4. Preparedness

4.9. Communications

This section will briefly outline key audiences, messaging tips, and specific guidance for dissemination by disaster phase.

Overall helpful strategies for effective communication:

  • Toolkits with message templates for internal stakeholders:
    • Staff briefings and updates
    • Leadership specific messages
  • Toolkits with message templates for external partners or groups:
    • Social media
    • Press releases
    • Family handouts
  • A pediatric behavioral health subject matter expert trained to speak to media, governmental partners, families, and press
  • Integrate into existing Joint Information Systems (JIS) and Joint Information Centers (JIC)
  • Plan for ongoing monitoring and measurement of communication reach and impact

Why Pediatric Behavioral Health Matters: A Communication Strategy

Key messages and talking points:

Key Message Talking Points
  1. Children are uniquely vulnerable in disasters.
 Developmental stage, dependency on adults, and trauma exposure all heighten risk. There is often an inaccurate assumption that kids will just “bounce back” or they aren’t as aware of what has happened in a crisis or disaster.
  1. Behavioral health needs are often more widespread and not as visible compared with physical injuries.
 While most children will experience some short-term stress and recover, some will develop disorders without early intervention. Triage and effective early support is much more efficient and helpful than waiting to manage big symptoms later.
  1. Unmet pediatric MH needs burden entire systems.
 Unmet MH needs in children can cause parents to miss work, which impacts wages and time; health systems can lack capacity for both inpatient and outpatient services, stressing emergency services.
  1. Addressing pediatric MH early can change long-term outcomes.
 Appropriate care and community support can reduce family financial strain, school dropout, and suicide risk.
  1. Resilience and recovery depends on how we support children.
 Families cannot recover if children are hurting. Communities that fail to support children in crisis can realize real economic impacts, including lost wages, missed mortgage payments, and increased demand on public social safety net services.

Alignment of toolkit principles and communication strategy: 

Toolkit Principle How Communication Aligns
Readiness Pre-disaster MH message templates integrated in preparedness exercises build public trust before the crisis hits.

Timely Support

Real-time, developmentally appropriate, simple, and data-driven messaging for families; focus on resilience and transparency; updates to staff and partners on capacity and demand
Informed Response Culturally and linguistically adapted messages; engage most-impacted communities in ethical and appropriate ways, curate co-creators of communications from within impacted sub-groups when possible
Sustainability Build long-term trust; reinforce MH as essential to whole-community recovery; support staff resilience concretely; back up messaging with action to reinforce credibility
Misinformation Combat misinformation by coordinating a unified, "one voice" message across all levels of response to ensure accuracy, consistency, and speed in releasing information, including real-time social media monitoring, preparing pre-vetted messaging, partnering with trusted local voices, and launching targeted campaigns to debunk harmful rumors

Recommendations for Preparedness, Response, and Recovery:

Incident Management

1. Internal Communications (Within the Hospital)

Audiences: Hospital leadership, clinical and non-clinical staff, incident command, behavioral health providers

Pre-disaster (Preparedness)

    • Engage your hospital press/comms team, hospital leadership, government relations, and legal department to proactively build a communication plan
    • Describe in clear and non-technical jargon what the pediatric disaster behavioral health impacts include: ED psychiatric boarding, outpatient referral backlogs, rates of suicide and self-injurious behaviors, decreased school attendance, and overall quality of life.
    • Share case examples of delayed pediatric distress and strain on departments beyond psych (e.g., ED, primary care, social work).
    • Integrate DBH into relevant emergency communication plans.
    • Prepare just-in-time content (e.g., scripts, FAQs) for leaders and communication teams. 

    • Define behavioral health communication tasks and responsibilities in incident command communication streams.

During disaster (Response)

    • Coordinate messaging across roles/departments.
    • Activate PDBH messaging.
      • General: Staff wellness updates, MH surge alerts, internal/external referral pathways
      • Clinical services: patient mental risk triage and support workflows
    • Communicate “key things to know” about behavioral health impacts and demands (bed capacity, boarding, inpatient capacity, staff capacity, etc.) to internal teams based on regularly updated data.

