POP-UP DAY CAMP DISASTER RESPONSE

Community Safety

County of Los Angeles

Expand existing project, program, or initiative

The emergency response infrastructure wasn't designed to account for the needs of children and families. With climate change increasing the frequency and severity of natural disasters, explicit plans for child welfare during emergencies must be put in place to support kid's mental wellbeing and provide parents with time to process and deal with the exigent circumstances that come with these events. The National Risk Index shows historically disadvantaged communities are often the hardest hit by these disasters and experience high rates of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), which can turn into lifelong childhood trauma. While there's been an increase in awareness around children's needs, a historical lack of resources - both financial and operational - means there must be sustained, multi-year pressure upon individuals and institutions in control of these emergency response mechanisms in order to implement systemic change.

Project:Camp will use funding from LA 2050 to support our capacity to pop-up day camp in the community in the aftermath of a disaster, such as a wildfire, earthquake or flash flood. The funds will go directly to the program costs and include allocations to get staff on the ground in the disaster area, organize volunteers, secure supplies and resources from the local community, and provide a free, trauma-informed space for kids to be kids. These funds will be used to implement a program that allows children to process through play, helping to mitigate the long-term effects of such an extreme event. We will pay program staff, purchase fun camp supplies and activities, and organize a network within the community so that local volunteers can be a part of supporting their community during a time of crisis.

Project:Camp will redefine disaster relief by centering the needs of children and families in this ecosystem. By focusing on these needs, we can change the orientation of disaster response from one that is strength-based and highly militarized to focusing on community needs, mental health and long-term resilience. Project:Camp will build a network of childcare professionals in LA County that can build and execute a plan to respond to the needs of children and families with the County Office of Emergency Services. The network that we will build will empower community organizations to work together with Project:Camp so that we can respond to childcare needs across the county, creating a scope and scale for this work that is bigger that Project:Camp itself.

Some of the key performance indicators (KPIs) that we track for our pop-up day camps include: number of community organizations recruited to support camp, local volunteers trained, number of children cared for and hours of free, meaningful childcare provided. Beyond these quantitative KPIs, we also seek qualitative goals, including deep engagement from community partners, establishment of local collaborative initiatives to help sustain this work, and inclusion of groups who can help us care for children of all backgrounds including those who live in rural areas, non-English speakers, those living on tribal/sovereign land, and members of historically marginalized groups. Project:Camp makes every effort to ensure that our outcomes and impact are clear, measurable and documented.