How Prepared is Your Child Care Program?

There is a high cost for programs that serve young children for being unprepared when a disaster occurs. The costs of replacing buildings or equipment have risen greatly in the last few years. The costs of having to shut down a program until repairs are made are great in the loss of care children need. Not to mention the greatest loss of all – and that is if children or staff are injured or killed as a result of a disaster. It pays to be prepared. Of course, we know that it is not possible to guarantee absolute safety, no matter how well one is prepared, but being prepared can help. The purposes of getting prepared (mitigation) are: to protect people and structures; and to minimize the costs of disaster response and recovery.

Children in Moldova

To become prepared or "disaster resistant" you can do several things:

1- Identify the hazards that exist in your area.

Put together a list of hazards that may occur in your community such as: winter storms, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, technological hazards, etc. You can find out what the possible hazards are by doing research such as: talking with emergency management people in your area, talking with people who have lived in the area a long time, looking at the area’s history of the last 100 years, listing nearby companies that use or store chemicals for their work, the location of the nearest major highway and railroad to your facility, etc.

2- Develop a profile for each hazard.

Determine the:

Frequency or occurrence - how often is it likely to occur.
Magnitude and potential intensity - how bad can it get.
Location - where is it likely to strike.
Probable spatial extent – how large an area is it likely to effect.
Duration - how long can it be expected to last.
Seasonal pattern - what time of year is it more likely to occur.
Speed of onset - how fast is it likely to occur.
Availability of warnings - how much warning time is there, and does a warning system exist.

3- Develop a community profile.

Combine the hazard-specific information you have already collected during Steps 1 and 2 with information from sector profiles to determine the potential consequences of the hazard.

Sector profiles include the following types of data:

Geography – features such as rivers, canyons, coastal areas, fault lines, fire potential, etc., nearby that might relate to disaster occurrence or response efforts. Don’t forget to include transportation routes, including bridges or low-lying areas of a highway or road that is frequently used.

Property – land use, type of building construction of your facility. Be sure to consider whether your site has the capability of protection against the weather if evacuation is needed and the weather is extreme.

Infrastructure – location of centers in your system, communication systems within centers and between all of the centers and the central office, as well as communication systems with parents.

Demographics – number of children, their ages and potential mobility (be sure to include infants and toddlers as well as children with disabilities), number of staff, where they are located.

Response agencies – information about locations, facilities, services and resources that are needed to plan for response capability. This should include nearby hospitals, clinics, police and fire departments, community gathering locations (in case of evacuation from your facility).

Develop the community profile by combining each sector profile with hazard-specific information found in the hazard profiles. You might want to make a chart of all of these factors put together.

4- Compare and Prioritize Your Risk

After hazard information and community information have been compiled, the next step is to quantify the center’s risk so that the planning team (and there should be a team working on this project) can focus on the hazards that present the highest risk to your program. Risk is the predicted impact that a hazard would have on people, services, your facility, and the community.

To quantify the risk:

Identify the elements of the community that are potentially at risk from a specific hazard.
Assign severity ratings.
Compile risk data into community risk profiles.

To assign severity ratings consider the following:

A catastrophic rating would include possible multiple deaths, complete shutdown of your facility for 30 days or more, more than 50 percent of the facility is severely damaged.
A critical rating would include injuries and/or illnesses that result in permanent disability, complete shutdown of your center for at least 2 weeks, more than 25 percent of your facility is severely damaged.
A limited rating would include injuries and/or illnesses that do not result in permanent disability, complete shutdown of critical facilities for more than 1 week, more than 10 percent of property is severely damaged.
A negligible rating would include injuries and/or illnesses that are treatable with first aid, minor quality of life lost, shutdown of critical facilities and services for 24 hours or less, less than 10 percent of property is severely damaged.

5- Create and Apply Your Scenarios

The final step in the hazard analysis process is to brainstorm worst case scenarios that will help identify hazard-specific planning and resource requirements. Describe the hazard’s development and impact on the area and the specific consequences that might occur. Include:

Overall impact on your community.
Impact on specific sectors.
Impact on your center, children, staff, and the program itself.
Consequences of the disaster, such as collapsed buildings, loss of services and infrastructure, death, injury, or displacement.
Needed actions and resources.

When you have finished this part of your emergency management plan you will have a good idea of what mitigation alternatives you might develop to lessen the risk of the loss of life and property.

Now you need to put in place those specific actions that you will do to make your center, and the people involved in it, a safer place. Don’t forget that you may need to have a plan to get people to safety if it is likely that may be needed. It’s action time!

This is the first of a series of articles on Developing an Emergency Management Plan. It was adapted from the Introduction to Mitigation Independent Study Course offered by the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency. If you would like to take this or other independent study courses from FEMA, sign up at their web site: http://www.FEMA.gov. If you have questions or would like further information about mitigation or have specific questions about developing an emergency plan, please contact us.

Developing an Emergency Management Plan

Do you work with young children? Did you ever wonder how you would cope if a major disaster occurred in your area and what you could do to safeguard the children in your care?

This training is based on the use of a workbook designed to develop your own unique emergency management plan. Through this process you will develop the entire plan to meet the individual program needs for your children, staff, facility and geographical location for up to 72 hours after the emergency begins.

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