Are you ready? Emergency preparedness

Ready to Find the Best Sitter for Your Family?

2018-09-06

Did you know that September 9th is Kyu-kyu-no-hi or Emergency Awareness Day in Japan?

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It’s a lesser known but very important day that was established by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in 1982 in order to raise awareness about safety and emergency response. Here at CareFinder, we want to help you and your family prepare for a variety of possible emergencies that you may encounter while living in Japan.

The Basics

Does everyone in your family including your small children know what to do in an emergency?

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Ambulance: Dial 1-1-9
In the case of a medical emergency, say “kyuu-kyuu-desu”

Fire Department: Dial 1-1-9
In the case of a fire, say “Kaji-desu”

Police: Dial 1-1-0

Resources

By downloading the NHK World App, you can receive Japanese government emergency alerts including J-alerts in English on your cell phone.

Receive emergency assistance in English by calling the 24-hour non-profit Japan Helpline at 0570-000-911.

For mental health assistance, TELL (Tokyo English Lifeline) offers an anonymous, free, and English-speaking lifeline at 03-5774-0992 and professional counseling.

Are you or a member of your family CPR/First Aid Certified?

Getting CPR/First Aid certified not only provides you with the skills and knowledge you need in order to respond to a medical emergency but it also provides you with the confidence to handle the situation calmly if and when an emergency arises. There are a number of English resources for getting CPR/First Aid certified here in Japan:

eLearning American Heart Association

You can first complete the knowledge portion of the certification online through http://elearning.heart.org/. The CPR AED and First Aid courses combined takes about 3-4 hours to complete. Once you’ve completed the online portion, you can find a training center in Japan to complete your in-person hands-on skills session through the same website. They have a number of training centers listed in Tokyo, Kanagawa, Chiba, Fukui and Saitama. Personally, I went to a training center in Yokohama where a native English speaker conducted the training and test one-to-one with me.

Japan Basic Life Support Association
Managed by the official international training center of the American Heart Association, this training center provides CPU training to healthcare provider and upper level professionals, as well as basic CPR AID and First Aid training. Their training center is located in Yokohama. You can find more information at http://blsjapan.com/en/index.html

Fluent in Japanese?
If you are a fluent Japanese speaker and are comfortable taking the CPR course in Japanese, you can head over to your local fire department or Japan Red Cross Society to reserve a CPR class with them.

Insurance

At CareFinder, we have a number of babysitters and nannies who are already CPR First Aid certified but we also take the extra step to provide CareFinder families with babysitting insurance. CareFinder has liability insurance from Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance. The insurance covers accidents such as body injuries and property damage that occur during babysitting jobs scheduled on the CareFinder platform. While the likelihood of such accidents occurring is quite low, the insurance gives more peace of mind to CareFinder users.

We hope that you can use these information and resources to raise you and your family’s awareness of emergency response and preparation. It is also important that your babysitter, tutor, helper, or nanny also knows how to respond to emergencies while working with you and your family. If they haven’t already, encourage them to get CPR First Aid certified. When your babysitter is staying home with your kids, make sure you’ve provided them with a list of emergency contacts in case of an accident. Just as importantly, use a babysitting service that prioritizes safety and provides you with an open communication line and insurance.

At CareFinder, we are committed to meeting all of your babysitting needs whether you are looking for just an evening babysitter, an international babysitter, a hotel babysitter, a weekend babysitter, an overnight babysitter, a great au pair or a summer babysitter.