The CSW Resilience Team comprises of Emergency Planning Officers that represent the local authorities of Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire. We enable compliance with the Civil Contingencies Act through risk assessments, business continuity, training and exercising, recovery and supporting the planning and response to incidents.

Firstly, I wanted to direct you towards our twitter page. We regularly share guidance which encourages the public and community (including educational establishments) to increase their resilience and preparedness. For regular advice on increasing resilience follow @CSWPrepared.

The CSW Resilience Team helps schools to prepare for sudden and unexpected emergencies which cause trauma within a school community and overwhelms normal coping mechanisms of the school. We share a termly newsletter which encourages schools to consider their emergency planning procedures. Last term, I introduced myself as the new schools lead and encouraged your school emergency planning lead to refer to the DfE resources and the complimentary CSW developed resources.

I hope over the last term you have had a chance to create/review your schools emergency plans.

This term we are encouraging you to continuing planning for unexpected incidents/emergencies. The topic of our newsletter is grab bags. It is encouraged that all schools have a grab bag, ready to go. The content of this grab bag will ensure that in the case of an emergency, there are the relevant items to keep the pupils and staff safe. This grab bag should be easily accessible. Depending on the size of the school and the site, it might be appropriate to have several grab bags.

It is important to have staff designated to checking the content of the grab bag and to evaluate if any additional items are required (we recommend termly). To prevent the items being used outside of an emergency and to ensure it is fully stocked during an incident, it might be worthwhile adding a sign to emphasise that the bag contains contents which are for emergency use only. You can be creative with your grab bag style, for example if a box may be more suitable or even a little wheeled trolley box if they have far to take it and its heavy!

I wish you all a happy Easter break and hope you have a safe return next term. Please do not hesitate to contact me regarding your school’s emergency planning arrangements. 

Kind Regards,

Email: CSWRT@warwickshire.gov.uk