The study, Bringing Youth Preparedness Education to the Forefront: A Literature Review and Recommendations, looks at best practices, scholarship and offers recommendations. It is worth reading for this interested in the subject.

The Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Department of Education, and the American Red Cross held the Summit, which brought together approximately 150 attendees from the fields of youth communications, programs serving youth, developers of youth preparedness education, practitioners from the state, tribal, and local levels, and academia — as well as abroad, including New Zealand, Chile and Israel.

The goal of the Summit is to synthesize input from all participants to develop a framework for a national strategy on grades K-12 preparedness education to increase youth preparedness knowledge, skills, and behaviors, and to address youth of all abilities and backgrounds.

The full report can be found here. The National Summit webinar can be found (and will be posted later on): here.

One part of the curriculum is the use of “Moulage” which many of you know is disaster simulation makeup. As part of the Disaster Ready program, the student applied the makeup to the adult “victims” who helped out with the last day of training when the students responded to a mock incident (tornado). Moulage is one of the more fun and gruesome parts of emergency management training which I can attest to because I have been an enthusiastic user during our CERT drills.

Students putting Moulage on volunteer “victims” participating in a mock tornado drill (READYColorado Facebook page).

There is a video of the makeup session imbedded in the READYColorado’s Facebook page so I cannot put it on the blog. If you go there, you’ll see the big smiles of the kids as they create huge ugly wounds with many resembling zombies by the end.

Making Moulage part of citizen disaster training makes it more enjoyable and interesting; it also underscores the point that people can handle the possibility of scary injuries. I wanted to highlight this, because maybe it will show citizens — of all ages — that preparedness activities can be fun and even recruit some new volunteers.

One of my CERT experiences with Moulage as a bombing “victim” during a police training drill near the site of World Trade Center.

The Facebook post piqued my curiosity about the FEMA course whose introductory Overview explains:

“has been designed to help the citizens of this nation learn how to protect themselves and their families against all types of hazards…By reading and following the instructions in this guide you and your family can say, Yes, we are ready!”

As this is ostensibly the government’s baseline for judging whether citizens are “ready” for disasters, I thought I would read through the course material. After finishing it, I had two overall reactions:

1) there is a real need to review and refine what government authorities are telling the public about preparedness and what “we are ready” should mean for American citizens.

2) as part of that review process, it would be very useful for top federal (as well as state and local) emergency management officials to hold open forums — maybe using the “Are You Ready” class format somewhat along the lines of the Kansas City Medical Reserve Corps course writ large — in order to solicit questions and input about preparedness from Americans. These types of events would bring new attention to the subject as well as stimulate an important and overdue dialogue integrating the public in helping determine policy about public preparedness.

First, as far as the content of the “Are You Ready? An In-Depth Guide To Citizen Preparedness”, I want to highlight what I think are some significant shortcomings and disconnects. For example, right at the beginning of the course, Chapter 1.1, “Getting Informed,” instructs the public to:

Learn about the hazards that may strike your community, the risks you face from these hazards, and your community’s plans for warning and evacuation. You can obtain this information from your local emergency management office or your local chapter of the American Red Cross…

Ask local authorities about each possible hazard or emergency and use the worksheet that follows to record your findings and suggestions for reducing your family’s risk…

There is a major problem here: the government is putting far too much of the onus on the public — telling citizens it is only their responsibility to ask rather than taking the initiative to inform them if it is that important. The fact is that in many parts of the nation (including here in New York) the average citizen cannot just contact the local emergency management office and get a hazard briefing. Further down in the same chapter, the public is also told to request information that is not fully accessible or available to them:

Ask local authorities about methods used to warn your community…

Ask local authorities about emergency evacuation routes…

Ask local officials the following questions about your community’s disaster/emergency plans. Does my community have a plan? Can I obtain a copy?

The fact is that FEMA is recommending people undertake a time consuming and unfamiliar task that in many cases they actually will not be able to accomplish by themselves. Shouldn’t the government at all levels have more responsibility to take the initiative in communicating this the information to the community rather than wait until individual citizens contact them?

