Children and Disasters Webinar

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Children and Disasters: Is Your State Prepared?
Wednesday, March 24, 2010 

Every week day, 67 million children attend schools and the more than 325,000 licensed child-care facilities in the United States. Yet only 7 states—Alabama, Arkansas, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Maryland, Massachusetts and Vermont—have laws or regulations requiring child-care facilities to have a comprehensive written plan addressing evacuation, reunification and accommodating children with special needs during an emergency.

Learn what actions state legislatures can take to better protect children during disasters.

This includes: 

• Establishing child care licensure requirements that ensure robust emergency preparedness and response plans for shelter-in-place, evacuation, communication, family reunification and considerations for children with special needs;
• Implementing continuity of operations plans within foster care, group residential homes and juvenile detention facilities that provide adequate shelter and services to children during and after a disaster;
• Improving school disaster preparedness and building the resilience of teachers, parents and children;
• Ensuring state and local emergency stockpiles include sufficient amounts of pediatric supplies and medications, including antivirals to treat influenza in the event of a pandemic; and
• Requiring development of comprehensive long-term disaster recovery plans that prioritize the re-establishment of schools and child care facilities, supervised after-school programs, and access to medical care and mental health services for all children.

To see how prepared your state is to protect children during disasters, please go to: http://www.savethechildren.org/publications/usa/disaster-decade-lessons.pdf

Panelists:   Senator Richard T. Moore, Massachusetts, President-elect, National Conference of State Legislatures

                    Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, Nevada, National Commission on Children and Disasters