Disaster Planning & Corporate Child Care:
What CEOs Need to Do
(Article originally published by WFC Resources, March 2006, as a Guest
Column written by Kathleen Beauchesne, who directs the faculty and staff
assistance program as well as the Work-life programs for Johns Hopkins)
Despite the days of public fear and near-panic that followed September 11 and
the anthrax and smallpox threats, the needs of young children, their families,
and their caregivers did not become a national priority. Since then, we have
witnessed the plight of children in other disasters, including the devastation
in coastal Asia and Africa that resulted from the tsunami in December 2004 and
more recently the destruction in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast caused by
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. All of these disasters tore children from their
parents and families, and left many young children lost, unidentified, and
orphaned.
In the United States almost 12 million children younger than five years old
(approximately 6 out of 10) spend part of their waking hours in the care of
people other than their parents. These caregivers include relatives, family
daycare providers operating out of their homes, workers in childcare centers,
staff members of Head Start and other organizations, and teachers in
state-financed pre-kindergartens. Most businesses can only estimate how many of
their employees’ children are in some type of childcare, but companies with
on-site or near-site child care centers know exactly how many very young
children are in their care. CEOs and other corporate leaders have a great
responsibility for the safety of their employees’ children cared for company
child care centers. Today, there are a number of situations that highlight the
need for thoughtful deliberations about corporate childcare centers including
the alarming avian influenza, weather conditions, and violence and crime.
Viruses, Influenza and Other Contagious Illnesses. The SARS outbreak in
Toronto received a great deal of attention, and the widespread trauma caused by
the quarantine and the deaths of health care workers was overwhelmingly
stressful for those working in these units. With the avian flu outbreaks this
year, it is inevitable that similar events will happen in the future and
corporate childcare centers will be caring for children whose parents are
exposed to illnesses, and are not permitted access to anyone, including their
children. Corporations must develop plans to address these situations and
shelter children in their care safely.
Weather and Other Hazardous Conditions. One can only imagine the emotional
and physical effort it required to protect, calm, comfort, organize, and guide
or carry children (some too young to walk or follow directions) to safety amid
the danger, debris, fear, and confusion of September 11th or Hurricane Katrina.
Evacuating very young children in frightening and hazardous weather conditions,
including very hot or very cold weather, through debris, broken glass, downed
power lines, throughout hurricanes and floods requires careful and thoughtful
planning. Several key issues to consider regarding evacuations include how the
children will be identified and transported, and who will care for them.
Violence and Crime. Our nation’s childcare centers are remarkably unprotected
from violence and crime. Childcare center directors and providers are often the
only security on-site, and frequently the so-called “security” at the front door
of a childcare center consists of a single doorbell. Childcare center directors
and staff serve single-handedly as the front line of defense for years managing
domestic disputes, child abductions, child abuse, community violence and other
traumatic situations.
With these critical events in mind, it is essential that companies with
corporate child care centers seriously consider the following recommendations
because the safety of their employees’ children is at stake. Employees will be
needed at work, and those with children cannot work without child care. No
corporation can afford to ignore the need for child care disaster planning at
every level of the organization.
1. Develop goals and objectives for childcare disaster planning. CEOs should
ensure that corporate risk managers and disaster planners, as part of the
disaster planning process, discuss issues and make recommendations regarding the
goals and objectives of the corporate disaster plan. Disaster planning for
children in employer-sponsored daycare centers should be phase-specific because
the responses to a disaster change with time. That is, the overall disaster plan
should include specific plans for managing the children who are enrolled in
childcare when a disaster occurs, as well as specific plans for caring for the
children of critical personnel who might be needed elsewhere in the response,
either during or after the disaster.
2. Formally charge risk managers and childcare vendors to develop childcare
disaster plans. Disaster plans for corporate daycare centers are essential, and
until such plans are in place and formally integrated with the organization’s
overall disaster plan, the children cared for day in and day out are at risk,
not only in the event of a major disaster, but also in other types of crises.
CEOs should support formation of a committee that is assigned responsibility for
developing a disaster plan that addresses caring for children in the corporate
childcare centers during a disaster.
