Emergency planning

An emergency preparedness plan is a set of documents that help your child care business operate during an emergency or disaster. These documents include the steps and rules needed to keep children and staff safe in an emergency. Having an easy-to-follow plan (that everyone knows about) helps your employees feel more confident. It ensures you and your team are ready to provide support and ensure safety for children and families during stressful times.

When creating a plan, set a realistic deadline for completion to keep yourself accountable. Create a plan in five steps:  

Step 1: assess your business for areas of risk 

Think about the types of natural disasters or emergency situations that could affect your child care. Maybe your business location is prone to natural disasters that require an evacuation, like floods or hurricanes, or you live in an area at risk for extended loss of heating/AC, water, or power. Consider an unexpected absence of management, a public health crisis, a security threat, or other unexpected situations. 

Next, consider how likely the natural disasters and emergency situations are. Create a simple table and have a probability of high, medium, and low. For each situation, write a sentence explaining how you would address it. Typically, there are two scenarios – staying put and getting out. For example, if you have concerns about a violent parent, you're likely to stay put, lock the doors, and limit entry. In other situations, like a power outage, fire, or flood you may want to exit the building. You'll find that most scenarios require one of these two responses. If they don’t, create new ones.  

It's difficult to address every potential issue. Start by focusing on high probability risks and cover medium and low probability ones using the same responses (stay put or get out).  

Step 2: create a process for emergencies 

Write down the steps to take in an emergency. The simpler you make it, the better, so it's clear in their heads during an emergency. Start your steps with sounding an alarm and end with verifying that all the children are safe and where they should be. This may be in the building or at an evacuation point outside the building. Creating a flow chart may help.  

Document on-site and off-site evacuation locations, shelter-in-place locations, and secondary routes to evacuation locations in case primary routes are blocked. For off-site evacuations, include instructions on how children are transported to off-site locations. Some things to consider are: 

• Do you need buses or vehicles?
• How you'll transport infants or children with special needs (if applicable) 

The plan should also include an emergency evacuation and relocation diagram with: 

• A floor plan of your home or center, two exit paths from each room, unless a room opens directly to the outdoors at ground level
• The location outside of the child care home or center where all caregivers and children meet to ensure everyone has exited the building safely
• Plans for parent or caregiver pick up
• The location inside the building where all caregivers and children will take shelter

Make sure your plan includes (and you follow up on getting) supplies and a list of each child, their parent or guardian and contact information as well as any allergies, medications, or other special care needs. Have phone numbers for all staff members, passwords for important online systems, contact information for property managers or landlords, a list of all approved repair companies, such as plumbers, electricians, pest control companies, and account numbers for financial institutions and utility services. The more sensitive information may be kept separately with limited access to staff.  

Designate at least one person on your team as the person in charge if you're not available. If you have staff, this can be an assistant director, administrative assistant, or trusted lead teacher. Choose someone that is willing and able to take charge in an emergency and make sure that person is trained on how each situation should be handled if you're not there. 

Keep physical copies of the emergency preparedness plan (in addition to digital ones) in a binder for times where electronic access isn't possible. This also makes it easier for the plan to travel with the person in charge if they need to move to another location. To create your binder, gather all documents in a way that preserves their order and keeps the pages safe. An easy way to do so is to invest in a 3-ring binder where you can use plastic sheet protectors for easy organization. Your binder should have designated sections for each part of your emergency preparedness plan – like chapters in a book. Including a table of contents is a great idea helps your employees find the sections they're looking for. Keep two printed copies of your emergency preparedness plan along with one saved on your computer and another at an off-site location. This way, for example, if you have a home fire that destroys the print copies and your computer, you still have a copy. Remember that your plan should be written in the language or languages needed so anyone within your business can easily understand the actions to take either during an emergency or in your absence. 

Step 3: share the plan 

Share your plan with all staff members. Even if an employee is not the designated person in charge, everyone should be familiar with your emergency preparedness plan. It's recommended that you have new staff review the emergency preparedness plan as part of your onboarding process. All employees should regularly review the plan at least yearly. An easy way to do this is to review the plan with everyone during a staff meeting. After review, each staff member should sign off that they have reviewed and understand the emergency preparedness plan. Make sure you provide time for staff members to ask questions or provide suggestions if they have any. 

Information about your plan should be included in your child care parent contract in a section about your emergency preparedness plan. When reviewing with families, explain how you'll communicate with them during and after emergencies and notify them of evacuation locations.

Step 4: hold drills and revise your plan 

It's important to practice evacuation and shelter-in-place drills on a regular basis. 

• Follow state licensing and other applicable regulations for drill frequency and type (in many cases, this is monthly)
• Involve all children who are present at the time of the practice drill
• Give children simple instructions and talk about what is happening
• Complete a drill log

Emergency preparedness plans should be reviewed at least yearly for accuracy and updated as staffing changes occur. It's a good idea to consult with emergency services when creating or making changes to the emergency portion of your plans. They can provide valuable feedback and suggestions.  

Disclaimer

The information contained here is for educational purposes only and is not intended to constitute legal, tax, or financial advice.