Two immediate help items:

First, there is a great FREE tool and FREE set of training courses available online (one self-paced, one virtual classroom) on creating crisis message templates. While it is designed for the folks in government who issue the warnings and alerts we see on TV, and message boards on the highway (IPAWS), it is not connected to that system and only makes templates. Anyone can copy and paste them into a spreadsheet or an e-mail or any other alert system they want. It is called the Message Design Dashboard (MDD), and was funded by FEMA. Find more info at https://bentearsolutions.com/learn2warn

Second, as I noted above, the aspects of supporting people with disabilities and access/functional needs when developing crisis communications messages is critical. This is really key: If your district has families who read another language besides English - are you sending your crisis communications messages to them in those languages? You really should. If you want to read the academic reasoning backing this up, delve into this journal article: https://jicrcr.com/index.php/jicrcr/article/view/70

Paid subscribers, please visit https://thecemir.substack.com/ for access to the full article, once published.

Full transparency and disclosure, the audio voice generated for this video and podcast was produced using artificial intelligence.

Hello folks, this is an overview of the research work we're doing at the Center for Emergency Management Intelligence research on the topic of swatting. Swatting is the intentional calling in a false report to local law enforcement and other first responders in order to generate a massive response to an unsuspecting and unaware victim. Today, this problem is amplified exponentially by the Internet, the ease of access worldwide to US based communications systems - including our 9-1-1 system for emergency calls – and finally advances in artificial intelligence outpacing the systems needed to validate and verify a true emergency call.

This is a global concern; in that recently a number of swatting calls have been originated from countries outside of the United states - and in many cases without any laws preventing such false calls. With today's technology, it is nearly impossible to stop these calls from coming through; and even the investigation of the call after the fact is hindered by multiple agencies and even multiple countries being involved. These calls may be made on behalf of US persons, but regardless of the source or origination or ideation of the threat, swatting calls when acted upon by local public safety officials, can have hazards in the real world. What starts out as misinformation or even disinformation can become a life safety factor. And many of these swatting calls are aimed directly at US based K through 12 schools.

We are doing research on anti-swatting. This is a whole of community whole cycle effort needed across the board in coordination cooperation and collaboration between the local public safety officials and the local school district. We will be posting our research in parts on the CEMIR’s Substack, within this channel.

If you would like to learn more please subscribe to this Substack, or become a parliamentarian with the Center for Emergency Management Intelligence Research. You can learn more about the CEMIR at www.cemir.org.

This series will start off with an understanding of what the swatting call is all about, and then an overview of Emergency Management intelligence curation needed throughout the pathway to violence associated with swatting calls. Then provide an in-depth review of changes needed at public safety access points or PSAPs. Following that is more research on the law enforcement official decision points and what we believe is a strong need to have a deescalation process when unvalidated unverified swatting calls come through. Then in review of the reporting decisions connections to the school and the community resources etcetera. And finally a section on demobilization a critical element after the massive response has been dispatched, and arrives at a site such as a school - only to find out it was a false alarm - what happens next is important for everyone to be on the same page.

Again please subscribe to our Substack to get access to all of this detail and research at thecemir.substack.com.