Ok, so how do you begin this discussion? I have an idea that was provoked by seeing the photos from this weekend’s Kansas City class: why not hold open public forums on preparedness? These national seminars would be coordinated with similar events run by state and local emergency managers. This would bring new attention to citizen readiness and provide the public with the opportunity to both ask questions and as importantly offer input. I think FEMA head Craig Fugate would do a terrific job of leading such forums as would a number of state and local officials.

As Tip O’Neill might have said, (almost) all disaster preparedness and response is local. But the federal government does have a significant role in public education, particularly when it comes to terrorism and major disasters. In fact, Homeland Security Janet Napolitano in a speech at Harvard University earlier this year made that point saying that Americans deserve a “clear appraisement” of the terror threats, “because I believe the American people want, and deserve, candor about what we face.” That appraisement still needs to be delivered. National officials also have a megaphone and platform that is necessary to get the issue on the media and political agenda.

Fugate began a review discussion of the government’s recommendations last year when he tweaked the agency’s central readiness preparedness message emphasizing family plans over supply kits. Others in the emergency management community are also increasingly asking out loud some basic questions about citizen preparedness such as ‘what really is prepared?‘ One question after going through the entire 200-page “Are You Ready?” document is whether we’re asking the public to do and know too much — in fact, I would argue that we’re both giving the public too much information but not enough of what they really need to be ready.

Whenever I attend local public events on preparedness, citizens always have specific questions about specific threats, evacuation plans, emergency communications that cannot be answered fully with general preparedness boilerplate. The fact is that government officials have not fully leveled with the public on preparedness, giving them all the information they need to be really prepared. Without having an open, interactive discussion we are not really going to make progress on really ‘getting informed’ or figuring out if “you [and I] are ready?” and what that means. I think a series of preparedness forums at a national and then state and local level would be very helpful as part of that process.

In the piece, “Disaster 101: Preparing Students For A Scary Future,” Linton Weeks reports:

…Whole programs — anti-terrorism, emergency management, cybersecurity, environmental pollution control — are designed to prepare students for lucrative careers battling the things that scare us.

“Traditionally,” says Gregory L. Shaw, co-director of the Institute for Crisis, Disaster and Risk Management at George Washington University in Washington, “emergency management has been primarily a second or later career for professionals from the first-responder community — fire, police and emergency medical services — and military personnel.” But, he says, “more and more, careers in emergency management … are becoming a first career for younger people entering the job market.”

In 1994, there were four university-level emergency management programs in the U.S., according to Shaw. Today there are more than 150 and another 30 currently in development or approved. And, Shaw adds, his graduating students seem to be finding jobs.

What explains the growth?

There is a raft of reasons for the proliferation of security-related courses. In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Homeland Security Act of 2002 established a dozen Centers of Excellence at universities and research laboratories around the nation. The centers were asked by the feds to increase the nation’s understanding of various aspects of dangerous threats, including explosives, chemical and biological attacks, the behavioral side of evil and other alarm-bell issues.

The centers receive millions of dollars from the federal government each year to sustain and enhance their programs. According to a July 2010 report from the Heritage Foundation, “Academic institutions have become a core member of the national homeland security enterprise.”

The Heritage Foundation report points out that emergency management and homeland security education programs teach students the key skills needed in emergency situations. The programs promote tried-and-true techniques that are useful for dealing with — and even avoiding — domestic emergencies. They encourage academics to develop applicable research in security-related areas. And, according to the report, “besides educating students, training current professionals, and fostering research, academia assists in homeland security planning and exercises and the sharing of best practices.”

Other factors feed into the increased number of programs. Continued unrest and hostilities around the globe create a sense of instability and danger that call for expanded roles of security corporations and emergency management organizations. Economies are faltering; the environment is threatened; technologies make waging war from long distances more possible.

The media microscope focuses our attention on one cataclysm after another — the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the earthquake in Haiti and the Gulf of Mexico oil gusher in 2010. As natural and human-made disasters abound, we look for fast-responders and problem-solvers.

When life gives you lemons, secure the lemonade stand.

The full article can be read here. Thanks to Andrew Blauner for bringing this to my attention.

