Considerations for Children in Emergency Planning and Management

Children and adolescents make up the most vulnerable groups during any civil emergency or natural disaster. The UN Convention on the Rights of Children guides that children have the right to be attended to first in the event of any emergencies. Importantly, children have both the basic needs for survival, including shelter, water, and food and psycho-affective needs, including play, recreation, and love, which result from the emotional trauma that they suffer. As a society, the US and the world acknowledge children’s special place in the community as well as the rights that they hold. While there is an understanding of the special needs of children in the country, in most cases, some of the rights are overlooked in emergency planning and management. 

Emergency Management Challenges for Children 

Vulnerability of the Children 

Conflicts, disasters, and other forms of crisis could have devastating influences on the lives of children in the US and around the world. The systems and structures, which provide protection to the children and enhance their positive development are usually damaged or undermined during such times. Resultantly, children are often exposed to agents that threaten their wellbeing, such as sexual exploitation, familial separation, possible recruitment into the militia, child trafficking, and other related issues (Wizemann, 2014). Children have special protection needs, especially when they are nursing or those who are aged under five years (Wizemann, 2014). Furthermore, pregnant women and adolescent girls and women are faced with additional burdens of vulnerability because of their gender. A further review of the extant literature reveals that the socio-economic status and membership to minority groups also raise the vulnerability of children in such times. Notably, the family is the single most important source of child protection in emergencies, which is why separation significantly raises vulnerability. 

Because of the reported vulnerability, studies, and expert opinions report that children are the most affected by disasters around the world. According to the World Health Organization (2017), between half and one-third of those who die in disasters are children. Furthermore, the cited material documents that currently (as recently as 2017), close to 250 million persons around the globe are experiencing a variety of disasters annually, and it is forecasted that the number is likely to rise to 350 million in the next ten years (World Health Organization, 2017). The effect of such disasters on children’s early development is not properly documented, which is why it is not possible to quantify. The precise effects on children rely on the type of disasters that they experience. For instance, in earthquakes, children could be injured and loss of shelter while floods could result in diarrhea outbreaks. 

Special Issues for Children during Disasters

One of the most important challenges that children experience during disasters is the fact that their special needs are often overlooked. According to a further appraisal of the extant studies, the children tend to go unperceived since only so much is done to capture their demographic data, and only age and gender are considered (McKenna, 2009). The decade of the 9/11 attacks on the US also saw the occurrence of wildfires in the West, especially California. Furthermore, mass shootings in schools, new disease outbreaks, hurricanes Gustav, Ike, Katrina, and Rita, tornadoes, and one of the worst recessions since the 1930s occurred during this time (Lo et al., 2017). Through all the issues, to present, the country is yet to fully account for the special needs of the children despite them making up to a quarter of the population. 

McKenna (2009) argues that federal and state regulatory bodies have dealt with the needs of pets better than they have looked at those of children in the events of human-made and natural disasters. The real issue, as the same study argues, is the fact that the US treats children in times of disaster as ‘little adults,’ which is the central challenge to the recognition of their special needs in emergencies. Importantly, children, only on some occasions, are counted separately from grownups when they are placed in shelters and when there are not separated from their families while in such domiciles (McKenna, 2009). The literature reports further that convicted sex criminals are only required to self-report when they enter the shelters mainly because the concerned groups fail to articulate the special protection needs of the children (McKenna, 2009). For example, after Hurricane Ike hit the US, thirty-five sex offenders self-reported their criminal record at one shelter alone. This implies that there are many chances many others did not, hence; making children in the shelter vulnerable (McKenna, 2009). 

The extent to which children’s special needs are overlooked can also be understood from the perspective of reviewing a report card highlighting the level to which the fifty states and the District of British Columbia address their needs. One report assessed the states according to four standards for enhancing childcare (Save the Children, 2009). Specifically, the four standards included whether:

Facilities for child care have plans for disaster relocation and evacuation, 

Such facilities have the ability to notify parents during emergencies so that families can be unified after disasters,

The facilities in (a) and (b) have written plans for the accommodation of children presenting with special needs, and

All kindergarten to twelfth-grade public schools in each state had adopted multi-hazard disaster plans.

