How to Prepare Youth for Emergencies and Disasters

Disasters can happen anytime, which is why preparedness is essential to ensure safety and survival. In a coastal state such as Florida, disaster preparedness cannot be stressed enough, especially that it is a hurricane path annually. When disasters happen, how prepared are the youth? Emergency situations require fast reactions, which is why children must be properly trained beforehand to avoid injuries and mental stress, which could possibly stay with them for years.

Properly educating children before disasters can help them feel more confident, helpful and secure. ServiceMaster by Wright has compiled some tips from Ready.gov to help you prepare ahead.

How to Prepare Youth for Emergencies and Disasters

It takes a whole community to educate its children. With proper education, children will be able to understand their part in an emergency situation and be thoroughly prepared for the next disaster. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the American Red Cross and the Department of Education have worked together to create the National Strategy for Youth Preparedness Education, a document which seeks to educate children and their parents to prepare for, respond to and recover from future disasters. The document contains nice steps crucial to building a strong and prepared youth community. Read them below.

1. Make it important. It is crucial to stress the importance of programs and civic organizations meant for youth preparedness for children to be aware of their significance.

2. Evaluate. There is a need to perform a thorough evaluation of existing youth preparedness programs to discover if there are some things that need to be updated to ensure that the children will be given proper direction.

3. Support. Institutions such as schools and organizations, as well as communities, must be able to conduct youth preparedness programs with children not having to face unnecessary resistance or interference.

4. Create. To enable kids to understand how first responders react in emergency situations, a relationship must be created between the youth and the first responder community.

5. Link. To create youth advocates, there is a need to connect youth preparedness to the participation of the family and community.

6. Make school preparedness key. An addition of youth disaster preparedness programs to school curricula, drills and exercises will help promote broad participation among children.

7. Build and strengthen. For your community to receive updated information about the latest practices in youth preparedness, there is a need to establish and maintain partnerships among stakeholder agencies and organizations. In addition, these leaders can also serve as advocates to discuss the community's needs, especially if the area is disaster-prone.

8. Identify. Social media and local ads are good channels where youth preparedness education could be inserted. Opportunities to initiate conversations about the effectiveness and importance of preparedness programs must therefore be sought.

9. Design. Every community encounters specific disasters which requires it to create a unique plan to suit its needs. This must be considered when creating and designing programs to train the youth for disaster preparedness.

Florida Disaster Restoration Service?

Contact ServiceMaster by Wright, Restoration Company from Bradenton to Marco Island

Disaster restoration is not a job that can be performed by just anyone. During the aftermath of a fire, water, storm or mold damage incident in Florida, trust the experts at ServiceMaster by Wright. We have been helping residential and commercial property owners in Southwest Florida for over 40 years. ServiceMaster by Wright is an IICRC-certified firm, meaning that our company has risen to meet industry standards and qualifications to deliver only the highest-quality restoration services to our customers from Bradenton to Marco Island, Florida. Our restoration specialists are certified, licensed and fully bonded and are trained and knowledgeable to handle any size of a project using state-of-the-art restoration and cleaning equipment and the best industry practices and procedures. ServiceMaster by Wright is also a Preferred Vendor for some of the top insurance companies in Florida, ensuring that policyholders are taken care of after a disaster strikes.

Contact ServiceMaster by Wright today at 239-431-9947 or connect with us online to schedule an appointment. We are servicing clients from Bradenton to Marco Island, Florida, and surrounding areas. Our Emergency Response Team is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year.