Last week, nearly 40 middle school students took part in the day long class in first aid, CPR, family and pet preparedness, weather spotting and team building — as well as terrorism awareness. An expanded four-day training will be offered July 20-23 to interested high school students at the Denver Police Academy. The training is free, though enrollment is limited. According to the article:

“These are lifelong skills that we’re empowering them with,” said Cathy Prudhomme, Community Preparedness Program Manager for the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security. “The first aid and the safety training is stuff they can use on a day-to-day basis.”

“I think middle schoolers are wonderfully impressionable,” said Deborah Collburn, director of the Animal Emergency Management Program for the Colorado Veterinary Medical Foundation. Collburn was there to teach the youngsters how to prepare their pets in case their families were forced to evacuate from their home. “They bring things home with them and share them with their parents. Reaching out to kids is a great way to change behaviors. Kids will nag you to death,” she said.

Disaster READY Training participants in team building activity

Some readers might be surprised that terrorism awareness is part of a middle school curriculum. But as the article explains:

It’s not like terrorists don’t hang out in Aurora, Colorado State Patrol Sgt. Matt Packard reminded the young disaster-readiness trainees sprawled before him on mats on the gym floor at Aurora Quest K-8, a charter school.

After all, Najibullah Zazi was arrested last September at his Aurora apartment, not a dozen miles from the school. Zazi later acknowledged being an al-Qaeda operative conspiring to blow up the New York City subway system.

“It was what he was doing right here in Aurora that tipped us off,” said Packard, who is supervisor in the Colorado Information Analysis Center, a state agency that’s a sort of early warning system for suspected terrorist attacks, natural disasters and large-scale criminal activity.

“He bought chemicals you can mix together to make a bomb. He was acquiring stuff that’s perfectly legal to have, but he was combining them to make a bomb,” Packard told his young audience. “Say you see someone with 50 boxes of cold medicine. Does that seem normal?”

The students agreed that it did not. Ditto for someone taking photos or drawing diagrams of buildings or infrastructure, or for uniformed workmen showing up without an appointment and asking for access to equipment, or for someone needlessly calling 911 then clocking how long it takes police to arrive.

“I learned terrorists could be anywhere,” 11-year-old Alex Richmond later said. “They could even be my best friend.”

“I saw a man wearing a winter coat once, when it wasn’t winter,” noted 12-year-old Jose Puente. He said if he ever spotted anything suspicious like that again, he’d know who to call.

As FEMA and DHS work on expanding the “See Something, Say Something” campaign, they should get some lessons from this program on communicating with Americans of all ages on terrorism.

According to an article on the website Neighborhood Empowerment Network, the school’s involvement came after the San Francisco Disaster Feeding Task Force had developed a plan for the project but was having trouble funding it:

Just when the project was about to be shelved for lack of funds, the Lick Wilmerding High School junior class president, Jody Fu, contacted SF CARD (San Francisco Community Agencies Responding to Disaster) asking how the High School could help make San Francisco residents better prepared for an emergency, such as a natural disaster. The students had seen the devastation in Haiti and had contributed to the relief effort but wanted to make their own home in San Francisco a safer place as well. After just a few months of planning, fundraising, and coordination with the Task Force, the school volunteers made the program a reality.

On Saturday May 8th, class volunteers assembled food and water supplies donated by the San Francisco Food Bank into kits to be delivered to the homes of Meals On Wheels’s and Project Open Hand’s most vulnerable clients. Delivery drivers also briefed clients about disaster preparedness, gave them emergency information pamphlets and whistles from the SF Department of Emergency Management, and continue to inventory the supplies at designated intervals. The monies the students raised over many class fundraisers will go to the Food Bank to offset some of the costs of supplies and packaging.

For more information on the high school’s initiative, you can find it on the SF Emergency Department’s Facebook page here.

High school students packing emergency kits for vulnerable San Franciscans

Players will be encouraged to learn about the types of disasters that might occur in their geographic region or state. The most common disasters — earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes — will be used to teach preparedness steps and to help users know how to prepare and what to do during and after an emergency event.

