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Close-up
location maps can help
first responders find
child care facilities
and help child care
providers find the
nearest shelters
(Community Information
Resource Center) Click
on graphic for larger
view. |
Erin Barbaro and Michael
Barbaro of the Community
Information Resource
Center |
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Download a Brochure
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Early Childhood Atlas Ready
to Support Disaster Response in 12 States
NOV. 3, 2006 | The Early
Childhood Atlas now can provide custom location maps of
child care facilities for first responders to use in disasters
in 12 states.
“If disaster strikes, first responders need to find areas where
children under school-age may be congregated,”
Elizabeth F.
Shores, M.A.P.H., coordinator of the Early Childhood
Atlas and the
Early Childhood
Emergency Preparedness Initiative, said. "We can provide
detailed location maps showing licensed and registered child
care facilities, with telephone numbers, addresses, contact
names, and maximum capacity of the facilities, to state child
care and emergency management agencies.”
“The support we have received from state and federal agencies
and from foundations and nongovernmental organizations for the
Early Childhood Atlas Readiness Project shows how far the child
care sector has come since Hurricane Katrina of August 2005,”
Cathy Grace,
Ed.D., professor and director of the Mississippi State
University Early Childhood Institute (ECI), said. “Our goal is
to ensure that young children are not overlooked in disaster
response, and that early childhood programs are not overlooked
in disaster recovery.”
State and federal agencies provided datasets that the
Atlas team used to map licensed and registered child care
facilities. The Early Childhood Atlas Readiness Project geocoded
the datasets for 12 states at high risk for hurricanes and
earthquakes: Alabama, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia,
Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South
Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas.
State child care and emergency management agencies in those
states can request the location maps and companion call sheets
by calling
Erin Barbaro, M.A., or
Michael
Barbaro, M.A., of the
Community Information Resource
Center (CIRC) at 573-884-8721. The maps are available at no
charge in disasters that affect two or more contiguous counties.
The Early Childhood Atlas is a service of ECI and CIRC, a
program of the Rural Policy Research Institute, University of
Missouri. The other Atlas team members are
Lynn Bell
and Jamie Heath of ECI
and
Christopher Fulcher, Ph.D., director of CIRC.
“These custom maps can help first responders check on children
under school age and help child care providers find the nearest
shelter locations,” Shores said. “The Atlas also can support
rapid damage assessments and rapid referrals of displaced
children to new child care. But we are still limited in how
thoroughly we can assess disaster losses or find alternative
care for displaced children. For example, we cannot determine
the impact on subsidized child care, or find new subsidized
child care slots, unless we have current state-level lists of
child care providers authorized to receive federal child care
subsidy payments.
“Nor can we help locate children who spend their days in
non-licensed, non-registered child care settings. Integrating
location data about those child care providers will take more
detective work,” Shores added.
The W. K. Kellogg Foundation,
the Day Foundation,
Save the Children, and the
National Association of Child Care
Resource and Referral Agencies provided funding for
ECI’s Rebuilding
After Katrina Initiative and related activities.
Initial funding for the Early Childhood Atlas was by the
National Center for Rural
Early Childhood Learning Initiatives, a program of ECI,
thanks to Grant #P116Z05-0056 by the U.S. Department of
Education. The contents of the atlas do not necessarily
represent the policy of the U.S. Department of Education and
users should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government.
46 Blackjack Rd. / P.O. Box 6013
/ Mississippi State, MS / 39762 / tel. 662-325-4836 / fax 662-325-5436
© 2004- Mississippi State University
Updated
11/22/2006
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