Our Programs
Our goal is to provide families with relief and support when a disaster or crisis occurs. We do this through two primary programs:
- Emergency Child Care Volunteer Program
- Mental Health PTSD Home Visit Program
Preparing for a Crisis
Emergency Child Care Volunteer Program
Emergency Child Care Volunteer Program deploys vetted child care volunteers directly to the family when a crisis occurs.
Disasters are upsetting experiences for everyone involved, but especially for children. Disasters can leave children feeling frightened, confused, and insecure. Children may respond to disaster by demonstrating fears, sadness or behavioral problems. Younger children may return to earlier behavior patterns, such as bedwetting, sleep problems and separation anxiety. Older children may also display anger, aggression, school problems or withdrawal.
With so many natural disasters occurring today, and now the increase in school shootings, children are seeing and experiencing things they shouldn’t have to — being evacuated, seeing injured or dying people or animals, losing their home and belongings, losing immediate access to basic needs, being injured themselves, and feeling that their own lives are threatened.
“In the aftermath of Helene with our home damaged and our family displaced, National Emergency Child Care Network was an invaluable resource providing amazing support in our hardest moments. Each caretaker that looked after our kids was so kind and nurturing that it gave us the peace of mind we needed to get things moving forward with rebuilding our home.” Ryan Crabtree, Hurricane Helene survivor
Children and families also suffer from post-disaster ongoing stress which includes transitional housing, living in shelters or hotels, losing contact with their friends and neighbors, losing things that are important to them, parental job loss, and the financial costs of reestablishing their previous living conditions.
While the burden of all of this is overwhelming for families, we can help children and families better cope when we provide them with social support systems such as free immediate child care when they need it most.
Free care visits for disaster survivors
Mental Health PTSD Home Visit Program
Disasters are upsetting experiences for everyone involved, especially for children and parents, whom often suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after a disaster.
After responding to two of the most destructive disasters in recent US history – The LA Fires and Hurricane Helene – we have witnessed that PTSD in parents and children is one of the most significantly unchecked and unmet needs in the long-term recovery of families in these disasters. For this reason, NECCN is launching a new “Disaster PTSD Mental Health Care” program to provide an even more comprehensive care package to survivors of disasters.
After 6 months of active deployments, we are seeing more and more mothers suffering from PTSD from these disasters. Hurricane Helene and the LA Fires have both been incredibly traumatic experiences, involving loss of life, property damage, and a significant disruption of daily life. The severity of these disaster, pre-existing mental health conditions, and post-disaster stressors have influenced the onset of PTSD in mothers.
In an effort to provide long-term recovery care to families who experienced these disasters, we started a new PTSD Mental Health Care program where Mental Health Workers visit the homes of families for up to 1-3 visits at no charge to the family.
Mental Health Workers can play a crucial role in treating disaster-related PTSD by providing specialized care and support to individuals affected by traumatic events. This includes assessing reactions, providing psychological first aid, and connecting survivors with longer-term mental health services. They will help survivors recognize signs of PTSD, anxiety, depression, and other mental health challenges. Mental Health Workers will utilize various evidence-based treatments for PTSD, such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and exposure therapy. They will also provide counseling, support groups, and other psychosocial interventions to help individuals cope with their trauma and regain a sense of normalcy. The Mental Health Workers will first work with the parents to identify any concerns, and then assess the health and wellbeing of the children.
Partner with Us
Join us in bringing emergency child care and mental health care to families in crisis. Nearly 2.5 million Americans had to leave their homes because of 28 weather and climate-related disasters in 2023. Nearly 30% of individuals injured in these disasters were children.
On a global level, weather-related disasters caused 43.1 million internal displacements of children in 44 countries over a six-year period (2016 and 2021) – approximately 20,000 child displacements a day – according to UNICEF.
National Emergency Child Care Network
Our goal is to ensure every family has equal opportunity to access and utilize free emergency child care during a crisis.