Development of Joint Curriculum for First Responders on theUse of Force and First Aid Tactical Procedures

Working package:     WP 4: Sustainability and visibility of the project

Specific objective:     SO 1: creation of dissemination and communication plan, according to which dissemination of the intellectual outputs will be done

Lead Partner:            Ministry of the Interior, Police Academy

Content

1. Introduction

2. Main elements of the Communication and Dissemination Plan

3. Communication and dissemination activities, channels and tools

3.1. Quantitative indicators

4. Project logo and visual identity

4.1. European Commission’s visibility requirements

This project is co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union under grant number 2023-1-HR01-KA220-VET-000154168

This publication was produced with the financial support of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of the FIRST-TAC consortium and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.

1. Introduction

The FIRST-TAC project was launched with the main objective to improve, harmonize and standardize conduct of first responding police officers in partner countries, primarily in tactics and techniques in the use of force and providing first aid. The main objective will be achieved through joint development of the new curriculum and training manual. The project will enable teaching staff, experts and participants of pilot trainings to exchange experience and good practices in both teaching methods and police tactics. Ultimately, it will make the first responders better equipped for daily challenges.

According to the Erasmus+ Programme Guide 2024, communication and dissemination activities are aimed at sharing information about the project and results during and beyond the project life cycle. With that aim and under the Working Package 4 “Sustainability and visibility of the project” project partners created this Communication and Dissemination Plan. Main purpose of this document is to raise awareness of the project activities and to ensure that the common good practice regarding the use of force and first aid is acknowledged widely, among national authorities and first responding police officers throughout the partner countries, as well as among related agencies and services, such as fire brigades, mountain rescue services, military etc.

All project partners are considered ambassadors of the project and are encouraged and expected to be involved to different degrees in communication and dissemination efforts.

Through joint communication and dissemination activities, project partners will ensure that the impact of the project and its results is shown. Proper and intensive communication will expand partners’ network for future collaborations, raise awareness of how the EU budget is spent and show the success of European Programme.

2. Main elements of the Communication and Dissemination Plan

The communication and dissemination plan addresses the following elements:

• Purpose (“why?”) – The overall aim of the project is to develop the new curriculum and training manual which will improve, harmonize and standardize conduct of the first responders in partner countries, primarily in tactics and techniques in the use of force and providing first aid.
• Messages (“what?”) – During the first phase of the project, the main messages will be of a more general nature to create awareness of the project and its aims, and engage the relevant stakeholders. Once the project starts to generate results, the general messages will be accompanied by specific messages promoting results and other activities. Ultimately, the aim is to increase the impact of the project. The main massage is “Saving lives – harmonized and standardized European policing”
• Key audiences (“who?”) – Communication and dissemination activities will reach different stakeholders and audiences:
  • Decision-makers and leaders of partner organizations
  • Experts and teaching staff/trainers of partner organizations
  • Participants of pilot trainings
  • Wider interested public of partner organizations
  • International police organizations
  • Decision-makers and leaders of related agencies and services (fire brigades, mountain rescue services, military etc.)
  • Experts and trainers of related agencies and services
  • General public
• Methods (“how?”) – Ministry of the Interior, Police Academy will coordinate the communication and dissemination activities, working closely with the project partners. Joint effort will be key to ensure the maximum outreach and to enhance project’s impact. For these activities, the tools and channels of all partners will be used, as well as joint tools and channels. Communication to different internal and external publics will use appropriate tools and channels.
  

3. Communication and dissemination activities, channels and tools

Internal communication refers primarily to communication between partner organizations that enables the timely implementation of all planned activities, as well as the necessary reporting and creation of project outputs. The project proposal foresees the roles and tasks of each individual member of the project team. Daily communication between the project manager and the project coordinators takes place via email and/or telephone. Furthermore, a calendar of online meetings and live meetings as well as pilot trainings was created, during which all information about the progress of the project, the produced outputs and the undertaken activities are exchanged. For each individual activity, meeting notes and posts for the web and social media are made, which will be integral parts of the progress report. In case of need and with the aim of timely execution of project activities, project partners will hold ad-hoc online meetings.

Each project partner is responsible for internal communication within their organization and providing necessary information to decision-makers, as well as experts and teaching staff. In this way, support and understanding of relevant stakeholders will be ensured, and information about the project and its benefits will be disseminated. The way information will be provided is, but not limited: newsletters, thematic workshops and meetings, daily briefings, web and social media posts etc.

