The information below is provided by the National
Public Engagement Team, and the
State and Local Public Engagement Team of the U.S.
Department of Education.
The United States has been experiencing a nationwide
outbreak of enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) associated with severe respiratory illness
that has been especially harmful to children. Citizens may also have questions
about the Ebola virus. To address both public health concerns, the U.S. Department of Education (USED) and our federal health
partners have a number of informational resources to share with you.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has
developed information and resources for parents about EV-D68. Below are CDC resources about EV-D68
developed for parents:
Ideas to share these resources:
· Work with your schools to share CDC information with parents:
§ Print
and send copies of the fact sheet and/or infographic home with children.
§ E-mail
parents links to information on the CDC website.
§ Post
links to CDC information on schools’ social media accounts.
· Link
to the URLs provided in the list above on your parent-facing webpages.
· Share
the infographic or Web Feature with parents over social media. Below are some
sample tweets or create your own:
§ Parents,
CDC addresses your questions & concerns w/ new educational materials about
EV-D68. http://1.usa.gov/1o92Sdx
§ Concerned
about #enterovirus? Here’s what you need to know about EV-D68 & respiratory
illness. http://1.usa.gov/1sC9Jfc
§ Parents, follow these steps to protect kids, especially
those w/ asthma, from EV-D68 & other viruses that cause respiratory illness. http://go.usa.gov/VyzA
·
Syndicate content from the CDC website. CDC encourages organizations to mirror CDC’s web text
through content syndication rather than copy text onto their websites. Benefits include
immediate and automatic updates whenever
any changes are made on the CDC site and ensure
all content is consistent and current across the Internet. If you’d like to
include EV-D68Web content without having to monitor and copy updates, visit Content Syndication for the free one-time setup instructions. EnterovirusD68 is listed under
“Syndication Topics.”
·
Place the text of the matte article on your website or in
e-newsletters and other publications you have that reach parents.
·
Work with local child care facilities and organizations in your
area to share CDC information with parents:
§ Ask
child care centers to place the drop-in article in parent newsletters.
§ Ask child
care centers to print and post the fact sheet and/or infographic.
·
Encourage parents and community partners to share the fact sheet
with doctor’s offices, clinics, faith communities, and other community
settings.
Remember,
too, as enterovirus season is expected to taper off, flu activity usually
begins to increase in October. While there is not a vaccine to prevent illness
from enteroviruses, the single best way to protect against the flu is to get
vaccinated each year. Many resources for parents and others can be found on the
CDC flu website. CDC
recommends that ALL children 6 months old or older get a flu
vaccine.
Finally,
we know your communities also may have questions about what schools can do to
keep students and adults safe from the Ebola virus. The President has made
control of Ebola a top national security priority, and we as a nation have
spent more than $100 million fighting this outbreak since the first cases were
reported last March in Africa. Our national health system has the capacity and
expertise to quickly detect and contain this disease and is working with states
and school districts to ensure the safety of our students and school employees.
As you likely know, the CDC is continually updating its information on Ebola;
information that can be found here: http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/index.html.
Our
Department’s Office of Safe and Healthy Students has a number of materials
available regarding Readiness and Emergency Management of Schools in crisis
situations, and those materials can be found here: http://rems.ed.gov/. One
resource at this web link is steps the Dallas Independent School District
(DISD) has taken to keep parents and community partners continually updated on
the Ebola situation there, including establishing a website: http://www.dallasisd.org/healthupdates.
Additional
materials developed by the DISD Communications Team included there are:
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