The Capacity to Care
It is one thing for an institution to say that it cares for its community. It is another to see what that care can make possible when the community is in crisis.
At The EdArchitect, our thoughts are with the communities currently being displaced by the fires, and with the firefighters, emergency services and local organisations working tirelessly to protect and support them.
Across south-west France, tens of thousands of residents and holidaymakers have been forced to leave their homes, campsites and communities as wildfires spread through Gironde and the Landes.
The Cap Ferret peninsula has been ordered to evacuate by road and boat as a fire that has already devastated 8,700 hectares continues to burn. In the Biscarrosse district alone, more than 23,000 people have been evacuated. A children’s summer camp and a residential care home for older people were among the sites cleared. France has also activated the European Union’s civil protection mechanism, securing additional firefighting aircraft and helicopters from Croatia, Portugal, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Reuters
The emergency response belongs to firefighters, civil protection teams, municipalities and public authorities. But a crisis of this scale also invites a broader reflection for every institution connected to a community.
What if crisis communication could do more than help manage hardship? What if it could also help institutions contribute meaningfully to the communities experiencing it?
Crisis communication has an essential and well-established purpose. It provides clarity, shares verified information, supports continuity and helps people understand what is happening. Holding statements, approval processes, designated spokespeople and coordinated updates all have an important role.
With the right preparation, communication can also help connect institutional resources with genuine community needs.
Preparedness creates the capacity to care
Going beyond the holding statement is only possible when an institution is prepared for the crisis itself.
If leaders are still deciding who has authority, locating emergency contacts, drafting essential messages and determining how information should be approved, most of their energy will necessarily be devoted to catching up with events.
A clear operational plan changes that.
When decision-making responsibilities, escalation procedures, communication channels and response protocols have already been defined, an institution does not need to determine its role in the middle of a crisis. Its teams understand their responsibilities. Its leaders can focus not only on maintaining essential operations, but also on considering what else the institution might contribute.
This is where preparedness creates space for impact.
An effective crisis framework establishes who convenes the crisis cell, who verifies information, who communicates with families, who liaises with public authorities and who can authorise the use of institutional resources. It identifies the channels available if normal systems fail, the people within the community who may be particularly vulnerable and the facilities, expertise or partnerships that could become useful.
A crisis framework can also anticipate wellbeing: how children will receive age-appropriate information, how vulnerable families will be identified and how counselling, safeguarding and inclusion expertise might be mobilised when familiar routines disappear.
It does not need to predict every crisis. It ensures that the institution is not starting from zero when one occurs.
Institutions that respond meaningfully do not need to invent their values in the moment. They act on them because they already know what they stand for.
When preparedness becomes impact
Around the world, educational institutions have shown what can become possible when their infrastructure, expertise and relationships are mobilised during a crisis.
1. United States: at least 225,000 meals for Chicago’s South Side
During the Covid-19 crisis, the University of Chicago used its campus dining facilities to prepare at least 3,000 meals a day for residents across nine South Side communities. Working with the Greater Chicago Food Depository and local organisations, it committed to providing a minimum of 225,000 meals over ten weeks.
The university also committed $1 million to food support and another $1 million in bridge grants for local small businesses and nonprofit organisations. Its communication channels helped residents identify where the meals would be distributed and how they could access assistance. University of Chicago
2. Australia: nearly 7,000 meals and 1,870 nights of accommodation
During Australia’s 2019–2020 bushfire crisis, regional universities became part of the local support infrastructure.
At the University of New England, Rural Fire Service personnel, National Parks and Wildlife staff and members of the Australian Army were accommodated for more than 1,870 bed nights. The university also served nearly 7,000 meals and provided regular transport.
Charles Sturt University provided accommodation, food and toiletries for approximately 200 firefighters at its Port Macquarie campus. Elsewhere, universities offered emergency accommodation, grants, counselling, transport and paid leave for staff volunteering with emergency organisations.
