Last week, the participants of our workshop on crisis communication, held at the ASDR natural hazards conference in September / October 2021, received the documentation of said workshop.

The results: The workshop impressively showed that there are already many committed actors with good ideas in the Styrian communities and in the various emergency organizations. Many ideas are already being successfully implemented in practice. In order for all to benefit as best as possible, a continuous exchange of possible approaches in crisis communication, as well as constant knowledge transfer, are important so that people who are just starting their function can be picked up and the next scenario can already cope with the next scenario at a high-quality level.

In addition, there is a clear need for training and further education. In line with this, a focus should also be placed on the evaluation of events in order to determine lessons learned and uncover good / bad practices that can then be passed on to future crisis communicators. For this, it is absolutely necessary to establish a culture of mistakes in which communities can learn from each other without judgment, where personal experiences and insights are conveyed in the sense of a continuous improvement of crisis communication.

Thanks again to all the organizers and participants for the great workshop!