Keeping your family safe at home—particularly when you’re spending considerably more time there than usual—is no doubt a major concern at the top of your mind. So what is the best way to keep your family safe? The short answer is to take proactive—rather than reactive—home safety measures.

To do so, you will need to ensure that your home is equipped with the right items to prevent and/or promptly respond to any incidents. If you are looking for some tips to help you get started, consult our expert home safety tips below.

Have the Right Supplies on Hand

When you are faced with an accident or emergency at home, you need to have the right supplies on hand in order to react quickly and effectively. At minimum, you should have a well-stocked first aid kit on hand. It should feature all of the essentials you could need, such as gauze, bandages, tweezers, disinfectant, a first aid guide, and so on.

However, we suggest going a step further. After all, a first aid kit will allow you to attend to certain wounds and accidents, but not much else more. It’s well worth putting together an emergency food kit as well as a general emergency survival kit.

These kits are designed to ensure you and your family have access to adequate supply of food and other essential items should a natural disaster strike. Hopefully, you will never need to confront such a situation. But if you do, you will no doubt be thankful to have made the effort to purchase such essentials.

Consider Installing Home Security Cameras and Burglar Alarms

Installing home security cameras and burglar alarms is generally considered a wise idea for a couple of reasons. Depending on how visible your home security camera and burglar alarms are, their mere presence may be enough to dissuade a potential break-in or other unsavory incidents from occurring.

Home security cameras will also record footage that you may be able to use to catch an offender or build a case against them. Meanwhile, burglar alarms will alert you and/or the police if anything sets them off.

A final reason that you may wish to install them is due to the peace of mind they will likely provide your family.

(Speaking of alarms, make sure that you have installed fire alarms throughout your house and that they’re all in working order!)

Devise a Safety Plan That Outlines What to Do in the Event of an Emergency 

One of the most practical things you can do to keep your family safe is to ensure everyone is on the same page about what to do in the event of an emergency. This is particularly important to do if you have young children, who are more likely to panic when faced with a confronting situation.

The easiest way to go about this is to establish a safety plan for the whole household to follow. We recommend taking a read of the Department of Homeland Security’s comprehensive guide to making a family safety plan. It explains step-by-step how to create one, and usefully highlights a number of important considerations to keep in mind when doing so.

Once you’ve finalized your family’s unique safety plan, print out a copy for each family member to read and familiarize themselves with. Keep multiple copies of the plan throughout your house so it’s always easily accessible. Be sure to let your children know that they can approach you at any time if they need you to reiterate the plan or answer any questions they have about it. 

Don’t Forget to Make Plans For Your Pet

When you start putting home safety plans into place, it can be easy to let some vital considerations slip your mind. One of the most common ones that people forget about is their pets.

So what can you do to ensure your four-legged friends are also accounted for? We suggest two main things. Firstly, prepare an emergency kit just for your pet. Make sure to include items such as additional food, medication, emergency numbers, and any other emergency supplies that could come in handy in the event of a disaster.

Secondly, consider taking out pet insurance. Pet insurance is just like normal insurance, only it focuses solely on your pet. Each pet insurance company offers different levels of coverage and rates, so be sure to compare at least a few before committing to one. The reason pet insurance is worthwhile is because it gives you the peace of mind that should something happen to your pet, the insurance will partly or wholly cover their treatment.