- Distinguish between common types of emergencies and natural disasters.
- Describe strategies for helping staff members prepare for emergencies in your program.
- Model, observe, and provide feedback on staff members’ emergency preparedness.
Learn
Teach
Understanding Emergencies
Natural disasters, illnesses, injuries, or threats of violence can shatter the daily routine of a child care program. As a Training & Curriculum Specialist, it is your job to keep children safe during these difficult events. You can also be a resource and comfort to families and communities that are struggling.
One of the first steps in responding to emergencies is understanding the types of disasters that might affect you and the children in your program’s care. As a trainer, it is your role to make sure staff members understand the disasters that could affect them.
Unusual events can require you to respond quickly. If there is the potential for injury or loss of life, these events are emergencies. Emergencies might affect your classrooms, program, local area, region, or the entire country. Examples of emergencies that typically affect child development and school-age programs are:
- Injuries: Children and staff may experience bodily harm while in your program. This may result from falls, collisions, or contact with poisonous substances.
- Inclement weather: Snow, ice, or extreme heat can affect the safety of children and families.
- Technology failure: Electricity or water outages can affect the way your program operates.
- Missing child: A child could leave or be taken from the program without authorization.
When emergencies are more severe, affect a larger number of people, or present a stronger risk, they can be thought of as disasters. The type of disaster you are most likely to encounter depends on the characteristics of the region in which you live. There are several types of disasters that might affect programs:
- Natural disasters: This type of emergency includes flooding, tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards, forest fires, wildfires, earthquakes, tsunamis, or other similar events.
- Technological: This type of emergency includes explosions, nuclear incidents, severe power outages, drinking-water shortages, oil spills, or fires.
- Terrorism: This type of emergency includes acts of violence or threats of violence against individuals or groups. Examples may include bombings, shootings, kidnappings, hijacking, or use of biological weapons.
- Illness or epidemic: This type of emergency involves the rapid spread of severe, potentially deadly illnesses, like the flu.
It is important for you and your team to understand the types of emergencies you are likely to face. Certain natural disasters are more likely to affect certain regions of the country or world.
It is also important to remember that not all emergencies are disasters. It is very likely that your program will experience common emergencies like inclement weather, failure of electricity or water, or injuries on the playground. You must be prepared to respond to all emergencies large and small.
Making Sure Staff Members are Prepared for Emergencies
Your program has a contingency plan in place for emergencies. It is the responsibility of the trainer to make sure training requirements identified in your program’s emergency plan are conducted. Staff members must receive training on emergency procedures. They should have copies of the emergency plan located in their classrooms and programs, and they should have the opportunity to practice so they can respond appropriately when the real time comes. To complete their own Virtual Laboratory School lessons, staff members must become familiar with your program’s emergency plan in order to participate in the exercises and respond correctly to related assessment questions. Provide staff members with the information and experiences they need. Follow-up to make sure you feel confident that every staff member knows how to keep children safe. Involve staff in annual reviews of emergency plans and seek their input. This can make the plans more effective.
Your plan helps you answer questions like:
- Where will children be relocated?
- Have alternative sites been identified and arranged in advance?
- How will you relocate children if an emergency occurs during normal operating hours?
- How will parents be notified?
- What are individual staff member responsibilities?
Your emergency plan may also contain information about the following situations:
Evacuation plans: You need to know where to go in the event of a tornado, fire, earthquake, or other natural disaster. You also need to have a plan for how and where you will transport children if your area is evacuated for flooding, technological disasters, or other reasons. These plans should be posted in the classroom and program areas.
Shelter in place plans: You need to know what to do if administrators or government officials order individuals to take shelter. This is the likely response to a terrorist threat, a shooter in the vicinity, risky weather conditions, or other unsafe conditions. While sheltered in place, you will not be allowed to leave the building and others will not be allowed to enter the building. Shelter in place plans should be posted in the classroom. As part of this plan, your team should also have a way of communicating that teams must take shelter and communicating with one another while sheltered in place. Unsafe situations may make it impossible to move about the building.
Lock-down plans: You need to know what to do if your classroom is ordered to lock down. Lockdowns occur in the event of an unknown intruder or active shooter. Teach staff members how to follow your program’s procedures to lock or barricade their doors and supervise children.
Public health emergency response plans: Make sure that public health disasters such as pandemics are included in your emergency plans. You must provide training to staff on proper sanitation procedures in your buildings and monitor regularly to ensure procedures are being followed. Work with management to plan for interruptions of care, infection control procedures, serving emergency essential personnel, responding to staffing issues, and communicating with families. Make sure you and your manager know how a health emergency is declared and communicated by local authorities.
