Response Overview

This document is a summary guide to the different parts of an infant and young child feeding in emergencies (IYCF-E) response team. It is based on a large-scale, organized response mounted after a major hurricane, and is written so advocates in any state can adapt it.

If you are not sure whether the situation calls for an active response, or what level of response is appropriate, work through the questions in Determining Need for SAFE Infant Feeding Support.

For guidance on any level of response, reach out to the SAFE Team at info@safeinfantfeeding.org or safeinfantfeeding.org.

Core Elements

Personnel

• Boots on the Ground also called “teams” or “Infant Feeding Specialists” The volunteers (and later staff) who go into the field as teams to support sites, families, and individuals.
• Boots on the Ground Coordinator (BotGC) Manages deployment of teams and other logistics involved with headquarters and daily operations. A detailed standard operating procedure for this role is available from the SAFE Team on request.
• Kit Supervisor / Logistics Manager  Manages the sanitation kits themselves — receiving, checking contents, storing and rotating stock, obtaining donations or making purchases, and distributing kits to teams. It is very helpful to have someone dedicated to this when more than 6–8 teams are going out every day. Once you are down to roughly 2–5 teams on most days, the Boots on the Ground Coordinator can usually absorb this role.
• Digital Coordinator (DC)  Remote support: entering field notes from teams into the database, monitoring team check-ins, responding to communications on the public contact line, communicating with volunteers who have signed up to help, and other remote support. A detailed standard operating procedure for this role is available from the SAFE Team on request.
• Local experienced Infant Feeding Specialists  Over time, local people who have been in the field many times build a wealth of experience and information. These experienced locals act as mentors for new volunteers and for participants in any training program you run.
• Coordinators The most consistently involved people become coordinators. They discuss changes in conditions, new systems to create, status updates, problems, and similar decisions.
• Trainers The people who provide training — both at open “lunch and learn” sessions and to individual organizations. In a typical emergency response the need for trainers will be less formal, though responders will want to train staff, volunteers, and healthcare providers at local emergency response and recovery sites as desired.
• Lead and Advocate The person who watches the big picture: advocating for legislative and regulatory changes, locating and applying for funding opportunities, hiring staff, and managing high-level logistics and financial oversight.
• Tech Support One or more people knowledgeable about websites, online forms, and similar tools. Digital Coordinators can handle some of this, but it is valuable to have someone with deeper expertise to call on when needed.

Support Categories Provided

• Site support ways that teams help distribution sites and other organizations:
• Help organize formula and other infant feeding related donations.
• Educate sites on how to better support families with infants and young children, including teaching a basic rapid needs assessment and when to distribute sanitation kits.
• Act as a resource to help the families those sites serve.

• Family and caregiver support aid provided directly or indirectly to families with infants or young children:
• Rapid needs assessment to determine individual needs.
• Educate caregivers on ways to make water potable.
• Provide sanitation kits to help create safe water and sanitize infant feeding items.
• Education about the relative safety of different ways of feeding babies, and about how to feed their baby safely in their specific situation.
• Education about the benefits of babywearing, and distributing carriers when appropriate and available.
• Helping families find specialty formula when needed.
• Educate families on ways to keep babies warm when typical indoor heating is not available.
• Direct lactation support in cases where other support is not available.
• Connecting families with other resources as needed.

• Training other professionals more formalized education provided to healthcare providers, public health officials, and site staff and volunteers regarding implementation of IYCF-E:
• Lunch and learns.
• Staff training (in person and by video).
• Healthcare provider education.

Logistical Elements

Keep technology as affordable as possible. Low-cost, widely familiar tools work well.

• Regular meetings Early on, a live (virtual) meeting every day is essential, because conditions on the ground and logistics change quickly. Roughly two months into recovery you can start skipping the meeting on some days. Once you hit a rhythm and the situation stabilizes, only the Digital Coordinator and Boots on the Ground Coordinator need to talk daily, and coordinators can meet one to two times per week. Use any web conferencing platform.
• Communication platform You need a way to send messages to a number of people at once in the field and to support group discussion. Note that any platform other than direct one-to-one texting is unlikely to work without significant cell signal or wifi, so you will often need to use more than one platform.
• Shared information space For maintaining shared documents. Choose a service where access can be controlled at different levels and that most of your people already know how to use.
• Public contact number and/or email As soon as possible, set up a way for people to contact your group that can be answered by more than one person. Texting is most often best in a disaster situation.
• Locations spreadsheetHow you track where volunteers need to go. Track sites, families, urgent needs, and training events for specific organizations, as well as daily dispatch (locations visited each day). Include tabs to segment the list of sites into geographic sublists. A template is available from the SAFE Team; request the Digital Coordinator SOP for more detail on how it is used.
• Volunteers spreadsheet Used to track volunteer signups, give Digital Coordinators and the Boots on the Ground Coordinator contact information for volunteers, and track shows and no-shows. Also useful for tracking participants in training sessions. Request the Digital Coordinator SOP for more detail.
• Inventory spreadsheet Used to track the flow of kits and kit supplies in and out. In the very beginning you may not have the capacity to track flow — only to ensure that new kits and supplies are audited before going out to sites and families. Once you have the capacity and donations have slowed, tracking inventory becomes essential to ensuring you have adequate supplies and kits for field needs. A template is available from the SAFE Team; request the Boots on the Ground Coordinator SOP for more detail.

Start-up Decisions

In addition to selecting the personnel, scope, and technology tools described above, these decisions need to be made when launching this kind of response.

• Core team meeting time How frequently will you meet? Daily meetings are very helpful in the first 60–90 days post-disaster. What time? Allow 60–90 minutes.
• “Headquarters” volunteer meeting location Where will everyone gather each morning before going into the field? Try to select a location with cell signal, plenty of room for people to gather, and the ability to store donations at least overnight.
• Volunteer sign-up and tracking How will volunteers sign up? How will you track who came and where they are? Use an online sign-up tool for volunteers to select days and roles, and a simple online form to keep track of where they are in the field.
• Storage Where will you keep donations until they are packed into kits and sent into the field? Ideally this is also your headquarters, but it is often impractical to keep everything at your meeting location.
• “Intake” Set aside a separate holding area for donated supplies until they can be reviewed.
• Kit labeling and branding Be sure to include your group’s contact information. Contact the SAFE Team at info@safeinfantfeeding.org to see whether kits can be sourced through a support organization; you will need to provide contact information for your group.
• Fiscal sponsor organization Ensure there is a way to accept financial donations right away. It is easiest for a nonprofit organization already operating in [YOUR STATE] and already involved with lactation to act as the fiduciary, with the response project operating under that organization.
• Donations — financial and wish list” Try to focus on financial donations, but understand that some people will donate physical goods regardless of what you say. Decide whether you want to set up a wish list on a retail platform to request specific items and have them shipped to a convenient location.
• Printing How will you handle printing handouts? As soon as reliable electricity and a location to store a printer are available, self-printing is strongly recommended for cost effectiveness.
• Formula disposalIf you will help sites dispose of unsafe commercial formula, how and where? What will it cost?