Emergencies

HS4 Emergency plan and supplies

Criteria

There are a written emergency plan and supplies to ensure the care and safety of the children and educator at the home and when away from the home. The plan must include evacuation procedures that apply in a variety of emergency situations and that are relevant to the home.

⚐ The written emergency plan must also include out-of-school care children if out-of-school care is being provided in the home.

If the home is in a building that has an approved fire evacuation scheme, the evacuation procedures must be consistent with that scheme.

Documentation required

A written emergency plan that includes at least:

1. An evacuation procedure for the premises.
2. A list of safety and emergency supplies and resources sufficient for the age and number of children and adults present in the home and details of how these will be maintained and accessed in an emergency.
3. A communication plan for families and support services.
4. Evidence of review of the plan on, at least, an annual basis.
5. Implementation of improved practices as required.

Guidance

Emergency plan

Home-based service providers and educators will need to work together to ensure there is a plan developed for dealing with emergencies.

If the home does not have a landline, the educator will need to ensure they have a means of accessing appropriate help and support.

The evacuation procedure must cover all emergency situations. The service provider is responsible for ensuring there is a procedure for each home.

Educators must think about the possible emergency situations they might encounter in the home. Preparing for an emergency situation is an important part of the induction process that the coordinator carries out with each educator.

In an emergency situation, the educator (as the only adult nearby) often needs to deal directly with emergency service personnel when they arrive at the scene. This makes it very important to have an evacuation procedure and to have a safe place for children to wait while the emergency is dealt with. For more information see HS5 Safe assembly areas (below).

It may be more difficult to evacuate children from homes that are not at ground level in the event of an emergency. Your evacuation procedure will need to identify ways to mitigate this. Additional guidance is available specifically for services above ground level, we recommend you read High rise evacuation plans for ECE service providers.

If the home is in a building with other tenants there will be a fire evacuation scheme approved by the Fire and Emergency New Zealand that applies to the whole building and all tenants, and this is the responsibility of the building owner.

The National Emergency Management Agency have a What’s the Plan Stan website which focuses on helping children prepare for an emergency and a special section which aims to support educators to develop children’s knowledge, skills and attitudes to respond to and prepare for an emergency.

What's the Plan, Stan? – Get Ready

The National Emergency Management Agency and the Ministry of Education have produced a template that can be used for planning for a variety of emergencies.

The Ministry also has planning guidance and a quick checklist for your overall emergency management plan.

Emergency supplies

Educators should have emergency supplies on hand in the home. If providing out-of-school care:

• the emergency plan needs to include how all children in the home will be safely evacuated at the same time
• school aged children must not be expected to help carry non-walking children or be responsible for evacuating ECE children
• the emergency supplies in the home should be sufficient to also provide for the older children who are also present in the home.

HS5 Safe assembly areas

Criteria

Designated assembly areas for evacuation purposes outside the building keep children safe from further risk.

Guidance

In an emergency situation, the educator (as the only adult nearby) often needs to deal directly with emergency service personnel when they arrive at the scene. This makes it even more important that there is a safe place for children to wait while the emergency is dealt with. Young children often behave erratically when scared or distressed, and educators need to reduce stress (for themselves, as well as for the children) in these situations as much as possible.

Parents need to be informed where the evacuation point will be so they will know where their children will be.

The National Emergency Management Agency and the Ministry of Education have produced a template that can be used for planning for a variety of emergencies.

National Emergency Management Agency

Download the Emergency management plan template (see HS4 Emergency plan and supplies, above).

HS6 Securing furniture

Criteria

Heavy furniture, fixtures and equipment that could fall or topple and cause serious injury or damage are secured.

Guidance

In all areas of the home, large and heavy items of furniture, equipment and appliances such as pianos, free standing fridges and stoves should be secured to the structure of the building. Check the strength of the wallboards and follow manufacturers’ instructions.

Other home appliances such as televisions, stereos or microwave ovens should be secured with industrial Velcro or non-slip mats.

Large furniture and appliances – Natural Hazards Commission | Toka Tū Ake

Lighter things such as books and blocks can also cause injury if they fall on children.

When deciding which objects to secure, consider the height of the shelf or table it is on. A television falling off a low stand could still injure an infant lying on the floor nearby.

Where possible place toy boxes and popular play equipment and resources away from the free fall zones of larger appliances and shelves as well as large glass areas.

Things to consider

When securing these items, the following guidelines will be useful:

• Always fasten to the structure of the building. Studs are fine, but wallboards may be too weak.
• Make sure that the fastenings you use are strong enough to hold the weight of the heavy object. What will happen if it gets bounced up/down?
• When you can, try to fasten objects near the top rather than at the bottom. If you cannot, then the fastenings at the bottom will need to be very strong. This is because of the leverage effect when something topples (a fridge for example).

HS7 Emergency drills

Criteria

Educators are familiar with relevant emergency drills and carry out each type of drill with all children present in the home (as appropriate) on an, at least, 3-monthly basis.