Interestingly, the report card revealed that only seven of the fifty states and the District of Columbia, including Vermont, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Hampshire, Hawaii, Arkansas, and Alabama met all the four criteria (Save the Children, 2009). While the report may be old, it is an important insight into the need for the country to adopt specific policy frameworks for promoting the recognition of the special needs of children in disasters. The needs of children in the wake of disasters are not widely articulated in the US, as well as, or maybe other countries for lack of properly organized political voice. Furthermore, according to Benson and Bugge (2007), several cultures around the world do not prioritize the care and protection of children during disasters, which is why their special needs are often overlooked. 

Issues for Child Protection in Disasters 

Children who are placed in shelters because of disasters are potential sexual abuse, drug, and violence victims. Furthermore, it should be understood that they are always subject to intra-family violence, especially when they are subjected to unfamiliar and stressing environments (Save the Children, 2009). It has also been underscored that children face the risk of being separated from their families, which potentially cuts off the source of primary support that they would have received when disasters hit. Importantly, the separated children are in need of tracing, identification from the rest of the populations, and reunifications while those who may have lost their parents are always in need of foster care (Back, Cameron, & Tanner, 2009). The latter author also suggests that children with disabilities in such situations have special considerations while all of them have the right to play, especially when they have been placed in shelters. 

Purpose Statement

The objective of this essay is to act as an aide-memoire for implementers and planners during emergencies. Importantly, the findings of the paper are a contribution to the awareness programs about the special needs and rights of children in the events of emergencies. 

The rationale of the Paper

The choice of the research project is founded by the author’s deep passions for the promotion of the rights and wellbeing of children, especially because they are the most vulnerable groups in the wake of disasters. This passion, the author hopes, will contribute to the already large body of literature that calls for the prioritization of the wellbeing of children in emergencies. 

Overview of the Report

This report contains five sections, which are organized as follows:

Overview, 

Methodology, 

Results and Findings, 

Lessons Learned, and

Conclusion 

Methodology

The author wanted to conduct primary research through interviews and surveys on parents and adults who experienced disasters at one time or disaster preparedness and management officials who have experience with this group. Nevertheless, upon realization of the cost and time resources requirements for this type of research, the author resorted to a review of literature on the topic. The sources of information constituted books, journal articles, both old and current, humanitarian websites, and credible news articles. Because of the copyright issues that concern the access to and use of the extant literature on the topic, it was important to access them using online databases, including Ebsco, ProQuest, and Google Scholar, and the school library. 

Results and Findings 

The hypothesis of the paper was that the basic rights of children are ignored in emergencies because the principle focus is always on adults. In developing this paper, it was important for the researcher to develop search terms, “special needs of children in emergencies,” which would be applied in searching for the resources for review from online databases. Furthermore, the author applied filters to the results to ensure that they focused strictly on the topic. It was discovered that a vast body of literature exists describing the development of child-friendly emergency plans, and they all report that children are the most vulnerable groups. The specific results are described subsequently. 

Specific Children’s Needs Often Overlooked in Emergencies 

Now that the US overlooks the needs of children in disaster planning and management, it is important to describe such needs in detail for policy implications. Some of the needs that this section describes may be obvious, but to a significant extent, they have been ignored, and they continue affecting children. 

Health Issues

The health of children is most precarious when emergencies strike. Communicable infections, such as measles, malaria, diarrhea, and acute respiratory illnesses, are among the leading child mortality causes the world over (World Health Organization, 2017). It is worrying to realize that they present one of the most significant challenges for disaster planners and managers, especially because such conditions escalate their incidence. The latter literature reports that children are more susceptible to experience anxieties because of disaster, which affects their psychological wellbeing and adversely impairs their early learning capabilities. 

