The purpose of this course is to give child care providers, in a variety of settings and situations, the information they need to identify, assess, and plan for disasters or other emergencies that could impact their ability to provide services or endanger the children in their care.

Select this link to view the printable lesson.

Nearly two-thirds of children under the age of six are cared for by someone other than their parents/legal guardians. This means that children spend most of their awake time away from home in places like home child care sites, child care facilities, nursery schools, camps, scouts, sports programs, faith-based programs, before- and after-school programs or with caregivers who are not their parents/legal guardians.

As someone charged with the care of children, taking steps to protect them through preventing dangerous situations, keeping them safe when danger is present, and having a plan to reunify them with their parents/legal guardian is part of your mission and likely how you spend a good part of your day. This course will help you keep children safe, by teaching you how to prepare for, respond to, and recover from emergencies large or small.

At the completion of this lesson, you should be able to:

• Identify and categorize the hazards and threats that are most likely to impact your child care site.
• Describe the level of risk associated with identified hazards and threats.

The first step in becoming more prepared is thinking about what could happen and what kind of damage would result if it does happen. Some of these events are obvious, while others may not be.

A hazard is an event that can cause harm or damage to people, the environment or structures. It can be a natural or human-caused event such as an earthquake or an act of violence. It can also be something that causes economic, financial or social harm to businesses, groups, or communities. In short, hazards are events that have the potential to cause harm.

Risk is a way of judging the danger from a hazard by looking at the likelihood of a given hazard happening and the impact if it did occur. For example, the risk of a tsunami occurring in Denver is zero (a tsunami is an ocean hazard that often results in catastrophic damage along the coast, Denver is not near the coast), whereas the risk of a blizzard is high (blizzards in the Rocky Mountains are common and the impacts can cause significant harm).

In this lesson we’re going to show you how to identify and categorize the hazards that are more likely to impact your facility or endanger those you are caring for and be able to determine the level of risk for these identified hazards.

If you need some assistance identifying hazards that could impact you, try reaching out to these resources for assistance:

• Your local/county emergency manager
• Parents/Legal Guardians and family of children in your care
• First responders
• Local schools and the local school district
• Your local National Weather Service office
• Your State Department of Health
• Your child care site insurance carrier
• Utility company personnel
• Local business and industry personnel
• Child care organizations and referral agencies

Let’s start by looking around your facility. By far the most common hazards are within easy reach. Take a “child’s-eye view” survey at the height level of your age group, going from room to room and looking at anything that a child could get in to or grab that might hurt them. Uncovered electrical outlets, unlocked cabinets, cleaning supplies within reach, or even unlocked freezers! As you go through each room, take a minute to address the easy “fixes” and make a list of the ones that will take more time or materials.

While this information is relative to is general safety, these issues are foundational to emergency preparedness and may be amplified in an emergency or disaster situation.

Flooding can occur as a natural disaster (excess water overloading local waterways) or human caused (watermain break). Your facility’s location relative to the local floodplain or proximity to dams, canals, or other water infrastructure will help determine the likeliness of a flooding event. Talk with your insurance representative about flood protection insurance.

Click here to access the Preparedness for Child Care Providers Toolkit.  

Earthquakes happen almost entirely without warning, and even if you are in an area that “doesn’t have earthquakes”, keep in mind that new faults are discovered every year and long inactive faults can become active again.

No matter where you are, properly securing furniture to the wall, strapping water heaters and practicing drop, cover, and hold on, are good practices. In the event a new fault is discovered, you and the children in your care are less likely to suffer injuries as a result of an earthquake.

As a child care provider your first concern is always the safety of the children in your care. Unfortunately, the world is a dangerous place and we all need to be vigilant to prevent children from being hurt or exploited. Knowing what to do in the event someone gains entry with a weapon and intent to harm children is critical. You also need to know what to do if a child is missing. The toolkit at the end of this course will provide guidance on planning and referrals to the latest training for these topics.

We know these are uncomfortable topics but having and practicing a plan is one of the best ways to keep children safe if the unthinkable happens.

Click here to access the Preparedness for Child Care Providers Toolkit.

These checklists provide information on how to lessen the impact of the most common hazards. They can be found in the toolkit or click on the link below for a checklist for General Safety. Checklists for more specific hazard procedures can be found in the toolkit.

Click here to access the Preparedness for Child Care Providers Toolkit.

The second step for conducting a Risk Assessment is assigning the impact number to each hazard. On a Scale of 1-5, with 1 being minimal impact and 5 being maximum impact, rate each hazard’s potential impact on your ability to provide child care. For now, use your best judgement. After you complete this course, you can utilize this toolkit and reach out to your local/county emergency management agency, local school officials and the local school district, your state and local Departments of Health, your property manager if your facility is leased, and your insurance carrier for assistance determining impact.

