Emergencies : Emergency Preparedness for Children with Disabilities

If you have a child with a disability, you are the person who knows best about his or her needs. You are responsible to include your child in your family plan.

Sometimes children are not in the family home or in the parent’s company when disaster strikes. Your child might be at school. If an emergency happens during school hours, children will shelter in place at the school. When this happens, here are some things you should do:

• Before the emergency even happens, find out about your child’s school emergency plans and evacuation procedures.
• Provide the school with emergency contact information and details about your family plan.
• Make sure your child has information about his or her special needs, medication and contact details on him or her.
• Don’t panic and don’t go immediately to the school during an emergency. It could be dangerous for you and your child. Try not to call the school unless it is an emergency—this will only block the phone line and  prevent people from getting through that do have an emergency. Also, staff members at the school need to be attending to the children, and the phones may be needed to organize for the emergency.

Remember to take the same precautions if your son or daughter spends long periods at camp, a relative’s home, care centers or sporting activities.

Emergencies can be very scary situations for everybody, especially children.

You can help your kids cope better by teaching them about emergencies before they happen. These sites listed below offer fun ways to help your child learn and be prepared. 
 

• FEMA for kids has many resources for children, parents and teachers. Let Herman the Spokescrab teach the kids about emergencies!
• Ready Kids children can graduate from Readiness U after they have learned the facts, created a kit and made a plan the fun way.

Nearly 3.5 million children live with their grandparents. Also, many children visit and stay with grandparents very often. Grandparents and grandchildren can help each other in an emergency.

Include your grandchildren in your emergency plans, even if they only visit now and then. Make sure that you:

• Have necessary medical or special supplies and contact information for your grandchildren.
• Count them in for normal emergency supplies such as food, water or clothing.
• Include items to help relax, such as toys, in your emergency supply kit and go bag.

If they are old enough, your grandchildren can help you be ready. Here’s how:

• They can test alarms and check emergency supplies.
• Practice your plan together. For example, ask them to show to ways out of every room or to tell you who to call in case of emergency.