Communicating with other staff: Disaster can strike at any time. Know the chain of communication for emergencies PUBLIC and have updated staff phone rosters at home. You need to know how you will contact your administrator if you cannot come to work. You also need to know how you will find out if your program is closed or relocated due to disasters. Remember telephone and cellular lines may be affected by emergencies. In a mass emergency when many people are trying to communicate, text messages may be more likely to go through when phone lines are overwhelmed. Administrators or others may consider leaving an outgoing message on their voice mails, communicating via news media or social media channels, or sending group text message alerts.
· Communicating with families: You need to know how you will communicate with families if you and the children are evacuated to another location. How will you let families know where they can find their children? How will you let families know if your program is forced to close? Parts of the plan should include who will contact families, what will be communicated, and how ratio will be maintained.
You should keep a copy of your program’s emergency response plan in each classroom for reference.
In the Apply section, you will find a guide for helping you learn about the emergency plans in your program.
Part of your plan should include making sure you can operate your program and keep children safe during an emergency. You should consider the materials you would need to keep children fed, sheltered, and secure. You also should consider the documents you would need if children were evacuated or injured.
Emergency provisions: The federal government recommends that families have enough provisions (food, clean water, infant formula, diapers) to last three days without power. This is a good goal for child-care programs as well. A stockroom should contain nonperishable food items, gallons of water, pre-packaged infant formula, diapers, extra clothing, first-aid kits, batteries, flashlights, storm radios, blankets, and any other supplies that might be needed. You should consider the provisions you might need if parents cannot pick children up (for example, the military base is on lockdown, or travel restrictions are in place).
Protecting important documents: If your program were flooded, would you lose all of the children’s medical files, emergency contact files, and staff training files? It is important to make copies of all materials and store them in a safe, separate location. If possible, electronic copies of records stored on a secure, remote server can provide peace of mind. In the Apply section, you will find a guide for helping you learn about the emergency plans in your program.
Model
What does emergency preparation look like? You can use video to share what preparation looks like across the country. Watch as these programs prepare for disasters in their areas.
Preparing for Emergencies with Infants and Toddlers
Preparing for Emergencies
Observe
Once a plan is in place, practicing it can help relieve anxiety and help you feel prepared should the real event occur. It can also help you, the staff, and the children remain calm in the face of disaster. Remember to observe staff members during emergency drills. Make sure they always take sign-in sheets, emergency medications, and emergency contact information during all evacuations and practices. Your evacuation plans (fire, tornado, lockdown) should be practiced at least monthly. Other emergency plans should be practiced at least yearly. Review of your emergency plan and evacuation plan must be included in new-employee orientation and training.
Visit the Child Care Aware site at to get planning ideas about specific conditions in your locale.
Explore
It is important to think about how you will respond in an emergency. Read the scenarios in What Would You Do? and describe how you would respond. You may not be responsible for informing staff and informing families in the event of an emergency. This may be a facility director’s, coordinator’s or administrator’s responsibility but you may be called upon to assist. It is a good exercise to sit down with your administrator and talk specifically about what your role would be in each of the scenarios presented in the activity.
Apply
Complete the Preparing Emergency Kit, and the Emergency Preparation Forms with staff to support everyone in preparing for and responding to emergency situations. Review the forms and complete the information that you and staff may need. Store the forms in the classroom or program’s emergency kit.
Consider using the Emergency Preparation Best Practices Checklist as a tool to observe and document competencies that relate to emergency preparation. As you observe and reflect on a staff member’s practice, indicate how often the staff member performs the following actions using the scale provided. Share your observations with staff and use the information learned from the checklist to identify goals and focus your coaching interactions.
Demonstrate
American Academy of Pediatrics, American Public Health Association, National Resource Center for Health and Safety in Child Care and Early Education (2020). CFOC Standards Online Database. Aurora, CO; National Resource Center for Health and Safety in Child Care and Early Education. Also available from
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2021). Caring for Children During a Disaster. Accessible from
Child Care Aware America of America (2021). Pandemics.
Federal Emergency Management Agency.
National Association for the Education of Young Children (2021). Coping with Disasters. Accessible from
National Center on Early Childhood Health and Wellness (2020). Emergency Preparedness Manual. Accessible from
Ready Kids (2021). Accessible from
The Clearinghouse for Military Family Readiness (2012). Emergency Family Assistance Centers: An Examination of the Literature for Evidence-Informed Practices. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University.