Disaster Preparedness

Health care providers play a vital role in preparing families of children with disabilities in their community.  These resources are designed to position your community to “Be Ready” for  disaster. Using these materials as part of on-boarding all health care providers during orientation, continuing education, workshops, exercises and emergency management planning groups can assure that families of children with disabilities are disaster ready.

This pediatric HVA template was developed as a part of the Eastern Great Lakes Pediatric Consortium for Disaster Response, funded by HHS ASPR. It is a method of determining hazards’ impacts on a region and how prepared regions and/or hospitals are for the pediatric consequences of each hazard. The tool categorizes hazard impact along three dimensions, each with specific pediatric considerations. By assigning hazard impact, hazard likelihood, and regional/ hospital preparedness scored, the pediatric HVA template will produce an overall vulnerability and risk score for each hazard. This tool is not meant to be a thorough checklist of preparation, but instead spur the inclusion of general pediatric considerations into risk analysis, disaster planning, and emergency response. It is not intended to replace a hospital HVA with facility-specific processes. (Downloadable spreadsheet)

Last Updated: June 2022

The Pediatric Tabletop Exercise Resource Kit provides step by step guidance to prepare for and implement a pediatric tabletop exercise in a community. Templates are provided for agendas, email invitations, and follow-up work. Additional resources to prepare pediatric practice settings for disasters and public health emergencies are also included.

Created by the AAP Disaster Preparedness Advisory Council Subcommittee on Reunification Planning in collaboration with the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Disaster Medicine.

This planning tool focuses on providing guidance to hospitals that will help them create or update their plans to support family reunification after a disaster. This tool is scalable and is intended to be useful in smaller, more localized incidents (eg,shootings, motor-vehicle collisions) as well as in large-scale disasters (eg, terrorist attacks, natural disasters). This tool is meant to build on the plans that hospitals already have in place to care for unidentified patients and for children. While this tool is written in a manner that provides mostly high-level, quick-reference information, it includes enough background and operational-level detail to provide sufficient context to facilitate planning.

SAEM Manuscript, published November 2012.

Objectives: Reuniting children with their families after a disaster poses unique challenges. The objective was to pilot test the ability of a novel image-based tool to assist a parent in identifying a picture of his or her children.

(free access)

From the Illinois EMSC Program.

The purpose of the Pediatric Disaster Triage: Utilizing the JumpSTART© Method online educational module is to provide a review of mass casualty incident (MCI) triage concepts and tools such as Simple Triage and Rapid Treatment (START) for adults and JumpSTART© for children. This training allows participants to learn about these MCI concepts and tools and apply them through interactive scenarios.

It is our hope that pre-hospital, and hospital professionals, primary healthcare providers, school nurses, and public health department personnel will utilize these materials to further enhance the care of children during disasters.

From the Michigan Bureau of EMS & Trauma.

During a disaster or pandemic illness, hospitals may receive critically ill or injured children and be charged to triage, treat and stabilize them while awaiting assistance or transport to a pediatric specialty center. In an effort to further prepare hospitals for the surge of pediatric patients that may occur during a disaster, MDHHS BETP has worked with regional pediatric leadership personnel to develop this toolkit. The goal is to provide hospitals with useful, scalable and achievable strategies and tools for providing protection, treatment and acute care for children during a disaster.

Post-Disaster Reunification of Children: A Nationwide Approach illustrates the significance of whole community collaboration and inclusive emergency planning by providing a comprehensive overview of the coordination processes necessary to reunify children separated from their parents or legal guardians in the event of a large-scale disaster and reflects how the whole community—to include nongovernmental organizations such as Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster, faith-based and community organizations, disability and pediatric organizations, Federal and private sector partners, and civic action committees—can work together to achieve one wide ranging mission.

FEMA, HHS, American Red Cross, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. November 2013.

The Pediatric Emergency Care Council (PECC) of the National Association of State EMS Officials (NASEMSO) discerned a need for a simple tool to help State EMS Offices identify where possible gaps might still exist in the area of pediatric disaster preparedness. The report of the National Commission on Children and Disasters was used as a guide in developing checklist items that might assist in identifying potential gaps; perhaps in the process further educating State EMS Office personnel in the area of disaster planning.

October 2014

From the HHS Office on Child Abuse and Neglect: This manual builds the foundation for successful outcomes when first responders encounter incidents, including disaster situations, in which child maltreatment might be suspected.

This video game - focuses on prehospital triage of pediatric and adult disaster victims.

You are a paramedic responding to a series of multiple casualty incidents that have occurred in your city. Fire personnel are on scene, and you are the first paramedic there.

The incident commander has declared the scene safe. Your role is to perform primary triage. In the game, you will use the combined START/JumpSTART triage tool. The tool will be available to you in the game.