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by Ed Schirick
The risk management planning process begins with goal setting and the
creation of risk management policy. Owners, directors, managers, and boards
of directors usually perform these tasks, and generally, the objectives
are very broad.
There are five basic steps in the risk management process — risk identification,
risk analysis, risk financing, risk control, and risk administration (monitoring).
Crisis management and disaster recovery planning are part of step number
four — risk control.
The action steps of a crisis response plan include ensuring the safety
of campers and staff, getting medical care to anyone injured, protecting
the environment if necessary, and preserving any property from further
damage. Other crisis response tasks include reassuring parents and communicating
with all who need to know. Hopefully, these actions will minimize the
impact of the crisis on everyone involved and allow camp to stay in business.
Returning to normal may take more time. Will you be prepared if your camp
experiences a crisis this summer? Will your camp be able to survive financially
and stay in business? The answers to these questions are within you. The
risk management process can help you find the right answers.
The Right Stuff
Risk management requires 100 percent commitment and support from ownership
and management. Without this support, risk management and crisis management
plans will just be books on shelves to be periodically cleaned. Successful
risk management planning also requires staff involvement. The challenge
facing camp directors, especially in the current environment for camp
insurance coverage, is to make risk management something more than a discussion
during orientation — more than a writing project before an accreditation
visit. The goal is to create a risk management culture at camp that influences
everyone’s daily thoughts and actions. This objective has never been more
important than it is today.
Sometimes disorganized actions and delayed response to a crisis work
out for the best. Instinct and experience can make a difference. However,
most of the time planned responses minimize damage to property, protect
people more quickly, and produce better results than when the director
relies on instinct and experience alone. Satisfactory outcomes don’t happen
by chance. They happen because the managers and staff of the business
took the time to think, plan, and be prepared.
Brainstorm
Planning is the first step. Consider bringing your key staff and advisors
together in a meeting to make a list of all the catastrophic, crisis situations
that might affect your camp. Don’t eliminate any situation during this
identification process. This first step should be an open and unbiased
“brainstorming” session to identify crisis and emergency situations. Analysis
and evaluation of the risks take place later in the process.
Key staff for purposes of this planning process includes your “middle
managers” and, if possible, a representative from each “department.” Consider
including head counselors, associate directors, program directors, office
managers, your caretaker, or a respected counselor. Advisors you might
invite to your “brainstorming session” include your accountant, lawyer,
camp doctor, insurance representative, a consultant, a board member, your
camp nurse, fire chief, police chief, or Red Cross representative. Include
others if you think they will add value to the process. You may want to
invite a parent, a friend, or a representative from one of the referral
agencies, for example.
Some camps may have a long list of individuals who can contribute to
these “brainstorming” sessions. If you do, consider breaking up the larger
group and the tasks into smaller ones. Each group could concentrate on
an assigned topic and then report to the group as a whole. Or, you could
hold one session with staff first. After you have gathered their list
of potential crises, hold another session with professional advisors.
The objective is to get a comprehensive list from as many perspectives
as possible within a short time. Once you have the master list, it’s time
to analyze and evaluate them.
What Is the Worst that Could Happen?
The next step is to analyze and evaluate the potential crises. The goal
is to determine the frequency and severity potential of each situation.
Frequency measures how often. Severity measures how much in terms of dollars.
Frequency should be determined along a continuum beginning with “almost
never,” and continuing with “slight,” “moderate,” and ending with “often.”
Severity should also be evaluated in a range from “slight” to “moderate”
to “severe.”
This process involves looking at the past and projecting into the future.
It requires that judgements be made about the validity of each potential
crisis. Has this event happened in the past? When? What happened? How
much did it cost? What are the chances it will happen again in the future?
If it hasn’t happened before, what is the best estimate of how much it
will cost if it does happen? What is the worse that could happen?
Group Participation Works Best
Facilitating group dialogue is hard and important work. The process
builds commitment and teamwork. It increases awareness and gives the director
an opportunity to identify key players for the camp’s crisis response
team. It has been my personal experience that plans developed by a team
in this fashion produce better, more comprehensive plans than those developed
by a few people with more limited input from others.
Developing Your Response
Once you have ranked your master list of potential crises take stock
of your situation. List the risk management, safety, and emergency policies
and procedures you have already established. Evaluate all of your existing
risk management, crisis management, and emergency plans in light of the
information you’ve just gathered. Recognize that crisis management, as
part of risk management, begins with prevention, loss control, and loss
reduction. Make appropriate changes to your existing plans.
Identify all of your resources that might be needed in each crisis situation.
Consider the resources of other camps in your immediate area as part of
a mutual aid concept. Contact the state and local offices of Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA), Red Cross, local hospital, and local ambulance
and emergency medical services. Determine how they respond to crisis.
Find out what they might be able to do for you. What can you expect from
them if a crisis is local to your camp? How does their response differ
if the crisis effects your entire geographic area? Remember to contact
the police or sheriff’s departments, local fire department, your suppliers,
the local utilities, the telephone company, your insurance company, and
your camp doctor. Find out how they will help you respond to crisis. Make
contact with your local media (radio, TV, newspapers) to learn more about
how they respond to newsworthy emergencies and crises. What additional
challenges does this present? How will you manage the media’s interest
in a crisis or emergency at camp?
Build Your Team(s)
Once you have determined your resources, build your response team. Identify
those resources common to all crisis responses. For example, directors
will want to have a “control center” from which to direct and coordinate
the camp’s response. What people skills will be needed in this center?
Who will you assign to the “center?” What information is needed for the
“center” to function? Is there any special equipment needed? Develop your
plan — then make a back up plan in case the crisis prevents you from using
your preferred location and team.
For each emergency or potential crisis ask yourself some “who,” “what,”
“where,” “how,” “when,” and “what if” questions. What skills are needed
on the crisis response team? A fire or tornado might call for a certain
type of crisis response plan. Who responds first if the crisis is on camp
premises? An automobile accident off premises will call for a different
response. Who will respond to the crisis off camp premises? How will the
team get there? How will the “control center” communicate with this response
team? Consider what to do if circumstances don’t allow the plans to operate
as intended. What if one of the members of the “first response” team is
injured, or is out of camp? Who responds instead? Thinking about questions
like these and others will help you identify the members of your crisis
response team.
Communicate
Internal and external communications are vitally important during a
crisis. Keeping campers and staff informed is as important as keeping
parents and others advised. A communication plan for informing the media
is critical. Who will be your camp’s spokesperson? Will this person speak
with the media, or issue a statement? What do you want to say? When?
Consider creating a crisis kit as an internal communication tool for
your team. This could include a list of crisis team members and their
jobs. It could also include important crisis telephone numbers, emergency
instructions, back up plans, maps, and evacuation routes.
Educate
Review the crisis response plans with staff. Accept constructive suggestions
for improvement. Train staff as needed to ensure their competency with
assigned duties. Cross train staff to perform other duties if back-up
plans are needed. Practice your responses during orientation and again
during the summer, if possible. Evaluate performance and give feedback.
Make changes and improvements as needed. Try to leave nothing to chance!
Stay focused on constant improvement.
The structure provided by the risk management process will help you develop
and implement a crisis response plan. It’s certainly not the most exciting
work, but worth it in the long run. If you haven’t reviewed your crisis
plan recently now is a good time to do so before the summer. If you’ve
neglected to build your crisis plan it is never too late to start.
Originally published in the 2002 March/April
issue of Camping Magazine. |
