With Valentine’s Day approaching, it’s the perfect time to help your team practice articulating your preparedness and response efforts as an expression of love. Whether it’s love of friends and family, or love of community and personal interests, most people will be happier and more interested in participating in disaster readiness activities when the context and reason is wrapped around who or what they love.

A simple way to start is to ask each member of your team “who do you love?” Follow up with making sure they do something to increase the preparedness of the people they named. For some people, an easier question to open the discussion is “what do you love to do?” Together you can find ways to weave preparedness into whatever activity they choose!

Tip: To get everyone into the mood, share what you absolutely LOVE about preparedness, safety, and disaster readiness

Happy Valentine’s Day!

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February 7th, 2011 | Tags: community, Family, Holiday, love, personal, Preparedness, team, team-building, Teambuilding | Category: 2011, STAT, STAT 5MM | Leave a comment

Whether it’s hanging a simple wreath, stringing festive lights, or erecting a major outdoor holiday display, this time of year causes us to pull out and put up many kinds of decorations. This is a great opportunity for safety and preparedness enthusiasts! We can demonstrate and insist on proper ladder use, ensure that decorations do not obscure fire alarms, extinguishers, first aid kits, or exits, and remind people of and help them to follow the safety instructions on packages. While you’ve got the ladder and tool box out, it’s also a great time to post safety signage and nudge notices, install smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, attend to minor repairs, and use some museum wax or earthquake putty to secure breakables.  Holiday decorations may get more notice, but decorating for safety can save lives!

For free safety signage and nudge notices, please visit: http://cardcanhelp.org/resources/

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November 30th, 2009 | Tags: celebration, Family, Holiday, Preparedness, saf, Safety | Category: 2009, STAT 5MM | Leave a comment

Thanksgiving celebrations almost always bring people and food together. With H1N1 circulating, this is a great time to help people adopt safer food sharing behaviors. Some solutions: have ample toothpicks, cutlery, napkins, small plates, small cups, serving tongs, scoops, and ladles – anything to minimize multiple hands coming in contact with shared items. Post attractive reminders about “no double dipping” of ANYTHING once it’s bitten or handled. Cut up or separate items that normally have to be pulled apart (bread, grapes, etc.) Strategically place hand sanitizer everywhere. Serve from smaller bowls and containers to reduce the number of people in contact with each offering. Remember: Make this a happy positive act of love and care, done to keep each other healthy, safe and well. Have a healthy, safe, and loving Thanksgiving!

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November 23rd, 2009 | Tags: celebration, Family, food, Preparedness, Thanksgiving | Category: 2009, STAT 5MM | Leave a comment

For many, this holiday season comes with some extra stress. Some stressors include: how to have safe gatherings during a pandemic, gift giving when money is limited, or simply helping friends or family through hard times. There is one key preparedness solution to help with all of these issues: communication. Get EVERYONE communicating. Some things to address: handling flu safety, using free services (including Skype) to include people who can’t attend in person, and limiting or foregoing gifts entirely.

The important thing is to get EVERYONE communicating, updating everyone’s contact information, and flexing your individual and collective capacity to reach each other by email, text messages, conference calls, social media or other means.  Prepare for a wonderful, loving holiday season by communicating and building resilient communication systems with the people you love most.

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November 16th, 2009 | Tags: communication, Family, Holiday | Category: 2009, STAT, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

We all have loved ones — friends, family members, clients we serve — for whom preparedness is not a reality.  When it’s simply an inability to assemble the supplies, you can help. Start with the items that are free and unique to each person: personal contact information, medical needs, and personal preferences.  Move up toward helping people to have this information on them in some way. For anyone unable to be fully responsible for their own preparedness, help build a circle of informed and prepared care-providers around them.

Start small, remember to think sustainable, not just attainable, and remember: helping the people we love to be prepared, is one of the most loving things you can do, and you are building your own capacity to remain calm and focused in an emergency.

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August 17th, 2009 | Tags: Family, supplies | Category: STAT 5MM | Leave a comment

Many of us visit with friends and family over the holidays. While you’re together, slip in a little bit of simple social preparedness. Each of these actions leaves you a little more prepared: get new photos of each other; exchange updated contact information; and make sure you know each other’s designated out-of-area emergency contacts. If you’re visiting with loved ones who might not think to address their own preparedness, help them be more prepared by writing down important information, programing key information into their phones, and asking them to help you practice some preparedness skills. Have them quiz you on CPR or First Aid questions or ask them to review your emergency plan — to see whether they can think of something you’ve overlooked. Both of you will be more prepared as a result!

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December 15th, 2008 | Tags: Family, Holiday | Category: STAT 5MM | Leave a comment