5. Disaster and emergency response
Staff will phone Triple Zero (000) if:
- The safety of staff, volunteers or others is at risk.
- There is criminal activity.
- There is a significant threat to, or impact on, DECYP sites or property.
We aim to respond to emergencies and disasters efficiently through pre-planning and adapting to each incident’s circumstance. Staff must notify their manager about an emergency as soon as possible.
The following outlines emergency response processes. However, these may not be relevant in all situations.
Example response processes
The following outlines emergency response processes. However, these may not be relevant in all situations.
1. Prioritise personal safety
- Human safety takes precedence over the protection of collection material.
- No recovery actions can take place until the building/area is safe.
- Collection emergency management plans are linked with relevant building emergency and evacuation management plans.
- Work closely with relevant emergency services.
2. Implement procedures and communications
- Develop and implement procedures with clear responsibilities for disaster or emergency management to minimises collection impact.
- Use internal and external resources for communicating to staff and users.
3. Determine priority actions
As each situation is different, each event requires an initial response that may include:
- establishing a collection incident response coordinator
- assessing and planning an appropriate response
- communicating with stakeholders
This may begin off-site if the building is not accessible.
4. Undertake priority actions
This may include:
- Mobilising an incident response team including evaluation and salvage units.
- Stabilising the collection environment, treating items in situ or managing relocation.
- Treating items where they are once their environment has been stabilised.
- Carefully tracking and managing relocation activities if items had to be moved.
- Ensuring affected items are handled and treated properly using specialist conservation knowledge and handling instructions.
5. Re-establish services and review
- Re-establish services as fully and as quickly as practicable after an emergency.
- Notify staff and other stakeholders.
- Debrief, review and report on actions taken and any impact post-incident to improve future emergency preparedness.