The game will include a variety of different game genres, depending on the type of educational content to be conveyed. For example, time management and puzzle gameplay will be used to teach how a person prepares for a possible emergency, including determining escape routes and meeting places. Hidden object gameplay will be used to teach what items belong in an emergency supply kit, such as batteries, flashlight, and canned food. Simulation gameplay will be used to present quick-care tips such as applying pressure to control bleeding.

The players take the role of a “Disaster Hero” to help different families prepare for various disasters. Each disaster scenario provides a variety of game experiences and quizzes on what was learned. Points are earned throughout the experience and displayed on the Disaster Hero website. Downloadable learning activities and checklists targeted to teachers and parents also will be available on the website.

For more information, go to disasterhero.com. Thanks to the Red Cross’ Oregon Trail Chapter for bringing this to my attention.

A screenshot from “Disaster Hero”

The St. Charles County Citizen Corps website describes its educational program for teens:

Four Boy Scout and two Girl Scout troops participated in the emergency preparedness and response training at Indian Camp Creek Park in northern St. Charles County. The specialized training provided students the skills necessary to perform under pressure by developing multi-functional response teams that supplement community emergency services during major disasters. The St. Charles County Teen Community Emergency Response Team (TEEN CERT) program is made up entirely of volunteer citizens and is more than 230 members strong.

While many people will respond to others in need without any training, one goal of the TEEN CERT program is to help these citizens do so effectively and efficiently without placing themselves or others in unnecessary danger. With the mandatory 20-hours of training, students learn to manage utilities and put out small fires, and treat the three medical killers by opening airways, controlling bleeding, and treating for shock. TEEN CERT also trains students how to provide basic medical aid, search for and rescue victims safely, organize themselves and spontaneous volunteers to be effective, and collect disaster intelligence to support first responder efforts…

In Indianapolis, at the Operation Safeguard Academy, according to the IndyStar.com:

…the 46 participants — ages 12 to 18, representing 17 area schools — are learning about survival, medical training, terrorism awareness and fire control. One of their main objectives is to take care of younger children in disaster situations, when parents might be overwhelmed with larger problems.

The camp, a collaboration involving Park Tudor School, Ball State University, Marion County Emergency Management and others, is meant to make the teens not only better responders, Fletcher said, but better leaders.

“They act as the catalyst for their families,” she said. “Most of us have had a child who goes home and says, ‘We had someone from the fire department come. We have to do a fire safety drill.’ . . . There’s nothing like a kid to put pressure on you to make something happen.”

Teenagers train as part of Operation Safeguard Academy

Disaster READY Training provides students with an opportunity to learn and practice emergency readiness skills. The program is being delivered in a format that teaches a broad-range of safety skills with time devoted to practicing the newly acquired training in hands-on exercises and activities. In addition, the program gives students a chance to explore careers in emergency management, response, and preparedness from professionals working in a variety of areas and disciplines.

The middle school program is being offered on June 29, 2010 at Quest K-8 in Aurora, CO and the four day high school program is July 20 – 23, at the Denver Police Academy. Application materials are available at www.readycolorado.com/disasterREADYtraining. Space is limited and applications are reviewed on a first-come, first-served basis. Registration is free and open to all middle and high school students throughout Colorado.

Thanks to the Natural Hazards Center Twitter feed for bringing this to my attention.

The one-hour webinar is co-sponsored by the American Public Health Association, the International Association of Emergency Managers and the National Association of Government Communicators.

It will feature a terrific panel including Dr. Marsha Vanderford, Director of Emergency Communication Systems, CDC; Nigel Snoad, Lead Capabilities Researcher, Microsoft Humanitarian Systems; and Phil Dixon, Business Product Manager, Google; and the inimitable David Stephenson, Principal, Stephenson Strategies. If you are interested in registering for the webinar, click here.

The competition is open to everyone with an interest in homeland defense and security. The essay should be no more than five pages, single spaced. The deadline for submission is January, 31 2010. Finalists will be announced no later than May 31, 2010.

The winner will receive a $1500.00 cash award and an invitation to the Center for Homeland Defense and Security located at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California where he/she will be recognized at the CHDS Forum. Additionally, the winning and four top finalist essays will be considered for publication by Homeland Security Affairs, the online journal published by the Naval Postgraduate School’s Center for the Homeland Defense and Security.

