Breadcrumb
- Federal Resources
Federal Resources
Ready.gov
The Ready Campaign of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, educating and empowering Americans to prepare for emergencies.
Ready.gov Parents and Educators
This section of the Ready.gov website features resources, activities, and information for parents and teachers to use in disaster preparedness, response, and recovery efforts.
Ready.gov Family Plan
This tool from FEMA, provides information, things to consider, and an example plan that families can use in preparing for disasters. In addition to developing a plan, it is important to discuss the plan with all members of the family including youth, and to practice the plan to see if there are any issues.
The National Preparedness Community
Developed by FEMA, the National Preparedness Community is an online network that allows users to collaborate on emergency preparedness and access resources related to emergency management and disaster preparedness.
The Unaccompanied Minors Registry
The Unaccompanied Minors Registry (URM) will be administered by the NCMEC and supported by FEMA. It will be available during all disasters to gather and share information with local law enforcement and assist in the reunification of displaced children with their families or legal guardians. The URM will allow for a more expedient and efficient reunification of unaccompanied minors with their families and legal guardians when separated by a disaster and supports the ability to collect, store, report, and act on information related to children missing or lost as a result of a disaster. The URM will roll out in Fall 2012 and information can be found at the NCMEC website.
Youth Preparedness: Implementing a Community-based Program
This document, developed by FEMA, provides information about developing and implementing a community-based program focused on youth preparedness. The document includes activities to walk through the different information that the document covers from initial development to full implementation and evaluation.
Youth Preparedness Fact Sheet
This fact sheet from FEMA provides an overview of the importance of youth preparedness and tips for including youth preparedness in programs.
Heat Safety Social Media Toolkit
The Ready Campaign and America’s PrepareAthon! developed a social media toolkit (PDF, 7 pages) containing content to share on social media to promote extreme heat safety. It contains sample tweets and Facebook posts, as well as tips for social media writing and organizing a Twitter chat.
Advancing the Homeland Security Mission through Academic Programs and Training
DHS sponsors a variety of training institutions focused on building partnerships and facilitating programs for training practitioners in homeland security fields. FEMA’s National Preparedness Directorate consists of three training branches that offer training and educational advancement opportunities for federal, state, tribal, local, and whole community practitioners:
- Emergency Management Institute (EMI): EMI educates individuals on how to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate the potential effects of disasters and emergencies. Students may be able to apply for college credit upon completion of their courses.
- Center for Domestic Preparedness (CPD): Facilitating training through DHS training partners, CDP focuses on identifying, developing, testing, and delivering training specifically to state, local, and tribal emergency response providers.
- National Training and Education Division (NTED): NTED manages and administers the National Domestic Preparedness Consortium (NPDC), which is comprised of seven training partners — including institutions of higher education — whose membership is based on addressing emergency first responders' counter-terrorism preparedness needs.
Individuals with Disabilities and Others with Access and Functional Needs
The Ad Council and FEMA launched a public service advertisement (PSA) as part of a series of videos that illustrate how people with disabilities can take charge to prepare themselves and their families for emergencies. The new PSA, which will be available on the Ad Council’s and FEMA’s YouTube channels, as well as in the FEMA media library, emphasizes the Ready.gov campaign’s four building blocks of preparedness: Be Informed, Make a Plan, Build a Kit, and Get Involved.
Resource: Youth Preparedness Catalogue — Disaster Preparedness Education Programs and Resources
This catalogue (PDF, 108 pages) identifies existing national, regional, and state-level programs, curricula, and resources for individuals interested in promoting youth preparedness education.
Share with Youth: How Youth Can Move the Needle of Emergency Preparedness
This blog post highlights the accomplishments of Hailey Starr, a FEMA Youth Preparedness Council member from the Muckleshoot reservation in the Pacific Northwest. Hailey describes what she has done to improve the level of preparedness on the reservation where she lives, including producing a video on active shooter awareness, creating emergency backpacks for the community elders, and coordinating an emergency preparedness fair.
Resource: Children and Disasters
This web page aims to help state, local, and tribal governments, as well as stakeholders responsible for the temporary care of children, integrate children’s disaster-related needs into preparedness, planning, response, and recovery efforts.
