Response Ready: Developing an Emergency Plan for Heritage Institutions

In this online workshop, you will explore the objectives of an emergency response and the key components for creating a plan tailored to heritage institutions. The workshop provides an engaging and interactive learning experience that helps you prepare or update your emergency plan. You will receive a template to guide your plan development and, with the support of experts and peers, create a plan suited to your institution’s needs. Additionally, you will also learn how to test your plan using simple tabletop exercises.

What to expect

The online workshop comprises seven 2-hour sessions, including five highly interactive modules. The modules will be scheduled over a period of four months. Participation in the online workshop will involve:

• attending all sessions for all five modules
• reviewing workshop resource materials (15 to 30 minutes) prior to each session
• completing exercises (one to two hours) between the sessions

Modules

Developing an emergency response team for heritage institutions

• Decide on the size and structure of an incident management team for your institution.
• Select individuals with the expertise and skills suitable for incident response management roles and add their contact information to your emergency plan.

Developing immediate emergency response procedures for heritage institutions

• Complete a simple risk assessment of the emergency hazards that could impact your institution and collection.
• Prepare suitable immediate response procedures for high-risk hazards and add them to your emergency plan.

Developing all-hazards response procedures for heritage institutions

• Identify all-hazards actions that meet the emergency objectives of an emergency response.
• Prepare all-hazards response procedures suitable for your institution, assign them to incident management team members and add them to your emergency plan.

Collections salvage and recovery strategies for heritage institutions

• Identify salvage priorities for your collection.
• Prepare procedures for your emergency plan to guide salvage and recovery.
• Conduct a damage assessment and prepare an emergency plan using a scenario exercise.

Providing resources for effective emergency response

• Determine supplies and equipment that your institution may need to respond to emergencies; list these items and where you will source them in your emergency plan.
• Prepare floor or site plans and add them to your emergency plan.
• Conduct a simple scenario exercise with your emergency response team.

Target audience

This workshop is intended for members of the heritage community who are responsible for writing and implementing an emergency plan, especially those in heritage institutions that have no plan or an outdated plan.

Enrolment limits

Since the emergency planning process benefits from multiple perspectives, we encourage participation by up to three people per heritage institution. Ideally, the participants are responsible for emergency incident management. Due to the interactive nature of this online workshop, attendance in the online sessions is restricted to 10 institutions. The minimum enrolment requirement is five institutions.

Priority will be given to members of the heritage community based in Canada who are responsible for writing and implementing an emergency plan.

Special requirements

Participants must have the following equipment and software:

• A computer with audio and video capabilities
• The desktop version of Zoom

Register

To apply, consult the Learning activities page.