3. Plan for children of all ages at work. Following a disaster, children will
not be at their usual locations (e.g., school). Childcare arrangements break
down as schools close and as daycare systems are unable to operate. Parents
cannot leave their young children at home and, therefore, will bring them to
work. Corporations should develop plans and programs for caring for these
children. It is also essential to ensure that corporate risk management plans
and liability and insurance coverage extend to these situations.
4. Use a flexible model for disaster response. A flexible and adaptable
childcare model is currently available, used by the Church of the Brethren
to operate childcare facilities for the Red Cross and FEMA in
shelters during a disaster. Trained Church of the Brethren teams respond to a
call for volunteers, and arrive at a shelter with a “Kit of Comfort,” which
contains everything they need to set up a daycare center at a disaster site, to
register the children, to care for the children, and to organize play areas,
while their parents tend to family needs such as applications for assistance,
insurance assessments, and other day-to-day activities.
(http://disasternews.net/disasters/5-22-00_alert2.shtml;
http://www.brethren.org/genbd/ersm/dcc.htm).
5. Pre-incident training, table top exercises and planning is critical.
Pre-incident preparation, table top exercises and planning should involve all
day care staff to ensure that center procedures are practiced and gaps in plans
addressed. The roles and responsibilities of day care staff should be crystal
clear, and plans should be made to ensure that the families and children of day
care center staff are also cared for and safe. Childcare centers should be
included in all corporate disaster drills and simulations.
6. Provide tools for coping. Employee assistance programs and work/life
programs should be involved and work with daycare center personnel to provide
services to help those affected by the disaster at every stage from pre-incident
planning to post-disaster care. They can also assist families with pre-incident
preparation.
7. Develop a corporate media plan for employee parents and their children.
One major element of a disaster plan is to ensure that childcare center staffs
receive important information as soon as possible. Early education and awareness
training for employees can provide information and encourage discussions about
how the childcare center will protect and care for their children during a
disaster. In addition, specific information should be compiled about how to cope
in a disaster; such information not only helps mitigate fear (among the
caregivers, parents, and children), but also helps caregivers manage their own
reactions.
8. Integrate daycare disaster plans with corporate disaster plans, incident
command structures, and risk management committees. Generally, daycare disaster
plans, if they exist, are not integrated into the overall corporate disaster
plans, incident command structures, and the risk management committees that
operate them.
9. Integrate planning with the corporate security force response and with
transportation resources. Issues related to transporting daycare staff to work
are relatively straightforward, but the capacity to transport many infants and
small children is a different matter. It is important to ensure that resources
are sufficient to accomplish this task.
10. Integrate and ensure an effective response from the employee assistance,
work/life, human resources, and other mental health resources. The childcare
disaster plan should be integrated with the corporate-wide human resources
disaster plan to ensure that mental consultations and responses are available to
the childcare center staff and to employee parents. Mental health personnel who
are trained in children’s mental health can not only help daycare providers
respond to children’s questions about an event but also help them provide
support to the parents.
11. Ensure funding for appropriate resources for centers for disaster child
care. CEOs should ensure that funding for disaster resources for corporate
childcare centers is built into budgets each and every year.
12. Coordinate planning with local community, city, and state governments. We
know that in an emergency government will respond first to the areas where they
perceive the most need. Plans for daycare centers should be coordinated with the
city disaster plan and with the state daycare administration so that both are
aware of the steps an organization will take to care for the children in its
daycare centers during a disaster.
In summary, models for childcare disaster plans already exist that can be
adapted to meet specific needs, and the National Association for the
Education of Young Children (NAEYC) now has accreditation standards that
pertain to disaster preparation and planning, and companies like Bright
Horizons Family Solutions have published templates. These accreditation
standards and templates are excellent starting points for reviewing or
developing a corporate childcare disaster plan.
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Dr. Kathleen Beauchesne directs the faculty and staff assistance program as
well as the Work-life programs for Johns Hopkins. She is currently a
member of the Board of Directors for the Maryland Committee for Children,
member of the EAPA WORKlife Task Force, and a member of the EAPA
Trauma Response Task Force, and the national Robert Woods Johnson Last
Acts Workplace Task Force. She is a founding member of the College and
University Work and Family Association, the Work and Family Network of
Maryland, the founding chair of the national Work and Family Committee of
the Employee Assistance Professional Association (EAPA), and a past member
of the Board of Directors for the Alliance of WorkLife Professionals. |
