Evaluation Report—Building State and VOAD Capacities to Protect Children in Emergencies

This report summarizes research conducted by the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado
Boulder to evaluate Save the Children’s Building State Voluntary Organizations Active in Disasters (VOAD) Capacities
to Protect Children in Emergencies Project. This project was designed to assess how state-level VOADs can build
capacity to address children’s needs before, during, and after disaster. Children are an important group. One-quarter of the U.S. population is children under the age of 18, and they are especially vulnerable to disasters—yet they are often overlooked in disaster planning and response.

This project involved multi-method research in the focal states of Arkansas and Nebraska and in collaboration
with members of VOADs, emergency management, and child serving organizations in both states. The evaluation
team conducted participatory engagement exercises, survey research, secondary data analysis and GIS mapping,
and a social network analysis survey. Key findings from both states included:

(1) VOAD’s are likely to respond to children and families in a disaster. In our initial survey, more than 80% of participants from Arkansas and 76% of participants from Nebraska selected that their organizations would be “very likely” or “likely” to assist children and/or families during a catastrophic disaster and more than 72% of respondents from Arkansas and 68% of
respondents from Nebraska selected that their organization would be “very likely” or “likely” to assist children and/or families during a low-attention disaster.

(2) VOAD’s are not fully ready to meet children’s needs in a disaster. When asked whether respondents had “personally received training related to protecting children in emergencies,” 56% of Arkansas participants reported “no,” whereas 47% of Nebraska participants reported “no.” A majority of respondents in each state, however, selected that their organization is either “knowledgeable” or “somewhat knowledgeable” (Arkansas: 71%; Nebraska: 57%) about the needs of children during disasters.

(3) VOAD organizations face a number of constraints that impede their ability to collaborate and appropriately address children’s disaster-specific needs. In both states, “insufficient funding” was the most reported concern or challenge that affected organizations’ ability to respond effectively to disasters. Other frequently reported constraints included challenges with “maintaining high quality staff/volunteers,” “insufficient equipment or other material resources,” and difficulties associated with “inter-organizational coordination.” Within the social network analysis surveys for both Arkansas and Nebraska, participants shared feedback regarding the challenges of collaboration. These included: a lack of resources, staff turnover, time constraints, geographic distance, and different styles of communication.

(4) Rural areas are under-represented in state-level VOAD structures and therefore children living in these areas are likely to be underserved during times of disaster. Participatory asset mapping activities in both states revealed critical gaps in service provision for rural areas, with metropolitan areas receiving the most attention in terms of organizational representation
and resources. Analysis of secondary data and interactive GIS maps also revealed a dearth of child-serving organizations in rural areas, despite high levels of social vulnerability among children and their families within these areas.

(5) There are many unrealized opportunities for the exchange of child-specific resources among organizations within VOADs. According to findings from the social network analysis, child-specific networks for exchanging resources were among the least cohesive of all the networks measured in the survey. This means that when comparing the different types of resource exchange networks, such as those that exchange information or technical assistance, there were fewer established networks and opportunities for exchanging child-specific resources within both state VOADs. In fact, the survey showed that many organizations within each state were not seeking child resources at all. In both Arkansas and Nebraska, the social network analysis also revealed low levels of interaction within the VOADs. This may negatively affect organizations’ ability to provide and coordinate child-specific resources and services to communities affected by disaster.

Based on these findings, this report recommends adopting the five state-level indicators to help assess and monitor state progress in building capacity to address children’s needs in disaster.