Crisis Communication Consulting

Washington County is at a unique moment for identifying and implementing strategies to enhance our communication capabilities. We continually strive to be more responsive and adaptable in our communication approach to a wide variety of stakeholders in various situations. Communication challenges are multifaceted and range across all departments, but they share a common thread: the need for clear, effective communication during situations that require urgent and crisis level messaging. Given the challenges of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, increasing homelessness, and the development of new projects and programs requiring communication across Washington County, staff have identified the need for additional capacity to provide timely communication on unexpected urgent or crisis level situations, proactive communication planning to streamline processes for urgent or crisis level communication, and follow up communication when transitioning out of an urgent or critical incident. To support this expansion of our communications capability, Washington County is seeking a consultant(s) to assist the organization with providing urgent or crisis level communications as needed, assessing our current crisis communication response capacity, and proactively considering best practices for providing communication during urgent and crisis situations.