Backpack Kids: The Safety Planning Checklist for Overseas Travel

Kathleen M. Goggin~~Backpack Kids: The Safety Planning Checklist for Overseas Travel contains the essential questions everyone should ask before sending kids abroad.Children’s traveling, without their parents, for school or volunteer activities, has increased significantly. While international travel is an assumed expectation as learning becomes more and more global, the headlines are full of young people who have met tragedy overseas, including Natalie Holloway, those injured during the Indonesian tsunami, and the volunteer students in Haiti.Most parents, teachers and volunteer leaders are unaware of what happens when an injured person becomes unable to continue with his or her travel plans. Backpack Kids contains: critical information about international health care, medical evacuations (medevacs), what to do in an overseas emergency, all organized in an easy-to-navigate, question and answer format.Written by Kate Goggin, an international writer and parent who knows what it’s like to receive an emergency room call from overseas. She learned a lot when her son was in a car accident in South Korea in 2007. Her experience and subsequent research led to the creation of Backpack Kids for first-time planners of international trips.? Know who to call in a crisis overseas.? Learn the timeline to purchase passports, visas and medevac insurance.? Download sample documents including permission slips for international travel with unaccompanied minors.? Absorb advice from intercultural experts, travel advisers and experienced trip leaders.? Keep track of what to do by using the interactive trip planning checklist.? Plan safer trips for American children at the elementary, middle and high school level, but also recommended for college-age students and workers.? Have your child download a copy and work on the checklist together.For more information, view www.backpackkids.org.