For more information on entering the contest, go to http://www.chds.us/?essay/overview. Thanks to Jonathan Abolins for bringing this to my attention.

The preparedness patch program, developed by the Girl Scout Council of the Nation’s Capital and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), provides critical emergency preparedness information and activities for all levels of Girl Scouts. The steps and activities required to receive the patch include identifying and preparing for potential emergencies; learning about local alerts and warning systems; and engaging in community service.

In addition to collaborating on the new patch, Secretary Napolitano and Ms. Cloninger also signed an agreement formalizing an affiliation between Citizen Corps and the Girl Scouts that creates a partnership to motivate young women to become community leaders in emergency management and response fields and raises public awareness about personal preparedness, training and community service opportunities.

Chertoff’s book, Homeland Security: Assessing the First Five Years (University of Pennsylvania Press) will go on sale Tuesday. In a post earlier in the summer, I wrote about the book’s contents which focus a good deal on the role of the public in homeland security: “In New Book, Former DHS Secretary Chertoff Warns About “Complacency,” Returning To A “September 10″ Mindset”; Urges Government To Have “Frank Discussion” & “Be Candid With American People, Sharing As Much Information As Possible About Dangers We Face”.

We spoke a couple weeks ago at the Washington, D.C. office of the Chertoff Group, a security and risk management advisory firm, he opened earlier this year. (Not surprisingly, the former Secretary looks more tanned and rested than when I last interviewed him almost exactly a year ago at DHS headquarters before he left for the Gulf Coast to supervise Hurricane Gustav preparations.)

As excerpts from a new book from Chertoff’s predecessor Tom Ridge had been released just a few minutes before our interview indicating that politics may have been a part of terror color alerts decisionmaking, I first asked Chertoff whether he had ever felt any political pressure. He said he “never” had.

Yet, Chertoff does believe there need to be some changes made to the current alert system, most notably that the colors should be condensed from five to three levels —  because he says “we’re not going to get below yellow.” He recommended in testimony to the new DHS alert task force that there be “a steady state, a heightened alert and then Red”. Though he believes Red may have to be delineated with a little more specificity (ie. if an incident has happened, but there is no intelligence about another attack vs. when the government believes another strike is imminent).

As far as citizen preparedness, Chertoff says that a key to creating a long-term prepared nation is to focus on schools and kids. In the interview, he sketched out two suggestions  – a “minimum” and a “maximum” approach. The “minimum” would be “to get the fire management and emergency management people to come together to create a program to be exported to the schools on basic preparation.”

Chertoff’s “maximum” option is that there be a more substantive course developed for U.S. schools on planning and preparation which would include teaching “basic skills,” such as first aid, CPR, swimming, driving, basic mechanics and operating a firearm.

“If you’re not going to have a national service then as part of graduation from high school there should be a course over a period of time that teaches you the kind of basic things you might need in an emergency,” Chertoff says, adding “It’s going to do two things. It’s going to create a cadre of more capable people, but it is also going to demystify the process of preparation. Most people are intimidated that they don’t know how to do it. They’re afraid of being embarrassed.”

MICHAEL CHERTOFF IN HIS OFFICE WITH HIS NEW BOOK, HOMELAND SECURITY: ASSESSING THE FIRST FIVE YEARS

Chertoff, who during his tenure at DHS would often urge Americans to be “vigilant” about terrorism, says Americans need to be aware but not paranoid. As a model, he suggests the ways most people deal with crime: “We all teach our kids not to be afraid to go outside but not to walk down a dark alley at 3am.”

In his new book, Chertoff suggests the government share more information with the public about the threats facing the nation. But he says it is not necessarily a matter of declassifying more things but of doing a better job of “packaging and presenting” the facts at a time when there are so many other issues competing for the public’s attention. His concern — eight years after 9/11 — is that citizens become complacent, and he urges the public to continue to support government investments in preventing and responding threats, particularly in the biological and nuclear area.

