Planning to Plan: A Process to Involve Child Welfare Agencies in Disaster Preparedness Planning

Abstract

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when child welfare officials in Louisiana reported they did not know the whereabouts of all their children in foster care, disaster planning in public child welfare became a new area of concern. This article reports on a process of engaging seven public child welfare agencies in planning for disasters that could affect child safety and service delivery. The Washington Metropolitan Area Disaster Planning Project used a strengths-based approach to help agencies responsible for protecting and serving children in foster care and families at risk of abuse and neglect develop plans to augment and continue service delivery and responsiveness in the aftermath of a natural or man-made disaster. The processes of gathering information on disaster responsiveness, interviewing community and professional informants, developing a template to guide disaster planning within the agencies, and implementing a tabletop exercise are described. As a result of this consultation effort agencies became aware that disaster planning at the state and county levels had proceeded without child welfare at the table, that the increase in need for child welfare services during a disaster was not recognized by disaster professionals, and that practicing disaster responsiveness is necessary to assure readiness.