Adennill School Preparedness Benefits for AMS Member Schools

The idea pioneered by Dr. Maria Montessori that an environment should be designed to facilitate the independent learning of children must extend to and include the preparedness of the entire school—creating an oasis of safety for the children, teachers, employees, and the extended school family.

Every child has the right to enjoy a safe school experience. Every parent has the right to expect their school to be well-prepared and to offer the safest possible environment. Every employee has the right to a safe and secure workplace. AMS and Adennill developed a program to provide member schools with the knowledge, expertise, and assistance needed to be better prepared and to create an environment that meets these needs for their students, teachers, and employees.

There are many threats to which every school is vulnerable and the process of developing a prepared school culture begins with having an understanding of “what can go wrong and how to respond.” We have seen schools devastated by natural disasters, such as hurricanes and tornados; human threats like sexual abuse, kidnapping, cyber-bullying, and identity theft; and most recently—the biological threat of Covid-19. While school shootings are an extremely low probability event, they have extreme impacts and therefore must also be planned for.

Once you understand the threats to which your school and its stakeholders are vulnerable, plans can be designed to prevent and mitigate the impacts of those threats. Plans are needed to address emergency response; crisis management and communications; security; school and workplace violence; communicable illness; and student reunification.

There is no single solution to making a school and the people in it safer. All roads lead back to “preparedness,” which means understanding potential threats and vulnerabilities, designing plans to prevent or mitigate threats, and then training people through drill and exercise to know what to do when an adverse event or a disaster strikes.

Low Cost AMS Sponsored Member Benefits

CRISIS COACH

We all face risks and vulnerabilities. Not every risk can be eliminated. While some risks can be mitigated, disasters and crises will happen. Establishing a clear crisis management plan with identified leadership positions and defined triggers for actions, empowers people to act immediately. Having predetermined roles, responsibilities, and response actions will help crisis managers protect your operations and brand. The middle of a crisis is not the time to start trying to figure who the players are and what your game plan is.

Mapping the right route to any destination requires some mission-critical facts: Starting point. Distance. Best and alternate routes. Without this information, the map is unlikely to guide you or your organization to the right outcome in an efficient manner.

Where Do You Start? – The Adennill CRISIS COACH

Adennill has managed numerous crises in public and private companies, schools, and government organizations. The Adennill senior leadership lessons learned are based upon decades of crisis and consequence management experience in managing crisis outcomes successfully.

The Adennill CRISIS COACH Program helps empower you to make decisions you need to make before, during, and after a crisis. The Adennill CRISIS COACH Program provides an opportunity to discover and plan for what you need to do in a crisis. In this program, you will interact with first responders, other organizations, and businesses; understand the impacts of disasters and crises; develop your business continuity plans; learn about emerging threats and risks; participate in a crisis management training; simulation exercises; and receive answers to your questions.

CRISIS COACH Program

• Act as a CRISIS COACH for a period of 12 months
• Dedicate three (3) preparedness improvement consulting hours per month to work with your staff
• Provide all required Adennill methodology, templates, and guidance
• Preparedness improvement includes:
  1. Crisis Management and Response Plan
  2. Crisis Communication Strategy
  3. Design and Implementation of a Crisis Management Training Program
  4. Testing and Exercising of Plans

Critical Incident Response Training and Exercise

An essential component of security and emergency preparedness is training staff on how to more effectively respond to a critical incident. The goal of Critical Incident Response Training is to enhance coordination, communication, and proficiency among response staff. Adennill recognizes that an emergency plan is useful before and after an emergency. However, the most important thing that will affect the outcome of an emergency or critical incident is training.

Adennill has established a multi-hazard training program to better prepare those charged with leading the response to respond effectively during emergencies. Training provided by Adennill includes discussions of the four main response options during emergencies—evacuation, shelter-in-place, lockout, and lockdown. It includes an interactive discussion on common physiological responses that occur during emergencies, as well as strategies to combat the potentially debilitating impact of those responses.

The training is typically 3 hours in length and also covers a broad range of targeted violence hazards, including a violent intruder, bomb threats/suspicious packages, insider violence, child abduction, custody-related confrontations, hostage situations, relocation, and reunification. The training also includes hands-on instruction on strategies for the prevention of targeted violence.

Disaster Ready People for A Disaster Ready America

Adennill founders Harry Rhulen, Suzy Loughlin, and Jim Satterfield wrote Disaster Ready People for a Disaster Ready America specifically to address the need for disaster preparedness at home, and the book has become a cornerstone of many personal and corporate preparedness programs. “Remember, you are your own first responder,” the book reminds readers as it guides them through a comprehensive program of readiness.

This book is designed to help individuals and families create a home disaster plan. We’ve evaluated the numerous exposures and situations of various disaster scenarios, including the looming pandemic threat, and developed this guide to assist you.

Contact Adennill for a complimentary e-copy.