When the Lincoln Littles office was formed in 2020, our team was tasked with “moving the needle for early childhood in Lincoln, Nebraska.”
Child care administrators in our community have long been concerned about safety and emergency preparedness but without a centralized system of communication, shared protocols, and training—efforts were fragmented.
Emergency preparedness was just one of the ways Lincoln Littles could strengthen the early childhood industry. What we needed was a pathway.
We started by developing a shared communication system to send text and email alerts to child care providers. This system allowed us to set up individual contact accounts for each child care center as well as group designations for notifications.
Our next step was to work with our emergency dispatch team at the Lincoln Police Department to design a streamlined alert process. When an emergency occurs, the department calls a centralized number, and our team sends out alerts to the impacted child care programs. We can also send notifications in the event of severe weather and other urgent situations.
When we sent out first alerts, we learned very quickly that simply being notified of an emergency was not enough. Child care providers needed training about how to prepare in advance and how to respond during an emergency. While all child care programs practice fire and tornado drills, we found that they felt unprepared for other crises.
This is where strong partnerships came into the picture.
We looked to professionals who had expertise in emergency preparedness and aligned with the public school system. We wanted children and families to learn one system with consistent language from early childhood through their school years.
Today, partnerships with our local health department and Lincoln Public Schools are central to how and why our community of child care providers are better prepared today for any emergency, including natural disasters.
Through these partnerships, we expanded access to resources for child care providers and developed a training program specific for staff working with young children.
We designed a quarterly training program covering topics such as Standard Response Protocols, Relocation, Reunification, Deescalation, and Behavioral Threat Assessment. These sessions are repeated so new and additional staff can attend. We also coordinated funding to provide resources such as weather radios, evacuation backpacks, walking ropes, posters, and other preparedness materials.
In addition to training sessions, we created a short training video and curated resources for emergency preparedness available on the Healthy Childcare website for easy access. We also designed an auto alert notification, so child care providers receive emergency drill reminders each month via text.
In partnership with Nebraska Early Childhood Collaborative and with the help of funding from a Child Care Aware of America Emergency Preparedness grant, our next step is to provide training specific for family home child care providers.
Thanks to a clear pathway, strong partnerships and on-going training—our goal is to have all child care providers prepared for any emergency our community faces.
Thank you to guest blogger,
Suzanne Schneider, Associate Director, Lincoln Littles
