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Last year I had the opportunity to speak to hundreds of College Health Professionals at the 2008 ACHA (American College Health Association) annual meeting in Orlando.
I, along with Readymoms Alliance Director Dr. Susan Chu , held down the Readymoms booth in the exhibition hall. We provided information to hundreds of doctors, nurses, and school administrators on ways students, their families, and schools could prepare for a pandemic.
One of the Readymoms Displays.
The Readymoms are a volunteer, grassroots, organization that began a little more than two years ago to spread the pandemic preparedness message.
Over the past two years they have attended many high profile events, such as the APHA (American Public Health Association) Convention in Washington D.C and the Second National Emergency Management Summit, also held in the nation's capital.
At the ACHA meeting one of the things we were promoting was that all students needed a pandemic plan which would include emergency travel plans back home, and a `flu kit’ to give them a week or two worth of food/supplies in case they found themselves quarantined in their dorm.
Most of the college health care professionals we spoke to seemed very receptive to the ideas. You can read more about the ACHA conference in Feedback From The ACHA Conference and The Readymom's Alliance In Orlando.
While much of the material we were handing out at the time was geared to a more severe H5N1 pandemic, a lot of the information still applies to the novel H1N1 pandemic we now find ourselves dealing with.
Karen, the founder of the Readymoms, has been working to upload revised Readymom’s guidance documents to her Scribd account, where anyone can download them for free.
I’ve just reproduced part of the 2-page document below. Get the whole thing by going here.
This is just one of the many Readymoms Alliance guidance documents you can download, use, and share with others.
The idea behind the Readymoms is to give people the information they need so that they can go out into their community and help spread pandemic awareness. All of these toolkits are free, and easily adaptable to your own needs.
Other handouts available include:
- Handout-Flu Buddy-PDF Version
- Handout-Pandemic Parenting 5-PDF Version
- Handout-Oral Re Hydration Solution
- Handout-Flu Buddy
Plus numerous other guidance documents on emergency cooking, sanitation, water supplies, etc.
The take home message with everything provided by the Readymoms is that individuals and families are not powerless in a pandemic (or any other disaster).
We can all take steps to prepare and to protect our loved ones.
Armed with these downloads from the Readymoms, you’ll be in better shape to do just that.
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