Chertoff says he “would have liked to have done more” on citizen preparedness during his tenure. He believes some things were accomplished with the Ready.Gov program, but that it was difficult to communicate with the public on these issues: ”It was hard under our Administration because it got freighted with a lot of political stuff. There were people who viewed counter terrorism, homeland security as a Bush thing and therefore anything you did in that area those people automatically objected to because they were opposed to Bush. In the new Administration, there will be a little less resistance. Sometimes the person who starts something isn’t the person to finish it.”

Chertoff believes his successor Janet Napolitano is “doing a very good job”. He is particularly happy that she has continued the “non-political” and “non-partisan” approach to homeland security which is how he says he tried to run the Department and believes the nation is best served.

As I wrote in my initial writeup, I would recommend the new book to anyone interested in homeland security (and for that matter public policy). Chertoff’s perspective is unique — not only was he of one of three Homeland Security Secretaries in the nation’s history, but he also headed U.S. Justice Department’s Criminal Division post-9/11 and served as a federal judge. It can be purchased here.

Children and adults in the Sony Lab’s ‘production studio’

The high definition television production studio allows visitors to explore the various roles associated with television production. Working as a team, visitors become Directors, Cameramen, Reporters, Hosts, Technical Directors and Field Producers to create a broadcast with an environmental theme, including storm coverage. When we went, my wife and I worked the cameras and my daughters did the on-camera work.

Studio monitor shows ’storm coverage’

The studio is one exhibit in the “four-level high-tech science-and-technology center, which explores communications and information technology,” according to Frommer’s travel guide, ”You can experiment with robotics, explore the human body through medical imaging, edit a music video, mix a song, design a video game, and save the day at an environmental command center.” It’s very hands-on and enjoyable for all ages. And admission is free. If you are visiting New York City and have kids, I recommend the Technology Lab.

 

A new PSA (above) featuring Elmo & Gordon from “Sesame Street” focusing on helping families protect themselves from the H1N1 flu.

The campaign was unveiled this morning by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at the HHS/Department of Education Childcare Center in Washington, D.C. The PSAs will be distributed nationwide today and will be supported in airtime donated by television stations. ”We are doing everything we can to protect public health and teach children how they can stay healthy and safe,” said Sebelius. “Elmo, Gordon, Sesame Workshop, and the Ad Council are delivering an important message to our kids.”

The new PSA campaign focuses on the importance of providing parents, teachers and children with accurate information about how to practice healthy habits, highlighting proper hand-washing and simple everyday actions that lead to staying healthy and keeping germs away. Created by Sesame Workshop, the television PSAs encourage audiences to visit www.cdc.gov to get more information on how to stay healthy. The PSAs are an extension of Sesame’s Healthy Habits for Life initiative, which helps young children and their caregivers establish an early foundation of healthy habits.

Last year, Elmo and Gordon’s colleague Grover was kind enough to shoot a video for this blog’s “What Should We Tell The Public?” series.

The PSAs are part of an initiative to provide practical steps recommended by CDC to help prevent the spread of the flu virus and other infectious disease, including:

Ø Avoid close contact with people who are sick.
Ø Keep your distance from others if you are sick.
Ø When possible, stay home from work, school, and errands when you are sick, and don’t send your children to childcare or school if they are sick.
Ø Cover your mouth and nose when coughing or sneezing.
Ø Wash your hands often with soap and water, especially after coughing and sneezing.
Ø Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth.

“Since the outbreak of the H1N1 flu, many Americans have expressed concern about how they can protect themselves from being infected,” said Peggy Conlon, president and CEO of the Ad Council. “We are proud to continue our longstanding partnership with the Department of Health and Human Services for this critical campaign that will educate parents and children about how to stay healthy. We are also grateful to Sesame Workshop for providing their resources and talent for the PSAs.”

The Ad Council will be distributing the PSAs via satellite to television stations nationwide. ”Whether you are learning to read or count, facing natural disasters, or practicing healthy habits, Sesame Workshop combines our expert research with the power of Muppets to provide children and their families with the tools they need to cope with what is going on in their communities,” said Melvin Ming, Chief Operating Officer, Sesame Workshop. “As part of our Healthy Habits for Life Initiative and in partnership with HHS and Ad Council, we are servicing a PSA and supplemental materials to generate awareness on how kids and families can lead healthier lives.”

