This Participatory School Disaster Management Toolkit has been developed by Save the Children as a contribution towards the implementation of Comprehensive School Safety Pillar 2 – School Disaster Management, in support of the Worldwide Initiative for School Safety.
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Participatory School Disaster Management Toolkit
General information
The toolkit is aimed at school disaster management, risk prevention, and community awareness. It contains three integrated parts, which are a Participatory School Disaster Management handbook, a school disaster management plan form templates for school use and annual review, and student & community participatory activities.
It is designed to be updated over time (ring-binder approach) and adapted to different contexts.
Every year, natural and technological hazards become both small and large disasters. A range of everyday risks can threaten the lives of children, their families, and education personnel. There are many situations that deprive children of their right to an equitable, continuous, quality, basic education in a safe environment. Natural and human hazards are part of the context for educational planning. The toolkit is aimed at school disaster management, with a series of specific objectives:
- Protect students and staff from death and injury in schools
- Plan for educational continuity in the face of expected hazards
- Strengthen a disaster resilient citizenry through education
- Safeguard educational investments
Status
Purpose
Topics For Preparedness
Hazard Type
Geographical Scope - Nuts
Geographical Scope
Population Size
Population Density
Needs Addressed
The problem addressed is how to ensure children’s safety and educational continuity in the face of hazards that can cause deaths/injuries at school and disrupt schooling through damaged facilities, unsafe access, prolonged use as shelters, or loss of materials and teachers. The toolkit positions school disaster management as the process to plan for physical protection, response capacity, and educational continuity at school level.
Children are the core group the toolkit is designed to protect, explicitly discussing threats to children’s lives and right to education. The toolkit recommends including representatives of vulnerable groups, explicitly naming people with disabilities among examples, but doesn't specify further
The toolkit sets out a school-based governance model centred on a School Safety / School Disaster Management Committee (often a sub-committee of an existing school management structure) with representation across administration, teaching/non-teaching staff, students, parents, and links with local disaster management authorities and community actors.
School Disaster Management is the process of assessment and then planning for physical protection, response capacity development, and educational continuity, at the individual school level and education sector administrative levels.
Infrastructure readiness is not specified in the source, since the toolkit is aimed at addressing different threats in different geographical areas, thus implying a diversity of infrastructure readiness levels.
Engagement is used to ensure the disaster management plan is co-developed, understood, practiced, and continuously improved by the whole school community (staff, students, families, and linked local actors), so the “real plan” is the one everyone knows and can implement.
Committee-based participation through a School Safety / SDM Committee; regular meetings (monthly in the first year suggested); participatory activities with students and the school community through assemblies, classroom/after-school activities, and community activities; drills including evacuations and simulations; annual review and revision of planning forms.
The toolkit expects stakeholders (school administration, staff, students, parents/community and local DM-linked actors) to shape the school disaster management plan through participatory committee leadership, reviewing/revising plan templates annually, and practicing/improving procedures through drills and ongoing planning steps.
Capacity is built through development of skills and provisions for preparedness, response, and rapid recovery, plus routine practice (evacuation drills and a full simulation drill annually) and ongoing plan updating. The toolkit frames school disaster management as continuous improvement rather than a one-off document.
Vulnerable Groups
Governance
Emergency Preparedness
Infrastructure Readiness
Engagement Level
Empowerment Level
Implementation
Three-part integrated design (handbook + plan templates + participatory activities) intended to be used together and kept in a ring binder for continuous updating. It provides an explicit step structure (before/during/after disaster) including risk identification (“Knowing Our Dangers”), risk reduction, response preparation, educational continuity planning, monitoring/outreach/advocacy, and plan implementation. It is also explicitly designed for adaptation to different contexts and notes that this version targets schools with more than 100 students (with guidance to simplify for smaller schools).
English
School administration (principal/assistant principal suggested leadership); DRR/DRM focal point; teachers; non-teaching staff; students (ideally elected representatives); parents (e.g., PTA); local disaster management committee; and, particularly for larger schools, facilities/maintenance/security/health/counselling/transport staff and neighbourhood/community representatives (including public safety officials such as police/fire through liaison).
Highly dependent on the local context
Save the Children has decades of documented experience in supporting the right to education of children across the globe, with specific attention to risk management and infrastructure preparedness/resilience to natural and man-made hazards with specific reference to school facilities.
The toolkit lays out a step sequence for planning and action, including:
- Step 1: Knowing Our Dangers
- Step 2: Reducing Our Dangers
- Step 3: Preparing to Respond
- Step 4: Planning for Educational Continuity
- Step 5: Monitoring, Reaching Out, and Advocating
- Step 6: Implementing Our Plan (during/after a disaster)
Human/time resources are implied (committee meetings; focal point; staff/student/community participation; drills), but no other information is available on financial and material resource use
The toolkit adopts a full disaster management cycle, explicitly structured around before, during, and after a disaster. It operationalises this through a sequenced framework that includes:
- risk identification and assessment (“Knowing Our Dangers”),
- risk reduction and preparedness,
- response actions during emergencies,
- recovery and educational continuity after disasters.
The approach is monitored and iterative: schools are instructed to review and update the disaster management plan annually, conduct regular drills (including at least one full simulation per year), and maintain continuous oversight through a designated School Disaster Management Committee. This establishes an ongoing monitoring and improvement cycle rather than a one-off plan.
Target Audience
Resources Required
Timeframe & Phases
Participation Results
Effective school disaster management depends less on producing a static plan and more on embedding an ongoing, participatory process within everyday school governance. The toolkit shows that risk reduction, preparedness, response and recovery are most effective when responsibilities are shared across school leadership, staff, students and the wider community, and when plans are regularly reviewed, practised through drills, and adapted to changing risks and capacities. It also highlights that school disaster management must explicitly include planning for educational continuity after disasters, not only immediate response actions.
The toolkit does not report challenges from a specific implementation. However, it anticipates common participation challenges (e.g. limited time, varying capacities, uneven engagement) and addresses them through adaptive design choices, including integration into existing school governance structures, flexibility according to school size and context, and an iterative planning process supported by regular meetings, drills, and participatory activities involving students and the wider school community.
Risk mitigation is operationalised through a multi-hazard school disaster management plan that includes risk identification, risk reduction measures, preparedness actions, response procedures, and recovery and educational continuity planning. These elements are reviewed and updated periodically through the School Disaster Management Committee.
Risk & Mitigation Plan
Scalability and Sustainability
The toolkit is designed as a living document, being adaptable and updatable; sustainability is therefore based on institutionalisation at school level. Annual review and routine drills are core requirements for sustainability.
The toolkit is explicitly intended to be adapted to different national, sub-national, and local contexts. It is presented as a template rather than a fixed model and includes guidance for adaptation based on school size, capacity, and context. The document notes that this version is designed for schools with 100 or more students and provides guidance on simplification for smaller schools.
The toolkit relies on low-tech, document-based tools and participatory methods, placing emphasis on educational continuity and on psychosocial support, as well as process design and shared governance, rather than on tech-intensive solutions.
The toolkit does not specify a financial model. Sustainability is based on integration into existing school structures, roles, and routines, enabling continued implementation without reliance on external project funding.
The toolkit does not specify a financial model. Sustainability is based on integration into existing school structures, roles, and routines, enabling continued implementation without reliance on external project funding.