No company is immune to crisis. From the moment it is founded, every organisation moves through stages of building, growth, and change – and at some point along the way, a crisis will hit: financial trouble, a media storm, or a production or quality failure. What separates companies that recover from those that do not is whether they already have a highly capable crisis team in place – one able to define the problem, analyse its causes, and put the right solution to work before the damage spreads.

This training course from the Arab British Fellowship Training Academy is for anyone who wants advanced skills in handling the emergency crises companies and institutions face. It covers how to measure and interpret public opinion, how that opinion shapes policy decisions, and the techniques available for turning both public and media attention into a positive outcome for the organisation. It also works through crisis management from a systematic public relations perspective – following the life cycle of real cases, drawing on persuasion theory, and balancing the interests of the environment and consumers – with practical experience in defining problems, planning, strategic analysis, and implementation, built around current PR issues at the local, national, and international level.

Who Should Attend?

• Directors and owners of public and private companies.
• PR directors in companies and establishments.
• Communications managers and PR professionals.
• Senior management officers and key administrative personnel.
• Operations managers and project managers.
• Corporate board members and executive directors.
• Professionals working in media, public relations, and business.
• Officials in governmental institutions and related administrative bodies.

Course Objectives

• Study public opinion across a wide range of topics, and correctly determine where opinions and attitudes actually come from.
• Conduct comprehensive surveys on relevant topics, and interpret the results to manage crises and build PR plans that lead to positive outcomes.
• Convert survey data into clear, self-explanatory information, and understand the theoretical basis of persuasion theories and how they apply to public relations.
• Conduct proper environmental research to identify and evaluate issues from a risk-management perspective, and develop solutions and assessments for campaigns or project outcomes.
• Analyse how the interests of society and related organisations develop, grow, and shift – with particular attention to environmental and consumer issues.
• Apply a case-management approach to trending media issues and crises, assess PR's impact on them, and design intelligent, workable solutions within a PR framework.
• Develop and apply strategies for managing PR relationships with both internal and external audiences – supportive and hostile alike.

Module 1: Reading and Understanding Public Opinion

• The different elements and aspects that make up public opinion, and why it matters so much to an organisation's PR position.
• The major pillars connecting public opinion, public relations, and media strategy.
• Models and theories of communication that explain how opinion actually forms and shifts.

Module 2: Crisis and Risk Management Skills

• Emergency crisis management skills for handling situations between the establishment and third parties.
• Core crisis and risk management principles, and how to manage a communication crisis specifically.
• Skills for handling the relationship between the company and the public during a crisis.

Module 3: Responding to Media Campaigns and Protecting Reputation

• How to handle adverse media campaigns targeting the company, and how to respond to negative propaganda properly.
• Media skills for pulling a company or institution out from under external or internal pressure.
• How to win back and satisfy customers after any downturn or crisis the company has been through.

Module 4: Proactive Planning and PR Best Practice

• Developing proactive strategic plans for crises expected within the company's relationships.
• Management and best practices of public relations as applied in the real world.

Module 5: Delivery Formats, Locations, and Certification

• Training formats offered: group training, high-focus individual training, field and practical training, and theoretical classroom training.
• Course locations, including Egypt, Jordan, Malaysia, Turkey, England, France, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Austria, Denmark, Australia, and the United States, with timing arranged around participants' schedules.
• A certificate accredited by the Arab British Fellowship Training Academy on completion, with the option to build this course into a mini-master programme – participants can contact the Academy for details.