The Ad Council has been partnering with the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services to develop PSA campaigns that address critical health issues since the 1950s. Their successful collaborations have included public service messages about the polio epidemic, drug abuse and, more recently, obesity prevention.

That’s the idea behind Ready Classroom, a new online educational program just announced by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which was created with the Ad Council and Discovery Education. Ready Classroom will provide elementary and middle school teachers with resources to integrate natural disaster preparedness information into their existing classwork. The program is an extension of Ready Kids, a national effort designed to encourage children and families to prepare for emergencies.

The free online resource, which can be found at www.discoveryeducation.com/readyclassroom, provides teachers with activities, lesson plans and multimedia tools that teach students how natural disasters develop and inspires them to build their own emergency preparedness plans with their families. The site features grade-specific lesson plans (K-8), videos, games, puzzles and bulletin board recommendations.

I would be interested to hear from any teachers who use Ready Classroom or have any thoughts on educating students on emergency preparedness.

Papers can present current research, literature reviews, theoretical arguments, or case studies. Eligible topics include floods and floodplain management, Hurricane Katrina, earthquakes, climate change, warning systems, hazard mitigation, emergency management, vulnerability, risk communication, and other topics related to the social and behavioral aspects of hazards and disasters.

Entries will be judged on originality, organization, and knowledge of the topic. One undergraduate and one graduate winner each will receive $100, a mention in the Natural Hazards Observer; publication on the Natural Hazards Center Web site, and an invitation to the Annual Hazards Research and Applications Workshop in Boulder, Colorado, including registration fees. Entry deadline is April 30. More information can be found on Center’s web site, here. Thanks to the Center’s helpful Disaster Research e-newsletter for bringing this to my attention.

The STEP program is, according to a FEMA news release:

A joint effort between Connecticut Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management and FEMA, the program offers a ready-to-teach preparedness lesson that empowers students to encourage their families to make home emergency kits and communications plans. Students also received items to make their own ’starter’ kit; including a water bottle, snack bar, emergency whistle, Mylar blanket, and carrying bag…

Students also participated in a few rounds of the “Disaster Dudes Game”, a quiz-show portion of the STEP program that tested their knowledge of what to do in different emergency situations. Their correct answers along with their emergency posters displayed outside the auditorium were evidence of their readiness to handle all types of hazards. The Student Tools for Emergency Planning Program will be repeated in Avon, CT next year, with plans to expand to about 30 schools total in the state, according to the Connecticut Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

In the California-Berkeley program, as described in a recent Government Technology article: 

More than 2,000 students at Cal receive basic supplies, like a generator, goggles, fire extinguisher, portable lights and two-way radios…The students also receive training in at least some of the following courses: basic preparedness, fire suppression, light search and rescue, disaster first aid, disaster mental health, radio communications and incident command systems…

Ten percent of each house’s members must take additional training classes before a student group receives its supplies…The class a student takes may be based on his or her major. For instance, an engineering student may be most interested in the “light search and rescue” class because it teaches how to use mechanical advantage, like taking plywood boards or long beams to help lift coffee tables or bookcases off someone, or how to brace up a building that’s partially collapsed…They can take a traditional 35- to 45-minute course taught by the Berkeley Fire Department or do it remotely via a podcast. 

One of the organizers explained the idea behind the program to the magazine:

“If one takes care of himself or herself, that’s one person we don’t have to provide rescue, food, water or shelter for…And if we get one person to educate their community block, then the community block or neighborhood organization takes care of themselves.” This is the idea in training and equipping student organizations.

And he has plans for one particular student group:

“Can you imagine if you gave me the Cal football team to rescue people with their size, their stamina? Because then I can take 10 firefighters and create 10 groups, and divide up the soccer, football, volleyball players or whoever, into 10 larger response groups,” Dong said. “It only takes one firefighter to direct a group of people. They expand our first responder resources within our community. If I can get that entire student population prepared, they become the best volunteers for me.”

(Thanks to Arnold Bogis for sending me this article.)

