Overview This document provides a management framework for responding to critical incidents or disruptions that may threaten the health and safety of the National Louis University (NLU) community or disrupt its programs and operations to ensure an effective, efficient and timely response to crisis situations that may occur. Since an effective response depends on having an informed campus community familiar with expectations and procedures for crisis preparedness and response, all members of the University Community should be familiar with the Plan. The purpose of the Plan is to serve as a guideline for implementing an effectual response to crisis situations by: 1. Providing guidance for emergency operations and the utilization of all available NLU and government resources for the protection of lives, property, and the continuance of NLU operations in the event of a natural or man-made disaster or emergency. 2. Outlining the duties and responsibilities of departments and/or individuals during NLU emergency operations. 3. Establishing guidelines for emergency planning and coordination of activities relating to disaster prevention and mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery as related to local, county, state and federal governments. 4. Assigning responsibilities for specific duties and activities related to emergency operations and disaster recovery. No plan can cover all scenarios in which emergency action may be needed; therefore, the plan is fluid and adaptable. NLU recognizes that any institution can be exposed to many different hazards, all of which have the potential to threaten the health, safety, and welfare of its students, faculty, staff, and guests. Because of this wide variety of hazards this Critical Incident Preparedness Plan is designed to provide the framework for an institutional response to any incident that threatens the University as a whole. While many of the incidents outlined in this plan are commonly associated with large scale disasters or emergencies, this plan also facilitates the management of critical incidents that may be smaller in nature but, require a coordinated University response to meet the needs of our community while modeling our core values. The University understands that as a higher education institution we have a significant responsibility to prepare for any threat to our community and prepare a response to complement the anticipated emergency services response to a campus emergency or critical incident. Through this plan, we aim to provide specific and general guidance to provide emergency aid for the campus, such as safety assessments, search & rescue, repairs, sheltering, counseling, and other support. With these assumptions in mind, this Critical Incident Preparedness Plan establishes a Critical Incident Response Team (CIRT) that ascertains the scope of an incident and advises the University President. The CIRT is outlined in the next section.
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