CLONAKILTY GAA CLUB LAUNCH A CRITICAL INCIDENT PLAN

Clonakilty GAA Club Chairperson Ger McCarthy, prompted by the recent tragic death of club members in Ulster, has recognised the need for critical incident planning and has drawn up a Critical Incident Plan for the Club. The initial specific of this plan is to set up a Critical Incident Management Team. Clubs needs to have the ability to function after trauma or tragedy and needs in the aftermath to be in a position to support families, members and the wider community.

In many instances these critical incidents are catastrophic events that occur with little or no warning, within the Club or impacting on the Club, thus allowing those people affected little or no opportunity to consider or plan for the incident. Critical incidents may include sudden or traumatic deaths, distressing events or a severe accidents.

The aim Critical Incident Management Team (CIMT) is to help Club management, members and staff to react quickly and effectively in the event of an incident, to enable us to maintain a sense of control and to ensure that appropriate support is offered to members and staff. Having a good plan should also help ensure that the effects on the members and staff will be limited. It should enable us to effect a return to normality as soon as possible.

Each team member has been assigned specific roles and responsibilities and defined actions to be implemented in the immediate aftermath of such an event. The plan also sets out follow-up activities for the days and weeks following the incident.

“Hopefully we will never need to implement this plan, however we now have a predefined set of arrangements to be actioned in the event of it ever becoming necessary and the plan provides clarity” said Ger.

The plan which was approved by Club Officers has been launched at an Executive Meeting on March 25th is readily available in the Club and on the Clonakilty GAA Club website.

Ger Mc Carthy

Chairperson