Click here to view the Preparedness for Child Care Providers Toolkit.

If you are on top of a hill above a river that regularly floods, the likelihood of you being flooded is probably low. However, the impact from the same flood may very well have a significant impact on you. Remember the domino effect; the flood could cause hazards that are more likely to occur such as power outages. When you assess likelihood be sure to consider the domino effect, not only to your location but to the parents/legal guardians whose children you’re responsible for.

Don’t worry about trying to adjust your rating to account for impact, just focus on the likelihood of a given hazard occurring. In the next step, we’ll show you how it all comes together. As we’ve suggested before, your local/county emergency management agency, local school officials and the local school district, your state and local Department of Health, your property manager, and your insurance carrier are great resources that can assist with determining probability.

The last step for conducting a Risk Assessment is calculating risk. Risk is the Impact rating multiplied by Probability rating, with the resulting number as your Risk. Let’s say you live near a river and have experienced flooding in the past. You rated the Impact at 3 and the Probability at 5 so your Risk would be 15 (3 x 5 = 15). Go through your hazard list and multiply the Impact rating by the Probability rating. When you’re done make a list of your hazards using your Risk number to rank them high to low.

Click here to access the Preparedness for Child Care Providers Toolkit.

This video will walk you through a visual explanation of how to conduct a risk assessment.

 Click this link to view the video transcript.

At the completion of this lesson, you should be able to:

• Describe procedures to follow when an emergency occurs.
• Identify key stakeholders and resources to support the development and implementation of your plan.
• Outline how your child care site will plan to recover from an emergency and maintain continuity of operations.
• Identify and designate staff and stakeholder responsibilities for when an emergency occurs.

An Emergency Plan (we’ll just call it a “plan” going forward for simplicity) is a document where you write down what you’ll do in an emergency, the supplies and equipment you’ll need, and what steps you’ll need to take to get back to work once it’s safe to return.

A key thing to remember is that your plan is a starting point. By thinking through what you need to do during an emergency, you’ll already have an idea of what to do, tools such as checklists to help you focus, and supplies and equipment gathered so you won’t have to try and find them under stress.

Better yet, with the knowledge you’ll gain developing it, you’ll have the confidence to adapt your plan to unforeseen circumstances, should they occur. In this lesson, we’re going to take what you’ve learned about hazards and using your risk assessment (the ranked list we did in Lesson 2), and you’ll build a plan that will increase your ability to manage and recover from an emergency.

Below are two sample plans. The “Simple” plan is a great template to use if you don’t have a plan. The “Comprehensive” plan is a great template to improve your existing plan.

Please note these are sample plans and you should refer to your State or Local laws and regulations to see if there is a standard template.

Click this link to view a sample Simple plan.

Click this link to view a sample Comprehensive Plan.

• In some situations, such as a localized power outage, the best option might be an emergency closure requiring notification of parents/legal guardians to either not bring their children or to pick them up as soon as possible.
• Child care providers need to have ready access to contact information and be prepared to care for children on-site until they’re picked up.

The greatest priority in any of these situations is keeping the children safe. A close second is reuniting them with their parents or legal guardians. When planning for reunification due to an emergency closure or shelter-in-place, remember you may need to work with local authorities due to road closures or other safety concerns.

In an evacuation scenario, you’ll need to have a reunification plan developed as part of your evacuation plan. Utilize the resources in the toolkit at the end of this course for guidance.

Sharing the reunification plans with parents/legal guardians in advance, so they can become familiar with the process of being reunited with their children.

Using the toolkit resources in this course and your hazard list, create a list of actions that need to be taken.

If something should happen, people outside your child care facility will need to be contacted, including parents/legal guardians and first responders. It is important to develop a plan on how to notify on-site staff and off-site staff as well as the children in the facility of an incident.

Remember: Your traditional communications technology may not work. Make sure you have backup communications plans and that your parents/legal guardians and other stakeholders know how else they might find out information. Alternate communication options include text, email, electronic application alert, and website posting.

The sample flowchart on this slide is an example of the order to contact people inside and outside your facility.

For sheltering: Ensure there is enough food, water, and other supplies to last for at least 72 hours for each child and adult.

For evacuating: Ensure supplies are in something easy to carry, like bags or a plastic storage container. Sample Sheltering and Evacuation lists can be found in the toolkit.

Click this link to access the Preparedness for Child Care Providers Toolkit.

How you plan for an emergency will directly affect how your business returns to normal operations. Keep in mind that child care providers are essential to a community’s recovery. If your child care facility isn't open, then parents/legal guardians may be unable to work. This will hold back recovery across the community.

