Breadcrumb
- Federal Resources
Federal Resources
A Guide to School Vulnerability Assessment Key: Principles for Safe Schools
This guide is a companion piece to the Practical Information on Crisis Planning: A Guide for Schools and Communities (above). It emphasizes a valuable part of emergency management planning—ongoing vulnerability assessment—and is intended to assist schools with the selection and implementation of an effective vulnerability assessment tool.
ED Office of Safe and Healthy Students Emergency Planning Website
The U.S. Department of Education (ED)'s Office of Safe and Healthy Students' (OSHS) Center for School Preparedness provides support, resources, grants, and training to support emergency management efforts for local educational agencies and institutions of higher education.
Emergency Planning for Schools
This website, Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools (REMS), provides information that can help school leaders plan for any emergency, including natural disasters, violent incidents and terrorist acts.
Practical Information on Crisis Planning: A Guide for Schools and Communities
Taking action now can save lives, prevent injury, and minimize property damage in the moments of a crisis. Practical Information on Crisis Planning: A Guide for Schools and Communities is designed to help navigate the process of reviewing and revising school and district plans. The guide is intended to give schools, districts, and communities the critical concepts and components of good crisis planning, stimulate thinking about the crisis preparedness process, and provide examples of promising practices.
REMS TA Center Introduces New Tools for School Emergency Planning
The REMS TA Center has created new, interactive tools that can assist schools, school districts, and institutions of higher education (IHEs) in assessing their knowledge of emergency management, and in creating and evaluating emergency operations plans (EOPs):
- EOP ASSESS: This tool guides users through a series of questions to assess understanding of elements critical to creating and maintaining a high-quality EOP
- EOP ASSIST: This tool, offered as a web-accessible software application, directs users through a six-step planning process that will result in the output of an EOP, developed according to the federal guidelines.
- EOP EVALUATE: This tool can help schools and IHEs evaluate an established EOP to determine whether there are areas where it can be adjusted and improved.
Resource: Mass Violence and Behavioral Health
This bulletin (PDF, 18 pages), developed by SAMHSA’s Disaster Technical Assistance Center, describes how mass violence affects the behavioral health of adult, adolescent, and child survivors or witnesses of a mass violence incident. It illustrates the phases of response experienced by survivors, provides information on immediate and long-term interventions, and addresses the effects of media exposure following a mass violence incident. Public health, behavioral health, and emergency management professionals can use this resource to improve disaster behavioral health preparedness plans.
Resource: SITE ASSESS: A Mobile Application for K-12 Schools and School Districts
This free mobile application, developed by the Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools Technical Assistance Center, allows school and school district personnel to walk around school grounds and examine their safety, security, accessibility, and emergency preparedness.
Slide Deck and Webcast: Disaster Anniversaries
These resources contain practical guidance for helping survivors cope with disaster anniversaries and promote healing and resilience within disaster-affected communities.
Disaster Anniversary Training
These training materials help prepare disaster recovery programs to support communities through disaster anniversaries.
After a Suicide: A Toolkit for Schools, Second Edition
This toolkit, developed by the Suicide Prevention Resource Center, can assist schools in implementing a coordinated response to the suicide death of a student. This second edition includes new information and tools that middle and high schools can use to help the school community cope and reduce suicide risk.
Resource: A Strategic Planning Approach to Suicide Prevention
This free online course, developed by the Suicide Prevention Resource Center, offers strategic planning recommendations to consider when building or expanding a suicide prevention program. Professionals responsible for suicide prevention in states, communities, organizations, schools, or workplaces can use this information to identify key risk factors, set long-term goals for the program, and implement interventions and evaluations.
Preventing Suicide: A Toolkit for High Schools
This toolkit represents the best available evidence on preventing suicide among high school students. It contains recommended steps and accompanying tools to help schools create and implement strategies and programs that promote behavioral health and prevent suicide.