Let’s Talk About: Safety
According to a 2020 national poll conducted by Disasterchecklist.org, nearly 78% of Americans are unprepared for a potential emergency.
As the battle against COVID-19 and its variants continue along with threats from climate change, we’re at a crucial moment in our lives to think about disaster preparedness and emergency response. Resources such as food, water, and medicine may not be readily available during a crisis. What’s necessary to prepare? Who do we reach out to? How do we keep ourselves and those around us safe? These questions and more are prevalent when creating an emergency plan in response to potential disasters, from house fires to disease to hurricanes. Keeping you and your family safe can be as simple as making preparations in advance and practicing them.
We’ve recently announced the preorder of our new book around emergency prep, A Kids Book About Safety. This book highlights the vulnerabilities we’re exposed to when faced with disaster. It not only inspects the physical aspects of disasters and the damage they cause but the emotional and mental impacts as well. Despite these scary and often traumatic events the book acknowledges, it also reminds us that we have the opportunity to prepare and provides the necessary steps and guidance for creating an emergency plan. Experiencing a disaster is a challenge in itself, but having and knowing an emergency plan can help keep you safe.
To help build a stronger, informative message for A Kids Book About Safety, we’ve partnered with JUDY — a leading force in the emergency preparedness space — to help make this important book. Created by Simon Huck, JUDY’s mission is to help every family stay prepared in the event of an emergency. Simon found the inspiration to create the organization after a close friend lost his house in a fire and after learning just how many Americans are unprepared to respond to a disaster. With ready-kits, prep guides, and more, JUDY offers an abundance of resources and tools to help you plan and prepare a strategy. Simon is also the co-host of the podcast Emergency Contact, which explores a variety of topics from pop culture to parenting while maintaining Simon’s mission to always be prepared.
JUDY also works alongside Soraya Sutherlin, a regional communications manager and certified emergency manager by the International Association of Emergency Managers, with over 13 years of experience — she is also the author of A Kids Book About Safety! Soraya has worked across the USA helping families, cities, and states better prepare for emergencies and disasters. She teaches for one of the seven federal management and homeland security organizations, the National Center for Biomedical Research and Training, based out of Louisiana State University. With a husband who works as a firefighter, Soraya and her family of three are well-versed in emergency preparedness. With her combined personal and professional experiences, Soraya is fully prepared to help you and your family stay safe and create a safety plan.
With the preorder of A Kids Book About Safety underway, it’s our goal to provide kids and their families with the knowledge to empower themselves when it comes to emergency preparedness. Disasters are scary, but with the right amount of knowledge and preparation, you can navigate such an experience safely and efficiently. It’s never too late to come up with a plan. Whether you’ve never talked about it with your kids before or don’t know where to begin, this book is here to help you navigate the process. Let’s start the conversation.
