June 9, 2022
Dear Child Care Provider,
Emergency plans are critical to your child care business to prepare, respond and recover from an emergency or disaster. Just like your requirement to have a child care emergency plan, the Department of Human Services (DHS) must also have a child care emergency and response plan. When a significant disaster happens, part of the state-level plan is to work with Child Care Resource & Referral (CCR&R) to get information from child care businesses and determine the disaster’s impact on the community’s child care infrastructure. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) identifies “child care” as an ‘essential service’ for disaster recovery.
When there is an emergency or disaster in a community or county, CCR&R may send you an email with a link to a survey to find out if there is damage to your child care business. The survey will take you approximately 3-5 minutes to complete. The information you provide helps us evaluate the impact of the disaster on child care and if resources are needed to restore child care services in the community. You can also contact your CCR&R consultant or CCR&R regional office to let us know if your business has sustained damages or if your business is operational and has child care spaces available to children that cannot receive care from their current child care provider.
In an emergency or disaster, we all need to work together because the child care services you provide are important to both families and the community. If you want to learn more about Iowa’s Statewide Child Care Emergency Preparedness and Response Plan click here. If you want to learn more about making your own Emergergency Preparedness plan click here.
Thank you!
Tami Foley Early Childhood Iowa Liaison Adult, Child & Family Services Division Iowa Department of Human Services
Tags: emergency , emergency plans , state emergency , emergency preparedness
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