Emergency Plan Update for the International School of Helsinki

Abstract

The increasing problem of school threats made the education professionals treat them in a serious manner. This thesis describes the process of an update to the emergency plan of the International School of Helsinki with the intention to provide practical solutions to various threats and crises in addition to the topics that are mandated by Finnish law. To develop solutions further that the minimum compliance, Finnish legislation and ministries’ publications relevant to the topic were analyzed, and a literature review focused on active shooter events, and crisis communication was performed. The data collection was performed based on qualitative methodology by non-participant observations against an auditing manual, unstructured interviews of the school’s key personnel, and a review of the school’s existing records. This is a functional thesis, and the results were customized for its commissioner. The results were a modification sequence of the emergency plan document overall and the addition of an illustrative crisis communication flow, guidelines for anyone dealing with an immediate threat in the school, a chapter with information about threat recognition, and guide-lines for the personnel of the school when encountering ambush journalism during a crisis. Additionally, the results are not disclosed in their detail due to confidentiality reasons. However, the process described in concluding the results could potentially be utilized by those who seek to update the emergency plan of a private school. The finding of the thesis suggests that educational institutions should adopt a prevention-based approach to threats by using methodical risk assessment as a tool with committed teams to execute the prevention program. Furthermore, reporting mechanisms should be developed in order for threats to be detected in an early stage and be stopped from becoming catastrophes. People in charge of creating such mechanisms should plan carefully and be guided by logic to avoid framing or blaming individuals. The first recommendation for the International School of Helsinki is to facilitate an easily accessible online reporting system for all the school community by using a template developed by the authors of this thesis. The second recommendation is to develop a vulnerability assessment checklist that covers the school building and its surroundings.