Embodiments of the invention provide systems and methods for determining an escalation level including receiving one or more requests to join a communication session associated with a situation, identifying information associated with one or more participants that is associated with the one or more requests, determining an escalation level associated with the situation based at least in part on the information associated with the one or more participants, notifying the one or more participants the escalation level associated with the situation and allowing the communication session associated with the situation to filter a participants list and/or communications based on information associated with one or more participants.