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The Florida Department of Health works to protect, promote, and improve the health of all people in Florida through integrated state, county, and community efforts.

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Children's Disaster Preparedness

Contact: Florida Health

Because a disaster can affect hundreds, if not thousands, of Floridians and have a great and lasting impact on children physically and mentally, Florida’s Children's Disaster Preparedness Program, along with its health care and community partners are working to ensure the safety and security of all children before, during, and after public health emergencies and disasters.

The Children’s Disaster Preparedness Program facilitates and supports the integration of children’s disaster needs in state and local emergency and disaster planning and partners with children and emergency management organizations to identify gaps and leverage resources for children’s emergency preparedness and response. The goal is to ensure all communities in Florida have the expertise, skills and resources necessary to manage the emergency preparedness and response needs of children.

By promoting and partnering on children’s disaster resilience with public health systems, health care professionals, communities, community planners, schools, families and individuals, the Florida Children’s Disaster Preparedness Program strengthens the state’s overall preparedness infrastructure to minimize the impact to children in the event of any disaster and emergency. 

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TEACHERS AND EDUCATORS: FEMA has produced grade-appropriate emergency preparedness curriculum called Ready Kids to be taught in schools and is available at https://www.ready.gov/kids. These trainings were prepared for educators to share directly with students to bolster student safety and emergency and disaster preparedness efforts.

Children's Disaster Preparedness Tools and Resources 

Tools and resources are provided to assist families, community planners, schools, health care professionals and health care system members. Links are also provided to websites of organizations having additional resources for creating change in planning for, and successfully addressing children's needs when a disaster strikes. Select by topic below to review related resources.

Individuals and Families — Resources of interest to parents, caregivers and other family members or friends. For example, how to create a family disaster plan and a checklist with questions to ask childcare providers.

Community Planners, School and Childcare Partners — Resources for community pediatric planning, including child care and school planning. For example, samples and examples of child care facility emergency planning templates and local disaster drills.

Behavioral Health — Resources for supporting the mental and emotional health needs of children and families. For example, disaster behavioral health resources from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.


Links to resources outside the Florida Department of Health are provided for information only. Their inclusion does not constitute endorsements by the Department. The Department is not responsible for content on any linked website. All attempts have been made to link to reliable sources, but sites and URLs are subject to change or have technical malfunctions without warning.