A review of the neonatal causes of the health issues that children in disasters face reveal a number of important findings. First, it is understood that during emergencies, children rely on their parents and related caregivers to manage and escape the hazards at hand, and when such support is unavailable, they are likely to suffer the consequences. About eighty-six percent of neonatal deaths around the world result from birth complications, prematurity, and infections, most of which could be controlled through effective healthcare for mothers and their children after, during, and before birth (World Health Organization, 2017). However, during disasters, disrupted healthcare access raises the probability of complications for the two groups, and the case may be worse when such considerations are ignored. Importantly, in such times, caregivers and their children do not or may not access hygiene and health information. Another health issue that is often overlooked during emergencies concerns the reproductive health of youthful girls and adolescents. 

Malnutrition and deficiencies in macronutrients is yet another health issue that children face during emergencies, which have an effect on child mortality. Literature articulates that the issue is not always a result of the direct effects of the deficiencies and malnutrition but because of the lowered resistance to disease, which results in such deficiencies (Back, Cameron, & Tanner, 2009). Children who are separated from their parents, especially mothers, are of specific concern during emergencies since they are often unable to breastfeed or at least to access breast milk, which makes them susceptible to diarrheal infections and illnesses. It should also be understood that even children who stay with their mothers are at risk for the fact that disaster lowers the level of skilled support in the management of breastmilk and breastfeeding practices (Back, Cameron, & Tanner, 2009). 

Furthermore, planners and managers in disasters fail to articulate the psychological wellbeing of the children. Disasters often result in trauma and other related conditions among children and adults alike. Yet, little is done to ensure that the most vulnerable groups get the appropriate levels of psychological care (Back, Cameron, & Tanner, 2009). Such trauma could be a direct or indirect result of witnessing the disaster events, separations from parents and caregivers, injuries, or the family destabilizations that cause families to live in new and often unfamiliar environments. As much as children are reported to have great abilities for resilience to adversities, the occurrence of disasters may exploit their threshold, which means that the incidences could have long-term effects on their mental health. When overlooked, as they are, the effects could re-appear in old age and compromise their quality of life. 

Water and Sanitation Issues

Along with health, water and sanitation are one of the highest priority concerns for emergency planners and managers. Inadequate supplies of safe water and improper sanitation levels mostly result in disease for children and the rest of their caregivers. Unless proper hygiene is practiced constantly, people in disaster management shelters risk contracting some of the deadliest communicable, waterborne diseases. Importantly, the oral-fecal waterborne disease cycle is a particular threat to children. In a disaster, the location of water latrines and water points usually inconveniences children, especially when they are placed in shelters and camps (UNICEF, 2019). Water points, for example, potentially threaten children—consider heavy pump handles and unprotected wells. Furthermore, during emergencies, most of the caregivers and their children alike lack water resource and hygiene management information, which impacts negatively on the manner in which they are likely to observe hygiene. This explains why children are more likely to come into easy contact with solid wastes both inside and around their shelters. Despite the risk of poor sanitation, water, and hygiene and their association with disease outbreak, in most cases, disaster planners and managers overlook this concern. 

Food and Nutritional Issues 

This report may already have mentioned and elaborated on the malnutrition concern for children during disasters, yet it has not tackled it in the broad sense of food—balanced diet and quantity perspective. Literature articulates that disaster contributes to hunger since such events threaten food security and supply (AIDF, 2019). In many parts of the world where hunger is already a real problem, disaster management agencies are overwhelmed by the volume of food that they should supply to the populations, especially when such emergencies happen. The demand and supply mechanism means that the quality of food, from a nutritional perspective, and even the quantities supplied per child is greatly compromised. The food supplies to the disaster-hit families often overlook the special nutritional requirements of children, which is another reason to see why malnutrition is a real challenge. Literary speaking, most children do not get adequate meals, which means that they starve during a disaster. 

Apart from wasting, iron, retinol (vitamin A), and iodine deficiencies are common issues among populations hit by emergencies. For this reason, literature reports that beriberi, pellagra, and scurvy often occur among the populations, which entirely depend on the relief food supplied during emergencies (AIDF, 2019). Despite the realization that children have special nutritional needs, planners and managers during emergencies often fail to articulate such needs in their supply of food to families that are affected by the occurrences. In many cases, the crises escalate to humanitarian levels before specific interventions are sought to remedy the condition for children. 