Building a business continuity plan in advance will help. For example, it is essential to know who in your center's leadership has authority to make decisions when the director(s) is not available. 

For business operations considerations, please refer to the Business Continuity for Child Care Providers in the Toolkit and consider taking FEMA's Organizations Preparing for Emergency Needs course.

Click this link to access the Preparedness for Child Care Providers.

Click this link to access the Organizations Preparing for Emergency Needs course.

After an incident, people may experience both psychological and emotional impacts. It is important to plan for how you will address children’s needs. The Tips for Managing the Psychological Impacts of an Incident document in the Toolkit at the end of this course contains helpful advice on what behaviors to look for and what to do.

At the completion of this lesson, you should be able to:

• Identify when and how you will share the emergency preparedness information with staff and stakeholders.
• Describe how and when to update your plan.

A plan is only valuable if you use it. It shouldn’t be a bookshelf decoration. It should be reviewed, used, and reviewed regularly. If you practice using your plan, you’ll be familiar with it and won’t forget what’s in it when you need to use it. If you never practice and never look at it after it’s written, you won’t remember to use it when there is an emergency or when a disaster strikes. The needs of the children enrolled will likely change over time and the plan needs to account for this as well.

An emergency plan is never “done” it should grow and evolve based on what you learn over the years. Things change – your emergency plan should too.

Training is the best way to inform all those involved in the emergency procedures. Training is teaching and these trainings set the foundation to test and improve the existing plans. Look beyond the obvious when training, teach the children about their roles if appropriate, and educate the parents about your plans, because it’s for more than just you and your staff.

Training should be done at least once a year. During the training, it’s a good time to reflect on the prior year and update the plan with new thinking and lessons learned from past emergencies, even if they didn’t involve you. If you learned something from someone in a different area during an emergency they experienced, include it.

Where training is teaching, practice is applying the training. The best way to test the effectiveness of your plan (as well as train people) is to practice the procedures. Make it fun, involve parents/legal guardians, the children, and local responders. Many fire and police departments will gladly come to participate if they have time. This is a great way to teach children about first responders and what they do.

The type of training used depends on who is carrying out the test and what is being tested. Sample drill checklists are included in the Toolkit at the end of this course. The Exercise Development Flowchart shows how to develop your own exercise. This is an important training, and a valuable use of time; you won’t regret the effort.

Facility staff will play a vital role in carrying out the plan. Each of them will have specific roles and responsibilities, as well as back-up roles that they will need to be able to perform during an emergency.

Train staff on their roles by working through emergencies verbally at staff meetings and then changing assignments or varying the situation during the next practice round. More information about this sort of “table top” exercise is included in the toolkit at the end of this course.

At least once a year, your entire staff should do a “full scale” exercise where you physically practice the plan. Sometimes the only way to find out about things that will hinder you during an emergency is practice what you plan on doing when it’s not an emergency. A lot of ideas seem great on paper, but when you try it you find out that a door is too narrow, the shrubs are in the way, or it’s just not practical in some way or another. Not to worry, we have included plenty of examples and instructions to help you plan and conduct this sort of exercise in the toolkit at the end of this course.

Click this link to access the Preparedness for Child Care Providers Toolkit.

Through this course you've learned to identify and prioritize the actions to make your childcare center as prepared as possible. You now know how to: Identify hazards and assign risk, Identify hazards unique to your situation and determine their impact, Develop your plan to act quickly when an emergency happens, and Keep your plan updated and effective. After you’ve established your plan, be sure to share this information with children, staff, volunteers, parents, legal guardians, emergency management officials, and first responders. Remember, a plan is never “done” it should be regularly reviewed to evolve with your organization’s needs.

Even with all that you have learned, there are additional trainings offered by FEMA to help you understand the various elements of a disaster response plan. These trainings can help you ensure operations and core business functions of your site are not severely impacted by a disaster or unplanned incident.

FEMA’s Organizations Preparing for Emergency Needs (OPEN) training provides an overview of the 10 preparedness actions and supports organizations to develop their own disaster response plan.

The target audience for this training includes community-based organizations which can include non-profits and small businesses as well as faith and volunteer-based organization that provide valuable services to their community.

Ready Business provides comprehensive guidance on business preparedness, including how to draft emergency plans.

Ready Business also has resources that offer business leaders a step-by-step guide to build preparedness within their organization.

Congratulations! Now that you have completed this course, you have the building blocks to identify and plan for different risks and hazards that could impact your childcare site.

All the sample documents, infographics, and additional links and resources can be found in the below toolkit. This companion package will contain the most up-to-date information on this course.

Click this link to access the Preparedness for Child Care Providers Toolkit.

Select this link to view the full printable course.