Active Planning
Active planning is your "if this, then that" response plan. If violence happens, being prepared buys you precious reaction time instead of needing to scramble to figure out what to do in the situation. Active planning can help you be more responsive and respond more appropriately when your life is at risk. There are four parts of active planning: Functional Fitness, Skill Set, your Environment, and Law Enforcement Response Time. These combine to create a plan based on your specific ability to perform any of the response options (escaping, hiding or defending yourself) during an attack.
Functional fitness measures how capable your body is to do any one of the response options. For example, if you're a runner, you'll be great at escaping, whereas someone who lifts weights may be better suited if needing to physically defend against the attacker. It also includes what you're wearing, how you're feeling, if you have any injuries, and more.
Your skill set is what you've done to supplement your functional fitness such as barricading, improvised weapons, self-defense classes and more. They enhance your ability to respond. Your environment looks at what is around you that may help or hurt your response. Think about the rooms that may be easily barricaded or where you may be able to escape to. Pay attention to the floor you're on as it may determine if and how you can escape from the building.
Assessing your Law Enforcement response time is important to understand how long it's going to take for the good guys to get there. How long do you need to hold off before support arrives? Knowing that information can help keep you prepared and having accurate expectations going into the situation.
Continuously assessing your plan and adjusting for your current realities throughout the day and the entire school year is a vital part of school safety.
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