Resource: 2017 National Seasonal Preparedness Messaging Calendar
This resource highlights important messages, organized by month and season, which can be used to promote preparedness all year. Individuals engaged in preparedness efforts can adapt these materials to fit the needs of local areas in order to promote readiness and safety in their communities.
Share with Youth: Advice to Young Adults from Young Adults: Helpful Hints for Policy Change in the Mental Health System
This resource (PDF, 8 pages) can guide youth- and young adult-led organizations that want to make policy changes in the mental health system. Developed bythe Research and Training Center for Pathways to Positive Futures and Portland State University, it contains recommendations and quotes from a series of interviews with young adult leaders from advocacy groups that focus on mental health challenges or living in foster care.
Share with Youth: Changing the Rules: A Guide for Youth and Young Adults with Mental Health Conditions Who Want to Change Policy
This policy guide, developed by Pathways RTC (Research and Training Center), is written for youth- and young adult-led groups and organizations that want to make changes in policies related to mental health and other human services that affect them and other transition-age youth. The guide is intended for use by youth and young adults working together within a group or organization to make specific change, usually in partnership with other agencies, groups, or organizations.
A Comparison of Four Restorative Conferencing Models
This Bulletin focuses on four restorative conferencing models: victim-offender mediation, community reparative boards, family group conferencing, and circle sentencing. It first describes each of the four restorative conferencing models, then compares and contrasts.
A Guide to Assessing Your Community’s Youth Gang Problem
An important facet to implementing OJJDP's Comprehensive Gang Model in a community is to first assess the youth gang problem. This assessment includes collecting quantitative and qualitative data from community representatives such as law enforcement, school faculty, youth, parents, community leaders, probation officers, gang members, grass roots organizations, and local government. Data collected includes the perception of the gang problem as well as what the community considers as priority needs such as tutoring, jobs training, increased police presence, and mentoring for youth.
Addressing the Problem of Juvenile Bullying
This brief provides child caretakers and educators with a definition of bullying and strategies for how to address and prevent it.
Behavioral Health Problems, Treatment, and Outcomes in Serious Youthful Offenders
This bulletin from OJJDP summarizes findings from analyses of data from the Pathways to Desistance study, which followed more than 1,300 serious youthful offenders for seven years after their court involvement. These analyses addressed the overlap of behavioral health problems and offending behavior (PDF, 16 pages), the care young people with disorders received while in juvenile justice settings, and the care received in the community upon their release. Implications for juvenile justice practice and policy and potential opportunities for system improvement are discussed.
Amber Alert: Best Practices
“AMBER Alert Best Practices,” published by the Department of Justice, discusses the most effective strategies that AMBER (America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response) partners have provided for recovering missing children. It explains the history of the system, the role each partner plays in child recovery and how to use the resources provided as best as possible.
Balanced and Restorative Justice for Juveniles: A Framework for Juvenile Justice in the 21st Century
This document makes the case for a new mission for juvenile justice known as the "Balanced Approach," and advocates consideration of a new philosophical framework, "Restorative Justice," to guide broader policy development and reform in juvenile justice.
Alaska Native Tribal Courts Gain Right to Protect Women in Domestic Violence Cases
With the repeal of the “Alaska Exemption” from the 2013 Violence Against Women Act, Alaska Native communities will now be able to use their sovereign authority to protect women from domestic violence. This repeal was one of the recommendations in the recently released report, Ending Violence So Children Can Thrive (PDF, 258 pages) developed by the Advisory Committee of the Task Force on American Indian and Alaska Native Children Exposed to Violence.
Attorney General’s Advisory Committee on American Indian and Alaska Native Children Exposed to Violence: Ending Violence so Children Can Thrive
Commissioned as part of Attorney General Eric Holder’s Defending Childhood initiative, this report from the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee on American Indian and Alaska Native Children Exposed to Violence provides recommendations to address the impact of violence on tribal youth (PDF, 258 pages) through trauma-informed and culturally appropriate programs and services.
Aftercare Services
This Bulletin examines aftercare services that provide youth with comprehensive health, mental health, education, family, and vocational services upon their release from the juvenile justice system.