Communicating through a pandemic: What one police agency has learned so far

Author's Biography

Katherine Severson leads the Emergency Management Unit within the Major Events Section of the Calgary Police Service. She serves as Police Tactical Operations Center Manager for major policing incidents and has been the police agency representative in the City of Calgary Emergency Operations Center for most major incidents since 2010. She is a member of the Incident Management Team in Canada Taskforce 2’s Disaster Response Team and has served in incident management roles for various events and incidents. Katherine teaches incident management, interoperability in incident command and rescue taskforce response for the four emergency service agencies. Katherine co-hosted the 2016 Calgary Symposium on Mass Casualty Incidents, and has presented at numerous conferences. She is trained in disaster risk reduction and qualified as a Business Continuity professional. She has received the Chief’s Lifesaving Award and the Canadian Police Exemplary Service Medal.

Emma Poole is Team Leader for the Calgary Police Service Public Affairs/Media Relations Unit. She has worked in Ukraine, coaching commanders and frontline officers, as well as new press officers, in the fields of media relations, crisis communication and social media as part of the Canada–Ukraine Police Development Project. Emma is the Co-chair of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police National Strategic Communications Group. She has a degree in applied communications from Mount Royal University’s journalism programme.