When a crisis hits, the organisations that respond well are the ones that prepared. This course builds the crisis communication infrastructure your organisation needs — strategy, risk assessment, teams, protocols, resources and plans. You will leave with a practical framework for crisis readiness, including templates for crisis manuals, holding statements and escalation protocols you can implement immediately.
Crisis communication strategy and principles, reputational risk assessment and issues mapping, crisis teams, roles and escalation protocols, and practical crisis resources including manuals and templates.
Every session runs in a small, boardroom-format group — typically six to eight senior professionals. Your trainer tailors content to the specific industries, organisations and challenges each participant brings, so you work on real situations, not generic examples. The learning combines evidence-based best practice briefings with structured discussions, practical workshops and peer learning. This is training with a coaching and consulting flavour — focused on building skills and producing outputs you can apply in your work immediately.
- Lead the development of a crisis communication strategy for your organisation
- Conduct a reputational risk assessment and issues-mapping process
- Design crisis communication systems including teams, roles and escalation protocols
- Create practical crisis resources — manuals, dark sites, holding statements and templates
- Set up crisis and issues monitoring systems
- Build an escalation framework that integrates communication with other departments
- Prepare proforma messages and response materials ready for rapid deployment
- Apply international best practice in crisis preparedness to your own organisational context
- Crisis communication strategy best practice
- Principles of reputation management
- Crisis dynamics: lessons for how crises originate and develop
- Stages of crisis communication
- Key ingredients and approaches to formulating a crisis communication strategy
- Understanding potential origins of reputational crisis
- Techniques to identify and prioritise likely sources of crisis
- How to conduct a reputation flashpoint audit
- Best practice on issues mapping and risk assessment
- Practical tools to map and prioritise reputational issues
- Who does what in a crisis?
- How should we define teams and roles?
- Integrating communications with other departments in a crisis
- Crisis escalation protocols
- Coordination with top management and other departments
- Drafting a "Red book" (comprehensive crisis manual)
- Creating a "Dark site" (a crisis website prepared in advance ready to go live at short notice)
- Proforma messages and holding statements
- Physical resources
- Simulation and training
This course is for professionals responsible for crisis preparedness within their organisation — whether you are building a crisis communication plan from scratch or strengthening one that already exists. Equally relevant for communications leads, risk managers and anyone on a crisis response team who needs to understand the systems, protocols and resources that make a rapid response possible.
- Dubai20 October 2026· $1,200 plus VATBook
- Live Online26–27 October 2026· $950Book
- Dubai4 November 2026· $1,200 plus VATBook
- Live Online23–24 November 2026· $950Book
- Dubai15 December 2026· $1,200 plus VATBook
- Live Online21–22 December 2026· $950Book
The following are some of the ISOC trainers who regularly lead this course, depending whether you join us in London, Dubai or live online.
Yes. We deliver this course for teams of any size, tailored to your organisation’s context and objectives. Contact us to discuss your requirements.
This course focuses on preparation — building the crisis communication plan, systems, teams and resources before a crisis happens. Handling the Media in a Crisis focuses on what to do when a crisis has already broken — managing the active response.
You will leave with frameworks, templates and practical tools — including crisis manual templates, holding statement formats and escalation protocols — that you can adapt and implement in your own organisation.
Nothing specific is required. If you have a current project, challenge or organisational context relevant to the course, bring it along — the practical exercises can incorporate real-world scenarios.