Shelter Issues 

Apart from food, shelter is another issue of immediate concern to disaster planners and managers. During humanitarian crises, the persons who are affected are compelled to flee their residences and homes, especially when the disasters invade and destroy such domiciles. Temporary sheltering in camps is the most commonly used approach to settling the disaster-hit families in the US and around the world. Saving the lives of the people who are at risk is often the primary goal of the planners and managers in crises. While one may appreciate these initial efforts to offer shelter to the otherwise stranded groups, they should understand the specific challenges that such settlements provide. Beyond the aspect of survival, it should be understood that the temporary shelters fail on privacy, dignity, safety, and security standards (Back, Cameron, & Tanner, 2009). In most cases, the shelters are crowded because of the suddenly high number of people who need resettling. 

The overcrowding conditions expose children to a number of risks, including health and safety. It has already been described that sheltering conditions expose the children to the spread of communicable diseases, which is why a slight emphasis is worthwhile. A newer point, in this case, emphasizes the vulnerability of children to the violence of all sorts. The fact that officials do not take much time in understanding the demographic characteristics of the populations that they admit to shelters, it is likely that people with criminal tendencies take advantage of mixing with the vulnerable groups. The lack of privacy in the camps is a particular risk of sexual violence for children and adolescents (Fin, 2015). Notably, criminals could also seize the chance to recruit the vulnerable and often gullible children into criminal gangs. 

The need to provide mass shelters for people who are affected by disaster also means that some specific aspects that could make the shelters comfortable are often ignored. For example, the temporary shelter often lacks the prescribed ambient and temperature levels for the safety of children, especially infants (Wizemann, 2014). Some of these vulnerable groups experience extreme cold, and in some countries, exposure to mosquitoes and other biting insects, which have potentially negative effects on their health. Families often lack blankets and other material that could make their lives in the camps comfortable enough for them and their children. 

Education Issues 

Education is a basic right of children in the 21st century. According to the reviewed studies, education acts as a means of human capacity development (Back, Cameron, & Tanner, 2009). The literature also pinpoints that successive human generations have referred to education as a way of developing knowledge, values, as well as the relevant skills for their future economic development, personal health, and cultural integration (Back, Cameron, & Tanner, 2009). It is reported that schooling raises the annual wages of people by about ten percent each year, with the most significant outcomes being reported in the middle and low-income nations (Fin, 2015). Despite the importance of education, it should be understood that disasters pose direct threats to the realization of the goals of education, which includes their ability to exacerbate insufficient support to and prioritization of education by governments around the world. In any country, the negative outcomes of disaster situations compound the effects of inequality, child exploitation, and discrimination due to cultural factors and gender, which eventually result in increased levels of vulnerability and the creation of barriers to accessing high standards of education. 

During disasters, educational flows are disrupted because, in most countries, the affected groups shelter in schools. The unavailability of functional schools among communities is one of the underlying factors to the destabilization of the affected families, especially their children. In situations where the disaster management initiatives take long because of prolonged periods of their occurrence, makeshift schools are started within the shelters (Benson & Bugge, 2007). Superficially, this move represents a positive effort to ensuring that the children get an education even as the disaster management teams bolster their efforts to abate the conditions. Nonetheless, the quality of education that is given in the makeshift schools is questionable, mostly because it often fails to capture the individual learning needs of the children (Wizemann, 2014). Therefore, it would be important for the concerned agencies to reconsider their approach to the continuity of education among children who are affected by a disaster. 

Lessons Learned

The literature review presented in this report significantly improved my understanding of the issues that disaster management and planning faces. Precisely, I learned that the primary reason why most of the needs of the children, as articulated here, are overlooked because planers majorly focus on families, adults in this case, at the expense of a specific focus on children. Therefore, the type of support that caregivers receive is only extended to the children through dependency. Where the children do not have caregivers, such as when they are separated or orphaned, the children suffer alone. Therefore, I have learned that a child-friendly disaster management program should articulate the individual rights of children. 

