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Building and maintaining a strong working relationship with local law enforcement is imperative to maximizing the effectiveness and positive impact of drills and helps make emergency responses smoother and safer.
Include emergency response teams in planning sessions as well as drills to help them become familiar with your campuses—and to help your school’s staff and students learn what to expect themselves. When you include them in your process, emergency responders can also provide feedback following drills, enabling you to better refine your procedures.
Developing a plan to manage your relationship with emergency responders will empower you to keep that relationship effective and efficient—after all, police departments experience staff turnover as do schools. Maintaining a working relationship between your two organizations requires spending time and effort intentionally.
Let’s look at what it takes to build and maintain that relationship–and three tools to include when working with local law enforcement.
1. Use the same terminology to plan drills and set goals
Following a planned response like Standard Response Protocol (SRP) provides a common language that you can speak with law enforcement, which makes it easier to incorporate emergency responders into the drill process to help them better understand what it is you’re trying to accomplish with these drills.
Drill manager reports
Raptor works closely with the “I Love U Guys” Foundation and is officially licensed to offer their Standard Response Protocols and Standard Reunification Method as part of our Emergency Management software.
To support your collaboration with law enforcement as your district works to refine its emergency response, our software also enables you to utilize the incident commander dashboard to watch your drill performance in real-time and access both district-level and school-level reports to see what is working—and where you need to improve performance.
2. Clear communication is key to effective emergency preparedness
Having key information available during emergency response planning—such as your plan for managing students and where police can access the school’s surveillance and communication systems—and communicating that information with law enforcement enables them to leverage that information when responding to a scene.
The importance of two-way communication
Two-way communication is critical during an emergency, helping responders ease stress and direct resources efficiently.
With Raptor Alert’s ability to perform real-time group messaging and location sharing, first responders can leverage this information—enhancing both coordination and communication. Connected to RapidSOS, Raptor Alert also shares precise location data and emergency details with 911 and dispatch operators.
And, because Drill Manager is fully integrated with the Raptor Panic Alert solution, staff learn how to initiate an emergency, communicate through group messaging, share their location, and contact 9-1-1 through drills—building the critical muscle memory responses they’ll need in a real emergency.
3. Help first responders get where they’re needed with CRG maps
Collaborative Response Graphics® (CRGs®) from Critical Response Group prepare first responders for more effective command and control when responding to unfamiliar locations. The technology goes well beyond an interactive floor plan by putting the identical mapping solution in standard use by public safety organizations across the country in the hands of first responders and school personnel simultaneously.
Raptor Alert directly integrates with your closest 911 PSAP while delivering rich data, like CRG maps and SIS data, to first responders through partners like RapidSOS.
Streamline Law Enforcement Collaboration with Raptor
Raptor updates in real-time as status and location data changes, giving responders the details they need to save lives. Including law enforcement in your emergency response planning and training sessions will help empower your community with an effective and streamlined safety culture.
Related Resources
Guide to K-12 Emergency Management
Proven strategies to protect your school.
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