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1. Introduction
The Ministry of Health defines a critical incident as any sudden and/or unusual event which could:
- be life threatening for the [person] or others
- be dangerous, with the [person] at risk of grave harm
- have significant consequences like [the person] being involved in criminal activity,
- absconding, or requiring emergency services or hospitalisation.
ISANA NZ defines a critical incident as “a tragic or traumatic event or situation affecting a student/students which has the potential to cause unusually strong emotional reactions in the school/campus community.”
Examples of critical incidents that have required communication management include, but are not limited to suicide, accidental death and serious injury.
Being prepared for how to communicate during a critical incident is a key part of critical incident management. With so many moving parts in play, as well as heightened emotional responses, communication with internal and external stakeholders must be centralised and well-coordinated, and balance openness and privacy. For international education, the international dimension to communication is critical.
This project draws on real critical incidents involving international students at New Zealand institutions featured in learn from critical incidents case studies, which we recommend you review if you have not already done so. You may also find the Develop a critical incident plan topic page helpful to review.
Note that the guides and suggestions do not constitute an exhaustive list of how to manage stakeholder communications. The actions you take will vary depending on the incident, and the persons involved.
2. Critical incidents and communication management
Stakeholder communication during a critical incident may involve communicating with:
- Staff
- Students
- Students’ whānau
- Media
- The relevant consulate, embassy or high commission
- Agents
- Liaising with translators.
Before making contact with any stakeholders, ensure that you have accurate and up-to-date information about what happened, and be prepared to provide regular communications to update stakeholders on how the incident is evolving.
When critical incidents arise, your institution will establish or activate a response team, as outlined in your critical incident plan. The team should include members with roles specific to managing internal and external stakeholder communications, including a media spokesperson, and contact details for translators of languages relevant to your international student cohort.
3. What you communicate, and how you communicate
Your critical incident plan should include guidelines for what is communicated, and how, to whom, and how often.
Communicating with internal stakeholders such as staff, students and whānau may be done via group SMS, email, your website, or social media platforms utilised by your institution. Controlling how social media is engaged with is not possible, however it provides a powerful opportunity to provide accurate information and engage with users of these platforms in a timely way.
Depending on the incident, personal phone calls may be required. Phone calls can help inform stakeholders more closely affected by the incident in a way that allows them to ask questions and clarify information if there is uncertainty. Translators may be required where English language is a barrier to communication.
Working with media should be managed through a media spokesperson, who will be tasked with intercepting and responding to media enquiries with accurate information. While it is not possible to control the story told by the media, you will be able to provide information that is correct, via a central contact point. Your media spokesperson should be trained on how to engage with the media effectively. Organisations like The Public Relations Institute of New Zealand Te Pūtahi Whakakakau Tūmatanui o Aotearoa (PRINZ), which is the industry body for public relations and communication management professionals in Aotearoa, can assist with professional development of your communications team.
Contact with a consulate, embassy or high commission should be done personally via telephone and followed up in writing.
Communicating with agents may be appropriate, as agents often continue to maintain contact with students throughout the duration of their studies. Agents can be important intermediaries or culture brokers with families in the students’ home countries. The international office of your institution may take on this role, and provide updates and respond to enquiries. The whanau of students involved in a critical incident may contact the agent, therefore including them in your communication plan is sensible.
QUICK TIP
Resist the instinct to immediately contact offshore stakeholders during a critical incident. Communicating with and supporting onshore stakeholders is not only more important but allows you time to establish facts and gather information to then share externally.
4. Critical incidents in the media
Real-life examples of critical incidents involving international students appearing in the media include a 2018 road accident with multiple fatalities, and a 2017 suicide. Students and education providers are named in media reports. In some cases, media interest in a critical incident can continue long after the incident itself and can require ongoing engagement from your institution.
QUICK TIP
Attracting media attention during a critical incident, while perhaps unwelcome, should not come as a surprise.
Resources for further information:
- See Handle an issue in ENZ Skills Lab for emergency management
Case study for reflection
The scenario below is an example of a real-life critical incident involving international students that required significant stakeholder communications responses. After you read the scenario, you will be asked to reflect on the incident, particularly the international dimension.
Many thanks to the international director of a Christchurch high school for sharing their lived experience.
Case study - Earthquake
You are at work at your institution when a large earthquake strikes while classes are in session. Once the shaking has stopped, you quickly make it outside with the other staff and students. Your school is undamaged. Your immediate concern is for the welfare of your students, their host families, and how they will return home. Your institution hosts 150 international students from 11 countries, most of whom live with homestay families. The welfare of these students is your responsibility during a critical incident. You begin the task of establishing that everyone is safe, and coordinating a system for students to return to their homes. Unknown to you, reports of widespread damage across the city are being reported in the international news. Students tell you they are receiving calls from concerned family members abroad.
It takes your school until 9pm to ensure that all students are picked up and taken home by their guardians, and that the school is closed. Only then do you commence the task of personally telephoning the parents or guardians of your international students to confirm their safety and wellbeing. Access to translation services are limited when you phone the families abroad. The following day you email the families to reiterate that their children are safe, copying in their onshore guardians, and offshore agents, and make use of translation services now available to you. You continue to send daily emails until the school re-opens 10 days later. Some families abroad make arrangements with you for their child to return home as soon as possible.
Media enquiries from local and international news outlets are directed to the school principal, and you liaise with the Chinese Consulate regarding the safety of the Chinese students. You contact the families of your Chinese students for permission to share their details with the consulate so that care packages can be distributed to them.