These institutions already possessed accommodation, catering facilities, transport, expertise and community relationships. During the crisis, those resources acquired an additional purpose. Regional Universities Network
3. South Africa: more than 22,000 students connected during lockdown
When the pandemic disrupted access to campuses, North-West University surveyed its students to understand whether they were ready for online learning.
In response to the gaps it identified, the university purchased more than 3,400 laptops to lend to students and provided data bundles to more than 22,000 students at its own expense. It also removed data charges from frequently used external academic websites.
The response extended beyond learning continuity. Students and staff raised R50,000, together with 7.5 tonnes of maize meal and canned food and several tonnes of clothing, for a local disaster relief initiative. University academics also contributed expertise in virology, public health, disaster management and engineering to the national response. North-West University
These examples differ in geography, scale and form. What connects them is that communication was supported by something operational.
There was a service to access. A resource to mobilise. A form of support to explain.
These were not simply communications campaigns. They were institutional decisions that communication helped make visible, understandable and accessible.
An institution’s values become visible through what it makes possible and through the care with which support is made accessible.
Beyond facilities
An institution’s potential contribution extends beyond its physical facilities.
For younger children especially, a crisis can disrupt the routines, relationships and familiar environments that ordinarily provide a sense of safety. Displacement may bring fear, uncertainty, interrupted sleep and separation from friends, teachers or trusted adults. For neurodivergent children and those with additional needs, sudden change, unfamiliar surroundings and sensory intensity may be particularly difficult.
Schools and education organisations may therefore hold something equally valuable: an understanding of children and how to support their wellbeing.
Could trusted educators help families explain events in age-appropriate language? Could familiar stories, activities or brief supervised online sessions restore a small sense of continuity? Could school counsellors, psychologists or inclusion specialists share practical guidance with parents and emergency support teams? Could institutions help identify children who may need additional reassurance or specialist support?
Suitable premises might still become available to local authorities. Families affected by the closure or evacuation of a centre aéré might be connected with childcare or other assistance. Universities might mobilise accommodation, transport, volunteers or specialist expertise. Education groups operating across several locations might use their networks to help displaced families find temporary places for their children.
But the value of an educational institution is not limited to the space it occupies.
It also lies in its knowledge of people, its trusted relationships and its ability to preserve connection when familiar structures have been disrupted.
The possibilities will differ according to each institution, its resources and the needs identified by those coordinating the emergency response. The opportunity is not to do everything. It is to consider whether something already available could be of use.
Space. Knowledge. People. Technology. Relationships. Reach. Care.
During hardship, people offer their homes, time, knowledge and support. Institutions discover that familiar resources can serve an additional purpose. Networks that usually operate quietly become sources of connection. Communities do not simply receive information. They find ways to respond.
The hardship can be devastating. Alongside it, communities often demonstrate extraordinary solidarity, generosity and care.
Communication does not create that solidarity. It can, however, help people recognise it, participate in it and give it direction.
It can share what is known. It can make needs and available support easier to understand. It can connect those able to help with those seeking assistance. It can allow generous intentions to find meaningful expression.
In this context, crisis communication can extend naturally beyond the holding statement.
It says: this is what is happening.
But it can also say: this is what is available, this is who it could help and this is how it can be reached.
This does not position the institution at the centre of the response. It allows communication to become a bridge between the institution, its resources and the community around it.
A commitment to care might become flexibility for families. A commitment to access might become shared space or technology. A commitment to knowledge might become specialist advice. A commitment to community might become a network through which people can find one another.
The French wildfires are first and foremost a human and environmental emergency. They are also a reminder that crises do not arrive neatly within institutional calendars. They do not wait for offices to reopen, leadership teams to return from holiday or communication plans to be approved.
Preparedness gives institutions the capacity to respond. Clarity gives their teams the confidence to act. Communication can then help turn that action into meaningful community support.
This invites us to think about crisis communication as more than a holding statement. With the right preparation, it can also help institutions connect their resources with genuine community needs and support the collective response already taking shape.
Values may be written into strategic plans. Their meaning becomes visible in what an institution makes possible when people need it most.
