ECELS recognizes the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Multi-hazard Planning for Child Care course as a quality learning experience for emergency planning. It has many worksheets and suggestions from experts that help child care providers make effective plans.

Professional Standard Areas: 

• Health and Safety (2 hours) 
  • 7a: Understand the importance of physical health and safety in creating environments that support young children's learning and development.
  • Identify key components of an effective emergency preparedness plan 
  • Other: Complete the Emergency Plan Checklist to identify the places where your emergencu plan needs to be improved, Use Model Child Care Health Policie, 5th editions to ensure "best practice" emergency plans for your program. 

Competencies:

• Describe why it is important to be prepared.
• Complete the Emergency Plan Checklist to identify places where your emergency plan needs to be improved.
• Describe how to prevent or mitigate the impact of hazards and threats.
• Describe procedures for when an emergency occurs.
• Identify how your childcare site will recover from an emergency.
• Describe how to develop and maintain your plan.
• Describe how you will communicate, train, and practice your preparedness procedures.
• Identify the emergency preparedness information you will share with your community.
• Describe when to update your plan.

Section 13 of Model Child Care Health Policies, 5th edition includes polices that early educators can use to write "best practice" emergency plans. The Appendixes of Model Child Care Health Policies include some documents that every program should have on hand: Appendix I, Emergency Information Form for Children with Special Health Care Needs, Appendix CC. Incident Report Form, Appendix DD. Child Care Initial Rapid Damage Assessment, Appendix EE. Sample Letter of Agreement with Emergency Evacuation Site, Appendix FF. Sample Letter to Parents About Evacuation Arrangements, Appendix GG. Evacuation Drill Long.  If you prefer to purchase the hard copy of Model Child Care Health Policies, 5th edition, it is available from the bookstore of the American Academy of Pediatrics order it online or call 888-227-1770.

For state-authorized training credit: Download the Emergency Plan Checklist that follows this description of the self-learning module. Identify the places where your emergency plan needs to be improved. Scan and e-mail or fax the following three documents to ECELS for 2 hours of state-authorized professional development credit that ECELS to review and approve:

1. Your certificate of successful completion of the FEMA course
2. A copy of your facility's updated Emergency Plan
3. A copy of your completed Emergency Plan Checklist showing your plans for improvement. ECELS T/TA staff will review your work and, if needed, give you feedback you can use to further improve your plan

Be sure to follow the instructions in the “Important Reminders” box next to the list of self-learning modules on this webpage to submit your work for review by ECELS. Reviewed and reaffirmed 8/2022