Emergency Preparedness Training for Parents of Children with Disabilities

While all Americans remain vulnerable to natural or manmade emergencies or disasters, children with disabilities and special health care needs are more vulnerable than the general population. Their families may be challenged to strategize in advance, evacuate, respond to emergency instructions, access a public shelter or shelter at home, communicate with emergency responders and make do without needed personal care, social services and other supports. As a result of a disaster children may experience separation from parents and caregivers, loss of familiar daily routines and emotional trauma; they also lack adults’ self-preservation knowledge and skills, further limiting their resilience. Too often official emergency plans do not include children or treat children merely as small adults.

With the support of the Deborah Munroe Noonan Memorial Research Fund, Bank of America, N.A., Trustee, Charles Hamad and Susan Wolf-Fordham are developing a demonstration training curriculum for parents of children with disabilities or special health care needs (ages 0-21), designed to increase their emergency preparedness knowledge, skills and behaviors, enabling successful planning for children and family emergency needs. Developed in collaboration with parents and emergency response professionals, the curriculum will address needs raised by both groups and highlighted in the literature, and will be implemented as an in-person parent training workshop with an emergency planning tools workbook for parents to complete to develop a family emergency plan. It is anticipated that the project will directly impact 45-50 families from the Fund’s catchment area. Evaluation of the acceptability and efficacy of the parent training project will inform future development of an internet-based (online) emergency training program with the potential to reach families and professionals on a national basis.