Schools and Childcare Facilities: Are They Prepared?

Ten years after a relentless assault of unprecedented natural and manmade disasters, a new report released by Save the Children’s U.S. Programs reveals that only seven states are meeting crucial minimum standards to ensure that schools and child-care facilities are prepared to respond to the needs of children during a disaster.

The report, “The Disaster Decade: Lessons Unlearned for the United States,” was released at a D.C.-area child-care center by Mark Shriver, Save the Children U.S. Programs Managing Director, along with actor and advocate Julianne Moore, Artist Ambassador.

“The past decade is defined by unrelenting and unprecedented disasters that left children unprotected in schools and child care,” said Shriver.  “The most vulnerable Americans in the most vulnerable settings are made more vulnerable because of government inaction.”

Commissioned by Save the Children and conducted by Brown, Berkley and Tucker, the report reviewed four standards in all 50 states and the District of Columbia and found that only seven states — Arkansas, Maryland, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Alabama and Vermont — are meeting four key standards.

The four key standards identified by Save the Children include evacuation and relocation, reunification and plans for special needs children at child-care facilities, as well as multi-hazard plans at schools.

Save the Children is calling for immediate action at the federal level to better protect children through a five-point plan:

1. Establish national disaster preparedness standards for child-care centers and schools.

• Establish an Office of Children’s Advocacy at FEMA.
• To ensure child-care centers can rebuild and restore services more quickly following a disaster, make them eligible for federal disaster aid.
• Establish a White House Commission on the effects of the recession on children.
• Create a federal public awareness campaign to educate families about protecting children during disasters.

“Enacting this plan will help ensure that when disaster strikes the effects on our children don’t become a disaster in their own right,” said Moore, who lobbied Capitol Hill on Wednesday for enactment of the five-point plan.

Save the Children is also calling on the public to get involved by signing a petition supporting the five-point plan to protect children during disasters.

Go to http://savethechildren.org/disaster-decade for more information and to sign the petition. The full report can be found at http://savethechildren.org/disaster-decade-report.