CASP CEU Center

Crisis Management

CASP Organizational Guidelines: Chapter 23

Section: Risk Management

Format: PDF Download

Released: January, 31 2022

Chapter Overview:

The autism services industry is prone to crisis situations by its very nature. Although the possible scenarios are many and varied, they tend to fall into three main categories: physical harm to a client or staff member, malfeasance, and site destruction. Physical harm includes abuse, injury, or even death; it may be accidental, intentional, or the result of negligence. Malfeasance includes an array of ethical, behavioral, and criminal actions, such as racist or sexist conduct, verbal abuse, theft, or financial improprieties. Site destruction includes property-related events, such as fire, flooding, vandalism, or other damage to an organization’s buildings or grounds. These are the nightmares of every autism service provider. 

A crisis not only presents a significant liability, but it also may have regulatory and licensing implications, may lead to negative media coverage, and may create tensions between staff and clients. Unfortunately, the occurrence of adverse events is not a matter of if, but a matter of when. Poor handling of a crisis can taint an organization’s reputation—at best—or shut down the organization entirely—at worst. A crisis can also have long-term effects on the reputation of the field at large and may impact future service delivery.

Wise organizational leaders arm themselves with insightful strategies both to prevent crises from occurring and to prevent the organization from toppling when a crisis does occur. Organizations should have established policies and procedures that address pre-crisis planning, management of the crisis during and directly after its occurrence, reporting requirements, internal and external communications and media relations, and actions to be taken after the crisis is over. The principles of crisis management remain the same for organizations of all sizes; however, response details should be tailored to the crisis and the individual features of the organization (e.g., staff size, stakeholder groups).