Kids

A few hours before our Good Friday service this past week; a pretty good storm blew up. As the service drew closer there were a few tornado warnings and severe thunderstorm warnings in the area, so Jenn Thomas, our Waumba Land Director at NPCC, and I talked right before the service and confirmed our emergency plan in case of a tornado warning. We assumed and hoped that it wouldn’t be needed.

Guess what? We were wrong! About 10 minutes after the service started, we were informed that a band of tornados was spotted close by and that we needed to put our emergency plan into action. What happened next made me so proud! Our staff and volunteers calmly and immediately took action and moved a couple of hundred preschoolers into interior rooms. Confirmed that all children were moved and accounted for and posted signage so that parents would know where they could find their children. Smooth as pie!

The kids thought it was great fun to travel to another room and never even knew there was a storm. Our volunteers were amazing with crowded conditions, and a total change in programming. Our parents gained great confidence in their church’s care for them and their children. In the end, it was a beautiful service.

As we were giving instruction and communicating with parents, a leader from another church who just happened to be visiting for Easter came up to me and was amazed at how smooth everything was. She shared with me that she was having trouble getting her leadership to agree that there was a need for an emergency evacuation plan. Wow! All I can say to that is I am grateful that I work with a very wise team who is willing to prepare for an emergency in hopes that we will never need it.  If you don’t have systems in place to guide your team in the case of an emergency or in case of a lost child, I recommend that this is the topic of your NEXT staff meeting!

I thought it might be good to evaluate the steps that we took this weekend with you!

1.    Cross communicate
We have already established the key players who are a part of the decision-making process. This can change depending on the nature of an emergency and who is leading during a given service.

Some “next steps” are obvious and immediate, such as a fire alarm going off, or the need to call 911. The key leaders will communicate after these first steps are put into play to discuss the status of what is happening and further steps.

No one makes a decision on any extreme measures to take without a quick cross communication through our radios or face to face. On Friday night, this was our Facilities Director (who happened to be monitoring the weather), our Ministry Services Director, and our Preschool Director. Better decisions are made when all of the information is quickly shared and wise people put their heads together.

2.    Put your plan into action.
An important thing to remember is that staff, volunteers, parents and children take their cue from the leader who is communicating. So being calm, clear and concise is important!

In our case, our volunteers were prepped for the move by our staff and it was as simple as lining up the kids, grabbing the roster for their classroom, taking a headcount before they left, traveling to a new location and taking a headcount again when they arrived. We closed down the preschool wing to outside traffic while we were moving the kids.

We then double-checked the rooms to make sure everyone had moved, shut the doors and posted a sign stating the new location of the children for the parents as they arrived to pick up their children.

3.    Inform the crowd.
Guess who was waiting outside the doors of the preschool wing while we were moving the kids? Parents! Not many, but because we had to pause the service and explain to the audience what was happening in the weather, we did have a several parents rush to the children’s area.

Because we have communicated several times to our regular attendees about what to expect in the case of an emergency we really didn’t have many parents waiting outside the door. But the parents who were waiting were concerned. It was important for us to let them know that their kids were safe, where we had moved them to, and that they could go and check on them if they wanted to. Surprisingly, after hearing the steps that we had taken, most parents didn’t bother to come back into the wing.

Couple of crucial elements to know:
•    There is a clear & concise emergency evacuation plan in place.
•    All departments & staff know the plan & know the role they play.
•    There is a clear line of communication.
•    We communicate this plan to our volunteer teams several times a year.
•    We communicate this plan to our parents a couple of times a year.

Let us know what you’ve learned along the way as you’ve faced an emergency situation in your Children’s Ministry. This is an important topic to help each other out with!

Post written by:  Kendra - Family Ministry