Post-disaster (Recovery)

    • Provide department-specific updates focused on impacts on staff and pediatric populations based on internal and external data.
    • Share updated guidance as needs evolve. Disseminate key messages with frontline and administrative staff.
    • Prepare for recurring and surge related needs and related messaging, such as during anniversary dates.

2. External Communications – Government & Emergency Management Partners

Audience: public health departments, children’s disaster behavioral health coordinating groups, emergency management, primary care providers (PCPs), community/frontline behavioral health professionals

Pre-disaster

  • Pre-coordinate messaging templates with emergency management partners.
  • Use state hospital association guidance templates to ensure consistency in communication across hospitals.
  • Engage with planning, training, and exercising related to Joint Information Systems (JIS) and Centers (JIC).
  • Create a framework35 with state and local agencies to understand and communicate PDBH trends in real time (e.g., regional crisis (ED) visits, boarding numbers, calls to 988, poison control, inpatient admissions, and outpatient visit numbers via Medicare and private insurance data).
  • Collaborate with adult-focused community hospitals and support each other.
    • Share communication plans and template messages.
    • Adult hospitals may require specialty consultations and referrals for care that are traditionally out of their scope of expertise.
  • Children’s hospitals lead wellness messaging with coordinating points of contact in local school district leadership to ensure communication coordination.

During disaster

  • Share data summaries of behavioral health demand and capacity with partners, including schools.
  • Provide pediatric-specific MH updates to include in situation reports.
    • Emphasis on at-risk sub-groups and special populations
  • Coordinate behavioral health public messaging through established communication teams and protocols, including external groups such as Joint Information Systems (JIS) and Centers (JIC).

Post-disaster

  • Disseminate recovery-phase behavioral health messaging.
  • Collaborate on long-term support messaging campaigns, considering the phases of disasters
    • Delayed MH impact timelines
    • Reconnection points for primary care and behavioral health follow-up
    • Faith-based, rural, and culturally tailored partners as amplifiers
    • Additional support as needed for marginalized groups

3. External Communications – Community & Families

Audience: Parents, caregivers, educators/schools, faith-based organizations

Pre-disaster

    • Share anticipatory guidance  such as expected disaster reactions. Disseminate materials in multiple languages and formats (video, print, social media).
    • Disseminate pre-developed resources, such as those outlined in the toolbox section of the toolkit, via:
      • Schools
      • Pediatricians’ offices
      • Faith and cultural organizations
      • Youth ambassadors, social media influencers
      • Youth sports leagues
      • Community family centers
    • Build trust by engaging community partners in MH messaging development.
    • Develop and distribute adolescent-targeted messaging through age-appropriate platforms (channels and influencers vary by age cohort).
      • Consider peer-led content development. Recognize that adolescents are independent consumers of disaster information and misinformation through phones and social media and not only recipients of caregiver-mediated messaging.

During disaster

    • Provide clear, trauma-informed messaging via social media, websites, and community partners.
    • Co-brand with trusted organizations (e.g., fire department, schools, local faith groups).
    • Focus on accessibility: visual-friendly materials, culturally adapted messages.
      • Route through trusted local channels: public schools, churches, farm bureaus, tribal councils
      • Ensure materials are accurately translated. 

Post-disaster

    • Normalize delayed distress, promote coping, and reduce stigma.
    • Publicize access points to mental health services and supports outside of stressed zones.
    • Share stories of recovery and resilience.
    • Continue to advocate resource access for marginalized groups or those who have been impacted more strongly by the disaster.

Hospital-as-Victim Scenarios

  • Conduct communications planning that accounts for events in which the hospital itself is affected, including cyberattack, infrastructure damage, mass casualty inside or near the facility, or a workforce event affecting many staff. 
    • These scenarios present distinct communications challenges: loss of normal channels (email, intranet, phone), employees as victims, regulatory disclosure obligations, and public concern about institutional capacity. 
    • Pre-planning should address alternative communication channels, employee-facing messaging when staff are themselves affected, and the timing of public disclosures in coordination with legal, regulatory, and law enforcement partners.