You update the school website and app with regular information, and deliberately avoid using the school’s social media assets as a communication platform. You counsel a Vietnamese student on the appropriateness of sharing photos of his damaged home on social media, as this has caused concern in his home country. A number of the students join the Student Volunteer Army, news of which is reported in the media.
Questions for reflection:
In terms of stakeholder communication, think about what was done well in this scenario, or could have been done differently. Now, put yourself in the shoes of the team member responsible for stakeholder communications managing the critical incident described.
- Upon learning of this incident, how would you identify and manage the local and international impacts of this scenario?
- Which internal stakeholder groups would you communicate with, and how?
- Which external stakeholder groups would you communicate with, and how?
- How will you prepare for being contacted by a member of the media in New Zealand and abroad?
Be prepared
Don’t wait for a critical incident to happen. Know how you are going to communicate as an institution to different stakeholder groups before a critical incident occurs. Prepare a checklist that includes a guide for what a stakeholder communications plan should cover, and also suggested roles. Debriefing after the critical incident has concluded is also an important aspect of your communications plan. The debrief may include stakeholders so that feedback is provided from various points of view. Sharing findings of the debrief with stakeholder groups once the debrief is complete may be appropriate.
QUICK TIP
Ensure onshore students and staff involved with a critical incident are safe before communicating with offshore stakeholders.
Resources for further information:
- Responding to traumatic incidents (Ministry of Education guidelines, with suggested eight-step checklist)
5. Engaging with media
Engaging with media can be intimidating, therefore effective media engagement requires preparedness and training. It’s important to keep in mind that media engagement involves a level of risk, and anything you say to the media - and indeed any other stakeholder groups - can become a headline. While becoming a headline may not be your intention, effective media engagement may mitigate the spread of misinformation, and positively portray your institution as actively responding in times of crisis.
Engagement with the media can be done via media release or interview. A media release may result in requests for further comment or an interview, for which you should be prepared. If you are caught unprepared for a media call, ask for their contact details and offer to call back. Taking the time to check your facts and prepare key messages and talking points in advance is crucial. During an interview, keep to your key messages and talking points, repeat if necessary, correct factual errors, and avoid jargon. The use of plain English is important, particularly as stakeholders from non-English speaking backgrounds will likely be consumers of the media with which you are engaging. Speak Clearly, Loudly, Audibly, and with Pauses (CLAP). Media may request photographs, or permission to enter the grounds of your institution.
A checklist for preparing for and responding to the media is accessible here.
Resources for further information:
- Skills Lab Give an interview
6. Engaging with social media
“Put simply, behave well online. You would behave well everywhere else, and online is no exception.” - Public Relations Institute of New Zealand
Just as engaging with media should be done with sensitivity and care, caution should be exercised when using social media to communicate with stakeholders. Conveying the nuance of a complex situation in bite-sized social media chunks may not be ideal, therefore social media should be used carefully and sparingly and in accordance with your critical incident plan. Like anything you say to the media becoming a headline, anything you say on social media can be infinitely shared and commented upon.
While international students’ families and local networks may be physically thousands of kilometres away, they are only a click away in terms of digital communications. Hence, a strong degree of caution is advised for any social media communication which can be picked up and spread rapidly online. In terms of messaging that is circulating in the affected student’s home country, it's possible that one of your education agents in that home country might be able to assist in terms of assessing what is being reported.
“We avoid using social media during a critical incident as it is so easily misinterpreted. There will always be comments that can create further issues to address during a time that is already very high pressure.” - International Director, South Island institution
If you choose to use your institution’s social media to communicate with stakeholders, posts should be made with care, and oversight of social media should be allocated to someone trained to monitor, interact with, and respond to social media communications.
Resources for further information:
7. What would you do?
Critical incidents can happen at any time. Using the abovementioned resources, consider how you would manage the following scenario. You may also wish to review Develop a critical incident plan before proceeding with this section.
Case study
During a lunch break, a student from Afghanistan is stabbed by a classmate from Malaysia. Emergency services are called, and the school is put into lockdown while police and paramedics attend the scene. The full extent of the incident and injury are as yet unknown.
Video footage of the incident has been captured by a fellow student and shared to social media. The incident is quickly picked up by mainstream news outlets, and the families of students attending the school are beginning to contact the school. Speculation about the incident, including connections to international gangs, is circulating.
Questions for reflection:
- With regard to internal and external stakeholder communications, how would you manage this scenario?
- Suggest immediate actions needed between the time of the incident, and in the next 24 to 48 hours.
- Suggest longer-term communications actions after the incident has concluded.
- How can the stakeholder communications actions be evaluated during the debrief?
- Do you have any suggested answers to the above?
8. Conclusion
This project has provided examples of critical incidents involving international students to help you develop your skills in managing stakeholder communication at your institution. Being prepared for how to communicate during a critical incident is a key part of critical incident management. Communication with internal, onshore stakeholders should be prioritised over external stakeholders. Clarity and accuracy of information in all communications is essential, and social media should be used with caution.
9. References and resources
Ministry of Health (n.d.). Reporting of critical incidents and death in service. https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/disability-services/reporting-critical-incidents-and-death-service
Ministry of Education. (2009). Responding to traumatic incidents
https://assets.education.govt.nz/public/Uploads/MOE120-TraumaInSchls-FA.PDF
PRINZ (n.d.). PRINZ guidelines for online engagement. https://assets.education.govt.nz/public/Uploads/MOE120-TraumaInSchls-FA.PDF