Documentation required

A record of the emergency drills carried out and evidence of how evaluation of the drills has informed the annual review of the service's emergency plan.

⚐ For services providing out-of-school care the record must include evidence of drills performed with enrolled children and out-of-school care children at the same time.

Guidance

Home-based service providers and educators will need to work together to determine which emergency drills are relevant to their location. Relevant drills are likely to at least include fire evacuation, earthquake, shelter in place and lockdown. Tsunami drills are relevant for services in tsunami zones.

Then, carry out each of these drills at least every 3 months. Most drills will be practiced by staff with children, the exceptions are lockdown and in some instances tsunami.

Why practice emergency drills?

Research has shown that the factor that most contributes to reducing injuries and fatalities during any emergency situation is regular practice. This ensures that educators are familiar with procedures and that children also become familiar and comfortable with what is expected of them.

Regular practice also ensures that any equipment relied on in an emergency drill will be subject to regular checks, for example, any special equipment that might be used to assist in the evacuation of the non-walking children. It is also recommended that educators have a range of strategies available to manage any children whose behaviour has become disturbed during the emergency drill.

The following activities will support you in ensuring that all adults are familiar with the emergency drill procedures:

• Training as part of new staff and educator’s induction.
• Regular refresher training for all staff.
• Including emergency plans and procedures as a regular agenda item for meetings between educators and coordinators.
• Communication with parents and families in newsletters or placing information on a website.

Educators should be able to talk confidently and knowledgeably about the procedures without needing to refer to any documentation:

• They should be able to confidently identify the roles that they and others will play during an emergency drill.
• They should be able to confidently and knowledgably describe how children (walking and non-walking) will be managed during an emergency drill.
• They should be able to confidently and knowledgeably describe how they will deal with any unexpected circumstance that arises during an emergency drill – that is, respond to questions such as “How will you manage if any of your 3 to 4-year-olds refuse to walk independently from the home?”

If the home is providing out-of-school care, drills need to include both the enrolled children and older out-of-school care children to ensure everyone in the home knows what to do in an emergency drill and all children can be safely evacuated.

Older out-of-school care children must not be expected to help carry non-walking children during an emergency drill, nor should they be responsible for the evacuation of ECE children.

If the home where the service is operating is located in an apartment building, the building will have regular fire drills. Apartment owners and/or tenants will be notified of these drills, and they should inform the educator of any planned drill. During these drills, building alarms will sound and the educator will need to evacuate to the building’s assembly area with all children present.

Additional guidance is available specifically for ECE services above ground level. We recommend reading High rise evacuation plans for ECE service providers (see HS4 Emergency plan and supplies, above).

Shelter in place

Shelter in place is a drill that should be practiced with children in the service and involves children being asked calmly to come quickly inside and play inside for a period of time because of an external “threat” such as a chemical spill, swarm of wasps. The entries and exits to the building are restricted, however normal instructional activities continue as much as possible.

Lockdown

Lockdown drills should be practiced by educators without children. Drills on what to do in potentially violent situations can be practiced, but at a time that children are not on site as the drills may cause undue fear and anxiety. However, educators should be aware of procedures and able to carry the procedures out if the service has been alerted to an immediate threat. Practices for lockdown drills should be recorded and kept as per other drills.

Tsunami

Some services are in low-lying coastal areas and therefore would be required to evacuate if there was a tsunami warning. Some of these services may have an evacuation procedure that requires the use of vehicles to get children to high ground as quickly as possible. It is not expected that these services practice the tsunami drill to the full extent by loading vehicles with children and travelling to the designated safe space as this may pose unnecessary risk to children. These services should still practice their tsunami drill and include children as far as practicably possible, for example, drill may include a process that facilitates the movement of children to the proposed exit point as quickly as possible in preparation for getting children into planned evacuation vehicle/s. 

Services who do not plan to use vehicles for evacuating children in the case of a tsunami should still practice the tsunami drill as per their procedure and in line with their services emergency plan (HS4).

Record keeping

Educators are required to keep a record of each emergency drill. At a minimum, this should record:

• The date and time.
• Number and ages of children and whether any are receiving out-of-school care.
• Any other people present.
• A checklist of the key steps in the emergency drill, whether or not they were completed, and any comments.
• Details of any actions that need to be taken to rectify faults discovered or to improve on the planned procedure.

Keep the emergency drill records for 2 years.

Reviewing emergency plans and evacuation procedures should be a regular part of a service’s self-review. Coordinators should discuss the emergency drill reports with the educators. If any changes are required to your emergency drills, these should be noted promptly in your evacuation plans and any other documentation and notices updated. Remember also to communicate to all staff, parents and whānau as required.

The National Emergency Management Agency have a What’s the Plan Stan website which focuses on helping children prepare for an emergency and a special section which aims to support teachers to develop children’s knowledge, skills and attitudes to respond to and prepare for an emergency.

What's the Plan, Stan? – Get Ready

Additional guidance is available specifically for centres above ground level. Download High rise evacuation plans for ECE service providers (see HS4 Emergency plan and supplies, above).