This research demonstrates leadership skills in three major approaches—the ability of the leader to organize others and guide them to the attainment of specific set goals. Principally, I have learned that researching entails a thorough search and review of volumes of literature, organization of thought, and logical presentation of the findings. From this perspective, a leader should be organized. The research also emphasized the need for sincerity, which is depicted in the genuine reporting of the findings in studies and citing material that is not necessarily mine. Lastly, the objective of the research is to contribute to better child-friendly emergency management programs, which shows problem-solving leadership skills. Therefore, the research’s impact on my profession is through its insights into the attributes of effective leadership. Future research must focus on developing child-friendly emergency programs that seek to address all the reported challenges that children face, as reported in this and other papers. 

The objective of this paper was to provide an aide-memoire for implementers and planners during emergencies. It has been established that children are the most vulnerable group during disasters. As this paper has reported, in any disasters, children suffer the highest levels of fatalities, exposure to violence, including sexual abuse, and the potent of being recruited into extremist groups. While the fact that children are the most susceptible group to the dangers of disasters, it has been established that the disaster planning and management teams often overlook their special needs in the US and around the world. Consequently, it has been established that the special needs for children that policy should target include health, water and sanitation, education, food and nutrition, and shelter. The author has established that food and nutrition issues often lead to malnutrition and hunger because of a lack of proper considerations for the specific nutritional requirements of children, inadequate food supplies, and lack of education and information to the parents concerning best feeding practices. The health issues have been mostly attributed to the poor environmental conditions in temporary shelters that facilitate the spread of communicable diseases and lack of proper psychological support to the children. The essay has also articulated the water and sanitation issues to contribute to improper and poor hygiene standards mostly because of crowding in shelters and lack of enough parental understanding of the effective sanitation standards for themselves and their children. 

While planners and managers of disasters strive to provide temporary shelters to the affected families, they do not adequately address the issues of privacy, security, and comfort. This exposes the children to the risk of violence and harsh environmental conditions, such as cold and victimization. Lastly, as much as education services may still continue for some children, it has been found that the major issue for policy is the fact that the education given to children while in the shelters is never child-centered. Conclusively, the issues reported in this essay originate from the fact that planners of emergency plans often focus on adults at the expense of children. 

References

Aid and International Development Forum (AIDF) (2019). Meeting the Nutrition Needs of Children in Disaster and Development. Retrieved 15 December 2019, from http://www.aidforum.org/topics/food-security/meeting-the-nutrition-needs-of-children-in-disaster-and-development/

Back, E., Cameron, C., & Tanner, T. (2009). Children and disaster risk reduction: Taking stock and moving forward.  Children in a Changing Climate Research, UNICEF , p20.

Benson, L., & Bugge, J. (2007).  Child-led disaster risk reduction: a practical guide . Save the Children.

Fin, B. (2015). Safer to stay at home than flee: research.  The Age , 4.

Lo, S. T. T., Chan, E. Y. Y., Chan, G. K. W., Murray, V., Abrahams, J., Ardalan, A., ... & Yau, J. C. W. (2017). Health emergency and disaster risk management (health-EDRM): Developing the research field within the Sendai framework paradigm.  International Journal of Disaster Risk Science ,  8 (2), 145-149.

McKenna, C. (2009). Children Overlooked During Disasters, Report Says. Retrieved 15 December 2019, from https://www.govtech.com/em/disaster/Children-Overlooked-During-Disasters.html

Save the Children (2009). The Disaster Decade: Lessons Unlearned for the United States . Retrieved 15 December 2019, from https://www.savethechildren.org/content/dam/global/reports/emergency-preparation-disaster-risk-reduction/disaster-decade-lessons.pdf

United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) (2019). Emergency WASH. (Retrieved 15 December 2019, from https://www.unicef.org/wash/index_emergency.html

Wizemann, T. M., Board on Health Sciences Policy, & Forum on Medical and Public Health Preparedness for Catastrophic Events. (2014).  Preparedness, response, and recovery considerations for children and families: Workshop summary . National Academies Press.

World Health Organization. (2017). Health Emergency and Disaster Risk Management: Child health. Health Emergency and Disaster Risk Management Fact Sheets. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/hac/techguidance/preparedness/risk-management-child-health-december2017.pdf