In addition, all project partners will present the project milestones from the moment of launching through their websites and social media.

Table 1: Calendar of activities

Activity	Date	Venue	Outputs	Communication /dissemination channel
Kick-of meeting	5/09/2023 – 7/09/2023	Split, Croatia	Project team and Steering Committee established; Introduction to the project – WP’s, financial and administrative aspects; Preparation for the first virtual meeting	Meeting minutes; Web post; Social media post
Assessment of teaching/learning methodology – the first online meeting	25/09/2023 – 26/09/2023	Virtual activity	Compared and assessed existing in-house trainings and teaching methodologies in partner countries, with the best teaching/learning methodology identified	Meeting minutes; Web post; Social media post
Making of tactics and techniques list – the second online meeting	2/10/2023 -3/10/2023	Virtual activity	A list of good practices in the use of force tactics and techniques, and tactical emergency casualty care guides made	Meeting minutes; Web post; Social media post
Drafting the curriculum – the first development meeting	27/11/2023 -1/12/2023	Croatia	Determined: the aim of the course, constraints (time, instructors, facilities, location, equipment etc.), job competences, course and topics learning outcomes, learning strategy, assessment strategy, curriculum outline with indicative content	Meeting minutes; Web post; Social media post; virtual classroom at the e-learning system of the Ministry of the Interior, Police Academy
Creation of session plans – the second development meeting	15/01/2024 – 19/01/2024	Lithuania	Session plans created	Meeting minutes; Web post; Social media post; virtual classroom
Development of exercises – the third development meeting	12/02/2024 -16/02/2024	Poland	Exercises, assessment rubrics and video tutorials created	Meeting minutes; Web post; Social media post, virtual classroom
Development of the online train-the-trainers workshop – the fourth development meeting	11/03/2024 -15/03/2024	Bosnia and Herzegovina	Online train-the trainer workshop developed	Meeting minutes; Web post; Social media post; virtual classroom
The first pilot training	06/05/2024 -10/05/2024	Croatia	First draft of the developed curriculum and training manual tested, improved and perfected in all elements	Meeting minutes; Web post; Social media post; virtual classroom
The second pilot training	10/06/2024 -14/06/2024	Lithuania	Second draft of the developed curriculum and training manual tested, improved and perfected in all elements	Meeting minutes; Web post; Social media post; virtual classroom
The third pilot training	09/09/2024 -13/09/2024	Bosnia and Herzegovina	Third draft of the developed curriculum and training manual tested, improved and perfected in all elements	Meeting minutes; Web post; Social media post; virtual classroom
The fourth pilot training	October 2024	Poland	Final draft of the curriculum and training manual tested, improved and perfected in all elements. Final version of the curriculum and training manual created	Meeting minutes; Web post; Social media post; virtual classroom
Train-the-trainer workshop in all countries simultaneously	14/01/2025 -16/01/2025	Virtual activity	Train-the-trainer workshop implemented in all countries	Meeting minutes; Web post; Social media post; virtual classroom
Closing conference	24/04/2025	Croatia + virtual activity	All intellectual outputs presented to all relevant stakeholders	Meeting minutes; Web post; Social media post; virtual classroom

In addition to internal communication, external communication is also an important part, which ensures the wider outreach of the project and its sustainability even after the end of the project. Primarily, it refers to sharing information as well as project intellectual outputs with other police educational institutions, related organizations (fire brigades, mountain rescue services, military etc.) as well as the interested public.

Ministry of the Interior, Police Academy as the leading partner, will store all project intellectual outputs at the EPALE’s Erasmus+ Space, and make them available for the trainers and their learners in partner countries, but also to other police education institutions. In addition, all intellectual outputs, especially during development process will be stored in virtual classroom e-learning platform of the Ministry of the Interior, Police Academy.

Project web site will be created and used for internal communication flows and external dissemination of carried out activities at international and national level. In addition, it will be used for publication/uploading of all produced intellectual outputs according to an open access approach. It will be linked to project partner organizations’ official website, in order to strengthen virtual networking and increase visibility. Project web site will be primary source of the project overall aim and objectives, activities and achieved results. According to the progress of the project, the content of the website will be continuously extended and updated.

The project web site, websites from project partner organizations and Erasmus+ Space will act, according to an open access approach, as:

• A platform for project management;
• A communication resource to promote the project, its objectives and partnership;
• A communication resource to update interested parties on progress, events, results and outcomes;
• A repository for key deliverables and reports.