In an attempt to walk my talk, I decided to begin my own grass-roots effort in my daughter’s second grade class. As you can see in the photo below, I dressed in my full CERT regalia and brought my equipment and personal go-bag for a readiness ’show and tell’. I used the Ready Kids New York children’s preparedness guides, created by New York City’s Office of Emergency Management, which I handed out to each of the students. 

I found that the kids were interested and even excited by the topic of emergency preparedness (it obviously wasn’t the speaker). They did not seem at all scared by the subject, but found it was a natural fit with the fire safety education that is very much part of their normal school life. Afterwards, I was happy to hear from some of the parents that their kids came home and made their own go-bags and asked whether they had family emergency plans. Best of all, I didn’t embarrass my daughter.

This is as good a topic as any to be the subject of my 250th post to the blog — a milestone I would have reached earlier had I not gotten ill and had to put the blog on a hiatus. I thank readers for sticking with me, your interest in the blog and your continued input. 

As Appy points out, children are a crucial part of the ‘public’ that we should be ‘telling’ about preparedness. And in fact, knowledge, contrary to scaring them, actually can help them feel more secure. She underscores the importance of developing a partnership between parents, teachers and students if the nation is going to make real progress on preparedness. Behind her in the video, shot at the Council’s Washington’s office, is a a winning entry from its preparedness poster contest for third and fourth graders, Kids Prepare America.

MERI-K APPY, PRESIDENT, HOME SAFETY COUNCIL

One of the most common questions I get from people about emergency preparedness is how they can evacuate in the event of disaster. However, the truth is that in a number of scenarios, the best thing to do is not to evacuate but to stay (or ’shelter in place’). Of course, if a lot of people do not even know what the term means that could be a problem.

In his post, Eric cites the work of Dr. Roz Lasker and the Redefining Readiness project of the Center for the Advancement of Collaborative Strategies in Health at the New York Academy of Medicine. Through “Redefining Readiness”, Dr. Lasker, a former U.S. Health and Human Services Department official, has done more work than anyone I know in finding out what the public really knows about disaster preparedness and how to best improve it. You can never fully replicate a real emergency situation, but “Redefining Readiness” — though painstaking work and thoughtful design — has created as useful a model as exists.  

Last year, Lasker’s group released a groundbreaking report on public preparedness and response after running in depth roundtable exercises in four communities around the U.S. around a small pox outbreak and ‘dirty bomb’ attack. Below is a summary of the program from the website:

“Redefining Readiness” addresses a fundamental flaw that is undermining efforts in all areas of emergency preparedness. Currently, planners are developing emergency instructions for people to follow without finding out whether it is actually possible for them to do so or whether the instructions are even the most protective action for certain groups to take.

The “Redefining Readiness” study documented this problem in preparations for shelter-in-place emergencies and deadly contagious disease outbreaks, prediction that large numbers of people would suffer and die unnecessary if response strategies are not based on what people will actually face when disaster strikes. This prediction was proven to be correct during Hurricane Katrina, when many people could not follow instructions to evacuate due to barriers that had not been identified or addressed beforehand.

To fix the flaw, four “Redefining Readiness” demonstration sites have developed powerful new community engagement practices to harness the knowledge and experiences of the broad range of people who need to be protected in emergencies. Practical tools based on the combined insights of almost 2,000 diverse community residents in the demonstration sites can help households, work places, schools and early childhood/youth programs, and governments throughout the country prepare to respond more effectively to shelter-in-place emergencies and deadly contagious disease outbreaks.

Dr. Lasker and her group has designed the program to offer practical tools useable by communities around the nation which can tailor the exercises to their own likely threats. I had the opportunity to take part in a scenario exercise that took place in Dr. Lasker’s office. It was striking how many questions are raised when you actually go through it that you never think about (ie. what is my kids’ school emergency plan? or what exactly does ’shelter in place’ mean?) I recommend that anyone interested in undertaking such an exercise should the program at Redefiningreadiness@nyam.org.  

Anyone who is interested in public preparedness has to study the “Redefining Readiness” work. I will be providing a link to it in my Resources section, and I hope to be writing more about Dr. Lasker’s work on the blog.