it is imperative that community leaders, incident managers, and Public Information Officers (PIOs) are prepared to communicate with the public through traditional and social media. The course consists of three modules.

The first module reviews the topics of terrorism, Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs), national response structures, incident management, and government and agency roles. Participants learn about the passing of information to the public in a WMD, terrorism, or other all-hazards incident and the function of joint information operations.

The second module covers issues unique to interacting with members of the media to help you build more effective relationships and avoid common mistakes when providing information to the press and public.  The module includes a mock press conference exercise in which the class is broken into groups to prepare for and conduct press conferences based on fictional WMD, terrorism, and all-hazards incident scenarios. These scenarios are taken from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) National Planning Scenarios.

The third module introduces the crisis communication life cycle and crisis communication planning. A six-phase cycle is discussed, with public information objectives and key actions for managing each phase provided. Participants learn how to create a crisis communication plan and develop a crisis communication team to execute it.