Therefore, even after the project has concluded, the information about the project and its results will be online and available to several target groups:

• Trainers/instructors who conduct in-house trainings on the use of force tactics and techniques, and first aid – a valuable source of teaching material;
• National police organizations – availability of all intellectual outputs in one place that can be used to conduct further trainings at the national level. Intellectual outputs can also serve as a basis for further training upgrades, as well as for new partnership with international and national partners;
• International partners – possibility of taking over and implementing developed, ready-made curriculum with accompanying training manual;
• Related organizations – possibility of developing new partnership with partner organizations and basis for joint trainings.

In order to achieve the greatest possible outreach at the national level, project partner organizations will use national resources to translate all intellectual outputs to their national languages.

Project partners will use their social media accounts (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, LinkedIn) for internal and external communication. Each project partner is responsible for posts on their media accounts, and posts should be short, sharp and punchy. FIRST-TAC project will actively use various social networks and online communication channels to increase the impact and generate straight communication channels to allow interactions with the wide internal and external audience thought different tools depending on the communicative objective. Social networks are a powerful tool to achieve a multiplier promotional effect on communication activities.

Kick-off meeting in Split, Croatia on 5 and 6 September 2023 was basic and good informative start of the project. Project partners were introduced to the project – WP’s, financial and administrative aspects of the project. Train-the-trainers workshops in national languages will be organized simultaneously in all partner institutions through the online three-days activities, in order to disseminate the goals and key points of the curriculum and its implementation tips to as many use of force and first aid trainers as possible. Closing conference will be used for presentation of all intellectual outputs to relevant stakeholders and wider audience.

3.1. Quantitative indicators

A performance indicator, in this case a quantitative criterion is set to measure how successful communication activities are.

Table 2. Quantitative indicators

Indicator	Measure/level of achievement
number of posts on partners web site	13 posts per partner (one post per planned activity)
number of posts on partners social media	13 posts per partner (one post per planned activity)
number of visits to partners social media	200 per media per partner
number of visits to Erasmus+ Space on EPALE platform	Estimated number equals the number of trainers interested in using the curriculum and training material – up to 20 per partner institution. This number in later phases of the project, and even after its end, will include trainers from other police education institutions as well.
number of participants at closing conference	Up to 128 participants of the project activities, as well as members of managerial staff of partner institutions (up to 4 per institution) and members of related agencies or international partners of partner institutions (up to 10 per partner institution)
results of satisfaction survey after conducted pilot training	90% of satisfaction

4. Project logo and visual identity

Project partners have adopted a project logo as an important tool to attract target groups’ attention and make project results sustainable. Project logo is unique, and its shape and colors will remain the same through the project implementation.

Logo will be used on all materials related to project such as project website, digital material, printed material, social media accounts etc.

For meetings and different events, as well as for reports or other project deliverables a set of standardized templates have been created. Throughout the project duration, FIRST-TAC consortium will use Power Point and Word templates designed at the beginning of the project. This ensures consistency in the visibility FIST-TAC receives and makes sure that key information on the project and its partners are shared.

4.1. European Commission’s visibility requirements

FIRST-TAC as a project co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union must be implemented in full compliance with the EU visibility rules and guidelines. All project partners must be aware that:

• All project partners’ dissemination and exploitation actions are consistent with the Union’s values and priorities and with other EU-related communication activities and events
• Any communication, publication or output resulting from the project, made by the beneficiaries jointly or individually, must indicate that the project has received European Union funding. This means that all material produced for project activities must carry the Erasmus+ logo and mention: “Co-funded by the European Union”. The EU emblem is the default visual brand used to acknowledge and advertise the Union’s financial support and no other visual brands may be used for this purpose

• While using the FIRST-TAC logo and EU emblem in communication materials, the EU emblem must remain distinct and separate and cannot be mingled with, or modified by, any other visual mark, brand or text.
• Regardless of the scale, scope or objective of an action, the EU emblem must be visibly and prominently displayed – at least as prominently as that of the implementing partner concerned – on all communication and visibility materials associated with the action.
• Unless the Erasmus+ Program or the Commission requests or agrees otherwise, the following disclaimer shall be added to the inner pages of the publications: “This publication was produced with the financial support of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of the FIRST-TAC consortium and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union”.