Family Safety Plan
Nothing is more important than the lives and safety of your loved ones. However, at any moment, disaster could strike; flash floods, fires, earthquakes, bombings — the world is a dangerous place. As the great inventor, Benjamin Franklin once said, “An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure,” which means that preparing for the worst of the worst, and having a family safety plan may save your loved ones in the long run when all catastrophe breaks lose.
What is a Family Safety Plan?
A family safety plan is a plan the family relies on to (1) prevent an incident from happening, (2) proceed to execute safety measures when a disaster strikes, and (3) know how to deal with the aftermath. This plan can contain information ranging from common knowledge like not letting the children play with fire or fireworks, to reminding everyone where the emergency kits suitable for a couple of days are located, to rendezvous points where everyone can meet should they get separated.
How to Make a Family Safety Plan?
When creating a family safety plan, you need to ask yourself this simple question; “What can harm my family and me?” and from there, you can assess all the possible risks, how to prevent them, how to prepare for them, and what to do after. So, here are a few tips you can try to make your safety plan even more successful;
1. Have a Plan of Action for Natural Calamities
Natural calamities such as earthquakes, typhoons, and forest fires aren’t something we can prevent; therefore, the best option is to prepare for them. The first thing you need to do is to see what calamities frequently affect your state and plan from there. Do you live in Texas, California, or Oklahoma? These are statistically the states most prone to many natural disasters, so do take that into account. Once you have an idea of what you could be dealing with, then you make your action plan; remember to stay indoors and hide under sturdy furniture during an earthquake, or search for high ground during a flood. Your plan’s aim is to give your family the best chance of recovering from a natural disaster.
2. Educate Your Children on What They Need to Know
What is the purpose of a plan if no one knows or understands it? Make sure that your children are oriented in what they should and shouldn’t do. If you can, your plan should focus more on the welfare of kids since they’ll have the hardest time in the face of danger.
3. Include Safety Reminders
This can be simple, yet helpful things such as “Do not Panic” or “Stay indoors during an earthquake,” or even “DON’T PLAY WITH FIRE!” are something things that you can include in your plan as a general reminder for everyone to follow. Don’t think of them as insignificant to your plan — going back to the wise words of Benjamin Franklin; it’s better to prevent something from happening than working your best to stop something that is already happening.
4. Discuss Thoroughly the Emergency Rendezvous Point
An emergency rendezvous point is a location where your family can meet up if you’re all separated. When choosing your site, make sure it is somewhere everyone is familiar with and has supplies that you can use for a couple of days — don’t forget to include a map to the location in your safety plan.
5. Make Sure Everyone is Involved in Making the Safety Plan
When making your family safety plan, make sure that everyone is oriented and involved in some way. Getting everyone involved not only gives them a better idea of the plan but also gives them a chance to voice out concerns or suggestion and making your plan better overall.
A family safety plan is only as effective as the family that implements it knowing full well that this is for their own good. However, when it comes to the layout of a family safety plan, there are many ways you can make your plan. Here are a few suggested examples and templates you can try
Family Action Plan Examples & Templates
1. Basic Safety Plan
Download this basic safety plan templat so you can have an easy to edit layout in starting your family safety plan.
2. Health and Safety Plan
Does anyone in your plan have life-threatining allergies? Maybe they’re not allowed to eat a certain type of food or interact with a certain type of plant or animal? This health and safety plan template not only allows you to prepare for natural disasters, but health-related incidents as well if you click the download button right now.
3. Safety Strategy Plan
Having a family safety strategy plan means you can, in full detail, set the objectives you want to achieve and the course of action you want to take such as a map to the rendezvous point and making sure you have enough supplies to last for days or even weeks. Download this template to make your strategizing more convenient and effective.
4. Safety Action Plan
A family safety action plan lets you establish a pattern of safety measurements for your family. This is especially important in a family with little children who (let’s be honest) are prone to accidents due to their curious nature and inquistive souls — however I digress. Download this template now to help you educate your children about how they can avoid dangerous situations like accidentally setting the house on fire.
5. Risk Management Plan
Download this risk management plan now and use to it assess the possible safety hazards in and around your home, as well as how you can prevent and prepare for them.
6. Health & Safety Action Plan
Knowledge of knowing what to do during calamities, or having a bit of first aid knowledge during incidents, or even knowing where the inhalers are if one of your children are asthmatic can help you out a ton in keeping your family safe — and this health and safety action plan can help you prepare if ever you need it.
7. Health and Safety Manual
Sometimes, it can be handy to have a little guide book for when incidents happen, and this health and safety manual template may just be the thing for you if you need one. Download now and start creating your own custom safety guidelines suited for your family.
8. Sample Emergency Plan
Sometimes, an example of what you want is exactly what you need to start with. This sample emergency plan is a great cookie-cutter plan to begin from and then start customizing from there to fit your family’s needs.
9. National Disaster Management Plan
One of the government’s tasks is to ensure that, should calamity strike, they are able to aid citizens as quickly and as effectively as possible. Though this isn’t an “example” per se, this national disaster management plan contains details of how a government reacts to incidents, thereby giving you an idea of how to plan your family safety plan around it.
10. Emergency Preparedness Plan
The World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) emergency preparedness plan gives in full detail how they handle disasters that would disrupt their operation — in other words, how they prepare for sudden incidents and emergency cases. By studying this, you’d get a better grasp of what to do in such situations which is extremely helpful in making sure your family is safe.
11. Risk Reduction & Management Action Plan
This risk reduction and management action plan manages assests, assess potential threats, and allows for planning preventions, preparations, and solutions should risk turn into a reality — you should definitely apply in your family safety plan.
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