Step 8: How to Prepare Your Child For Emergencies at School

Step 8: How to Prepare Your Child For Emergencies at School

Through October, Primrose Schools® will be sharing information and resources from national partner Save the Children® and its Get Ready. Get Safe. initiative to help families get prepared for emergencies. This blog post marks the eighth post in the nine-week series.

When it comes to emergency preparedness, I’ve talked a lot about what you can do at home to prepare and help keep your family safe if an emergency or disaster strikes. But how can you ensure that your little one is protected even when you aren’t with her? The reality is that 69 million children are separated from their parents every work day while in school or child care for an average of nine hours.

This fact makes it critical for parents to check with their child care provider to confirm they have a plan in place to handle different types of emergencies. Beyond holding regular fire and tornado drills, there are many other steps providers and schools can and should take to be prepared. For example, does your care provider have a communications system to alert parents in case of emergencies? Has the staff had adequate emergency planning training?

This week’s Get Ready. Get Safe. Family Plan Checklist item is to check whether your child care provider has an emergency plan in place. If you’re fretting about not knowing what questions you should ask, fret no more! Use Save the Children’s School & Child Care Checklist to guide the conversation with your child’s preschool or provider, and remember that the safety of your little one should be the top priority of everyone in the room.

For those of you who have been following along since the beginning of this series on emergency preparedness: you’re almost there! Our next post will explore how to help children cope after disasters and you’ll be one check mark away from getting your family better prepared for an emergency.

Get Ready. Get Safe. Family Plan

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