Skip to main content

Currently Skimming:

7 Planning for Children and Families During Disaster Response
Pages 67-84

The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.


From page 67...
...  Temporary child care in shelters and service centers allows parents to attend to business, such as applying for aid and other recovery activities.  Include older children with disabilities in the process when planning for their evacuation and transportation during an emergency.
From page 68...
... Examples include regional preparedness, infection prevention, sheltering, tracking, evacuation and transportation of children with disabilities, and novel training techniques. CHILD AND FAMILY NEEDS DURING MASS CARE AND SHELTERING OPERATIONS Session chair Kari Tatro, executive vice president of Emergency Management Operations for BCFS Health and Human Services,1 said that meeting the needs of children in disasters presents a unique set of planning considerations.
From page 69...
... Functional Needs Support Services The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Office of Disability Integration and Coordination was established to provide guidance, tools, methods, and strategies to integrate and coordinate emergency management that is inclusive of children and adults with access and functional needs, in accordance with federal civil rights laws and regulations.
From page 70...
... Planning to meet the access and functional needs of disaster survivors with and without disabilities in general population shelters can help to keep people out of the acute care setting and preserve limited acute care resources for those who have a true medical need. If given the proper support, people with disabilities can be successfully accommodated in shelters with their family.
From page 71...
... Family Reunification One of the primary needs of children in the shelter environment is family reunification. Mary Casey-Lockyer, manager of disaster health services at the American Red Cross, discussed several Red Cross programs that help to facilitate family reunification in times of disaster, including the Safe and Well Online Registry, and Patient Connection.
From page 72...
... Casey-Lockyer added that American Red Cross now has a digital disaster operation center, called DigiDOC. The Red Cross can monitor publicly available social media and can push current information back to the public via national communication channels such as Twitter, Facebook, email, and the Red Cross website.
From page 73...
... An advocate from the U.S. Breastfeeding Committee concurred and referred participants to a physician statement on safe infant and young child feeding in disasters5 and noted that an operational guidance document would soon be available.
From page 74...
... Following the tornadoes in Oklahoma, center volunteers reported using up the dark colors of tempera paint as the children were painting tornadoes and storms. Children's Disaster Services Because children use play to express themselves and to understand their experiences, CDS volunteers use a comfort kit full of toys that promote imaginative play.
From page 75...
... CDS's work in shelters and service centers allows parents to attend to business, such as applying for aid and other recovery activities, without having their children with them. This is an important resource for parents because life is disrupted for many families and their former child care arrangements, including babysitters and family members, may no longer be options.
From page 76...
... Texas has had "a lot of practice with a lot of diverse types of threats," Clements said, and he shared several of the state's best practices and initiatives in four key areas: regional preparedness, infection prevention, sheltering, and tracking. Local and Regional Pediatric Preparedness Initiative Clements highlighted the Houston Regional Healthcare Pediatric Preparedness initiative as one of the best in the state, in part because of the lessons learned from a long history of flooding and from the city's role as a central location for evacuees from Hurricane Katrina.
From page 77...
... Houston has also expanded pediatric preparedness training to all the health care providers in the area, and provides quick reference materials, such as the Broselow Pediatric Emergency Tape, for pediatric medications, doses, equipment, etc. Infection Prevention The concurrent threats posed by the first cases of H1N1 pandemic influenza in late April 2009, and the start of hurricane season that June, raised serious concerns about infection prevention during evacuation and sheltering.
From page 78...
... Texas also promotes crisis counseling skills for responders, and uses the psychological first aid field guide from the National Child Traumatic Stress Network.6 6 The Psychological First Aid Field Operations Guide is available at http://www.nctsu. org/content/psychological-first-aid (accessed September 9, 2103)
From page 79...
... Trust is fostered through medical outreach such as an annual exercise where clinics are set up in the Rio Grande Valley offering free health care to these individuals. The banding system is a simple program that can be used across different platforms to share information during a disaster, and Clements said it has been a very successful system for Texas.
From page 80...
... There also may be certain adults that children do not trust to help them, he added, and planners need to respect that. Evacuation plans need to include student medical information, including diagnosis, medication allergies, hazardous conditions (e.g., impact of smoke on the child and mitigating measures to take)
From page 81...
... The PDRTC is part of a disaster network that includes multiple hospitals; however, as the only hospital dedicated to pediatric needs in Los Angeles County, the center is the county resource on pediatric disaster preparedness. It is the hub supporting many spokes, Upperman said.
From page 82...
... Working with the University of Southern California Games Institute, PDRTC developed an online game, Surge World, to give health care workers practice in triage, resource management, and preparedness planning.7 Another example described by Upperman was the "Disaster Olympix," an interactive drill to foster communication, collaboration, and leadership (Goodhue et al., 2010) .8 Fire teams, engineers, pediatricians, nurses, and others at Children's Hospital Los Angeles participated in competitive events testing their knowledge, skills, and abilities to respond to disaster situations.
From page 83...
... PLANNING DURING DISASTER RESPONSE 83 urged participants to lead, innovate, and evaluate. Thinking about the specific needs of children and families in shelter situations prior to an emergency, and utilizing and encouraging best practices from other cities, can continually improve both the mass care operations and surge capacity at area hospitals that may not typically care for children.


This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More information on Chapter Skim is available.