Ensuring children’s health and safety in child care is the top concern for any child care program, and child care emergency preparedness is vital to meeting this need. One way providers can strengthen safety practices in a child care program is to have a written emergency plan. 

Child care providers run an evacuation drill with infants in 2019.

In December 2020, Congress funded a new Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) to help small businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic. The new PPP is more flexible than the original and allows prior PPP loan recipients to apply for a second loan under certain conditions. The PPP is now open for applications. 

On Wednesday, comedian and host of The Daily Show Trevor Noah devoted a portion of his nightly show to talk about – child care. He spent 10 minutes exploring the many flaws of our current child care system. But his most pointed criticism was aimed at the way child care in the U.S. is funded.

“Good morning! I sure have missed your smiling face! Could we set up a virtual visit this week so I could see you and we could talk about how everything is going in your program?”

As funny as this may sound, this has gotten one of our outstanding consultants many virtual visits.

Connections are so important when working with child care providers. Consultants make many connections with the providers with whom they work. For the consultant mentioned above, just saying she misses seeing them is enough to rekindle that connection during this time of social distancing and virtual consultation visits. The providers missed the consultant too, and were happy to tackle technology just to see their consultant again!

Families put a lot of trust in child care providers every day. Part of that trust is knowing that children will be safe and cared for in any situation, including during and after an emergency. Child care providers who plan ahead are better-prepared and will know what to do to respond to an emergency and keep the children in their care safe. By planning and preparing in advance, they are also able to recover faster after an emergency.  

The new year is a great time to reassess and ramp up your child care program’s emergency preparedness plans. Ready.gov encourages families to Resolve to Be Ready and we would like to help child care programs be ready in 2021 as well.