The goal of this tool is to offer best practices for improving preparedness and child-protection in Community-wide Emergency Management organizations by using suggestions and resources to strengthen community resilience. This checklist was created by cross-walking actions items with questions from the Community Preparedness Index (CPI) developed by the National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP) and Save the Children.

These best practices and resources provided here are tools to help address gaps in child-focused emergency planning. Some suggestions may be constrained by local or state regulations or laws, but these guidelines can assist in developing best practices within the Community-wide Emergency Management sector. These can help guide discussions and inform plans to delineate responsibilities to improve child protection and response in Emergency Shelters. This set of best practices are directed to decision-makers, policymakers, and emergency planners at the sector level. The best practices provide suggestions about what has worked for other localities and states on how to improve preparedness in Emergency Management Organizations.