Staff Continues Work on Preparedness

It is the goal of your Children's School Staff to be prepared to care for your children in the case of emergency. What we have learned this year is a little more about what that means. Briefly it means you have supplies: food to eat, bandaids for ow-ies, lights for the dark, tools for communication, and lots of other things; you need a plan - something that covers not only where do you go, but who's in charge of what, and even what proceedures are used to release those children in your charge. It could be viewed as an overwhelming task, but the Staff has made great strides this year in all of these areas.

As you may remember, at the beginning of the school year, you were asked to participate in our preparedness by contributing to our food and first aid supplies. Here is picture of what we have done with those supplies.

In addition to the supplies, we have had 3 workshops for the staff to start to rough out our "plan." We have tackled issues such as, lines of communication, first steps following a disaster, dividing up on teams to deal with search and rescue, communicating with the other programs in the building, as well as the outside world, and most recently, what do we do to take care of ourselves and each other during those hours of post-incident activity.

Mrs. Jaques has been invaluable in tackling this last issue, and to the end of comfort and creative activity in a small, potentially dark, space has introduced the Staff to the above environment (A in-house camping experience): soft blanket to gather around, and even touch; hankerchiefs to be touched, smelled and even folded into dolls(!); chocolate (did you know that it is said to have calming qualities!!); a friendly lantern to do shadow puppets with, and keep us in the light; and any other object that could be used to ward off feelings of lonliness and powerlessness, known affectionately at The Children's School as "The Magic."

Is there more work to be done? Absolutely! There are details to work out, rituals to practice, paperwork to follow up with, personal preparedness plans to work on, and an on-going "updating" that goes on with every new school year. It can feel overwhelming, but the Staff are committed to working on this plan, this sense of being prepared. If you would like to know more about what we are doing to be prepared, contact any Children's School Staff member. If you would like to know more about preparing in your home environment, visit 3days3ways.org.