Grandpa!
My granddaughter turned nine this month. I have spent every day since she was born trying to protect her from harm. Little things like corners of furniture, to big things like domestic terrorism aimed at her school. I have spoken with several Emergency Managers who have recently become grandparents - and to a person - all of them have told me that their perspective on work-family balance has changed. They are now recognizing how critical it is for Emergency Managers to advocate for the full cycle/missions, on behalf of children. They not only spend more time with their children and grandchildren, but devote time and energy at work, towards EM concerns, as they will adversely impact children.
Many have also indicated that their perspectives on systemic or chronic disasters – such as climate change – are now different, once they view them through the eyes of someone else who will live 50 to 75 years (or more) into the future. For me, I am still amazed it is really any year past 2000. Those Emergency Managers have also expressed concerns that threats and hazards impacting our children are growing, almost exponentially and that the tactical and operational objectives for the day-to-day protection of children are all over the map – with no cohesive and collaborative constructs for states, locals, territories, and tribal nations (SLTTs) to work with the U.S. Federal Government to solve collectively.
As we start 2024 (and Happy New Year, btw), the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis issued its Homeland Threat Assessment report for 2024. No mention of children at all, even though they represent over 22% of the U.S. population, as of 2020. The only mention of schools in the report, was in the cyberthreat section, since schools have been (and continue to be) a target of malicious attackers, both foreign and domestic. I worry about both the physical health and mental health/wellness of our children in our homes, at play, at the malls, and at school. And everywhere in between. I worry about the haphazard, yet continual active assailant drills they must participate in – many of which have no holistic effort or goals to really train and educate the ‘players’, let alone review and modify plans and procedures for enhancing crisis action. I worry about bullying, cyberbullying, doxing, deep fakes, and swatting. I worry about fire alarms being pulled to draw kids outside for a complex coordinated attack. All of this is emergency management intelligence – what is needed for solutions not only for law enforcement, but also fire, EMS, public works, school districts, community leaders, communicators, town officials, faith leaders, and of course parents and grandparents.
So, here’s what I’m doing in 2024 – and what the CEMIR will be focusing on quite a bit throughout the year, as well when it comes to Children and Disasters:
Creating on a new pracademic resource guide, as a new book called Emergency Management Threats and Hazards: Water, which will include a section on adverse impacts to children from disasters and highlight many of the impacted areas of communities which will include schools, daycare centers, and other places where children can be found,
Continuing work on a significant pediatric feeding concern – the lack of family choice support, including for breastfeeding - at shelters and fixed feeding sites, for infants and toddlers:
We have built exercise material (workshops, tabletops, content for larger functional/full-scale exercises) for mass care feeding. We hope to have all of this added to the National Mass Care Strategy website (anyone out there who can help us advocate for this, please drop me a line),
We are participating in the design and implementation of the 2024 National Mass Care Exercise in Pennsylvania, adding this concern to their Master Scenario Exercise List, and
Adding a chapter, documenting what we have done so far both in researching and advocating for this concern, to a new book coming soon sponsored by FEMA’s Higher Education Program, tentatively titled Current and Emerging Issues in International Disaster Management.
Continuing research on Swatting impacts to K12 educational sites
Developing anti-swatting activities, from a whole-community perspective
Collaborating with national associations on policies, procedures, and future practices
Publishing our work, via multiple channels:
First piece on the multi-national threat becoming a local incident, on the EMN Network and at the National Security Policy Analysis Organization’s FB page and
Future work – including tactical recommendations – also on the CEMIR member site and store.
Continuing to chair the International Association of Emergency Managers-USA’s Children and Disaster Caucus, where in 2024 we will
Continue to identify disaster preparedness curriculum material for K12 students themselves,
Collaborate with a new consortium – B.Y.R.D. (Building Youth Resiliency to Disaster), which includes children in disaster experts from around the U.S., and
Continue to help FEMA finetune its policies, procedures, and doctrine towards the adverse impacts of disasters to children, which of course trickles down to the SLTTs, too.
Count me in on working to move the needle of awareness and concern for the adverse impacts of any type of disaster, which impacts children – and my continued highlighting of how children can and will be impacted differently than adults. And by the way, if you have not taken MGT-439 from TEEX, please do. Also, keep in eye out in 2024 for others to be advocating for the different dimensional needs of children in disasters, through social media and other methods of distributing this emergency management intelligence. And us ‘grand EMs’ always welcome others who want to help, whether you have kids, grandkids, grand cats, or not. There is lots of room on this school bus…
And my consulting firm - Barton Dunant – just posted it’s annual reading list, which you can find here. 12 books of interest – one a month, if you are ambitious – to Emergency Managers. (And be sure to check out Marc C. Baker’s running column - “The Baker’s Dozen” for more in-depth book reviews and reading ideas). Barton Dunant has been doing our reading list since 2020, when we seemed to have had lots of time on our hands to read… You can see our prior lists on that blog post as well.
Next month - February, 2024 - has a leap day in it. Look for our next post on The CEMIR page, to talk about what you can do to help further Emergency Management on that one extra day, which happens every four years.
Again, Happy New Year from me and the CEMIR!