Chapter 11 - Risk and Crisis Communications

Abstract

Historically, behavioral health (BH) professionals have had limited involvement with emergency managers in the crisis communications arena; especially on-site in the immediate response phase. Enhanced and expanded ways in which BH professionals can assist emergency managers are presented. Several strategies to integration are described. These include: enhanced mutual understanding of roles and skills and promoting mutual respect and trust; working with emergency managers to increase understanding of victim priorities, develop anticipatory guidance, foster communication with victims, crafting messages, and monitoring and managing stress of emergency managers. From an emergency management (EM) perspective communicating in a crisis is a complex requirement. To succeed, EM personnel must be prepared to respond to these divergent communication challenges including effective inclusion of BH professionals. Today’s complex information environment requires organizations examine their readiness to respond with a systems’ approach to communicating effectively during and following disasters.