Dubai English Speaking School and College (DESSC)

The challenge

The Dubai English Speaking School and College (DESSC) is the oldest English school in Dubai and caters for the full age range of students from reception to Sixth form. In the light of an ever-changing threat landscape, DESSC were conscious of the need to demonstrate that the protection and safeguarding of its staff and pupils is a priority by strengthening their crisis management framework and capability. Recognising the need to embrace external expertise, they tasked Cognitas Global to help them assess their risk planning, policies and procedures and to train and exercise their team.

Our solution

Working with the Senior Management Team at DESSC, our first role was to assess the current risks facing DESSC and review their existing crisis management framework. We then jointly drafted an updated comprehensive crisis management plan that better reflected the current risk environment and mitigating control measures, which would provide clear guidance on how multiple types of emergency should be handled.

Being very aware that a crisis management document alone isn’t likely to be at hand to the right people in the event of an emergency, we also developed a bespoke mobile phone App, incident360. This App takes the content of a crisis management plan and turns it into an easily accessible format for use by the crisis team in the event of an actual incident. With essential information, checklists, logging and mapping functionality, the effective management and subsequent review of an incident is facilitated and enhanced.

The results

Recognising that the development and implementation of a crisis management framework is not a short-term exercise, we are continuing to work with the Senior Management Team at DESSC to create a create a crisis-resistant culture to protect both pupils, staff and the reputation of the school

In 2023 we plan to train the Crisis Management Teams at both the School and College in implementing the new Crisis Management Plan through a series of training and exercising events using the incident360 App and our view360global experiential learning platform