Emergency Preparedness

1. Emergency Preparedness Effective Communication For People With Disabilities (The FAND Community): Lessons Learned After California Lawsuit

2. Graham Sisson • Executive Director • General Counsel • Governor’s Office on Disability • Deputy General Counsel • Alabama Department of Rehabilitation Services • State ADA Coordinator

3. 800-205-9986 ADA Hotline • 888-879-3582 GOOD Toll Free • 334-293-7189 (Mont’gy Office) • 205-290-4540 (B’ham Office) • Graham.sisson@good.alabama.gov • www.good.alabama.gov • Graham.sisson@rehab.alabama.gov

4. Overview • All information provided is non-binding. • Ultra-Reader’s Digest version • Effective Communication best practices • Disability populations for whom effective communication practices are vital

5. Target Populations • Effective Communication best practices should be targeted toward the following populations: • Deaf • Hard of hearing • Blind • Low vision • Deaf/Blind • Cognitive disabilities • Severe speech disabilities

6. Legal Considerations • Communities Actively Living Independent and Free v. City of Los Angeles and County of Los Angeles • ADA- (Title II or III). • Prohibits discrimination on basis of disability in the provision of programs, services, and activities. • Emergency preparedness is a program of a governmental entity. • Must provide equal opportunity or benefit for persons with disabilities • Include PWD in organizational plans and make reasonable accommodation for a disability. • Rehabilitation Act, Section 504 is same as ADA Title II.

7. Top Ten Tips (not in order of importance) • 1. Mass Shelter and Care must be accessible to PWD. • 2. Include input from the disability community when creating emergency plans • 3. Identify in advance the needs of and resources for pwd during an emergency • 4. Develop a plan for notifying pwd • 5. Provide assistance to pwd, if required to shelter in place. • 6. Provide for needs of pwd in providing evacuation and transportation to shelters • 7. Mass evacuation plans should include provisions to meet the needs of pwd • 8. Plan for emergency housing • 9. Recovery plan should provide any assistance (provide resources for long term recovery needs) • 10. Provide remediation (removing barriers)

8. Accessible Shelters and Care • Architectural and care accessibility • Survey existing shelters • Evaluate medical supplies (medicine, DME, CME (foley catheters, testing strips, etc.) • Refrigeration capabilities • Service animal needs • Inclusive shelter policies (pwd remain with families and or caregivers, no pets) • Advertise in accessible formats location of accessible shelters and care- still allow personal choice

9. Accessible Shelters • This is an area where improvement is needed, but great strides are being made. • Shelters operated by state or local governments would be covered by Title II of the ADA. • Shelters operated by private entities would be covered by Title III. • These shelters would also be covered by Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act where federal funding is received. • Shelters must provide effective communication under ADA Titles II and III

10. Disability Community Input • GOOD has local advisory committees around the state and contact with disability organizations • We can assist with contacting pwd for purposes of input.

11. Identify Needs and Resources • Identify accessible shelter and transportation* • Learn general location or areas of concentration of pwd needing assistance** • Have agreements (MOUs) with disability organizations to identify their roles • Identify support resources for effective communication like interpreters, Brailling, etc.**

12. Develop Notification Plan for PWD • Ensure accessible formats* • Test for effectiveness • Use appropriate auxiliary aids and services

13. Effective Communication • The ADA requires that communication with pwd be just as effective as that with persons without disabilities. • Emergency or disaster warnings should be communicated in a format that is accessible to persons who are deaf or blind or otherwise unable to receive warnings by usual methods. • Examples: auditory warnings for those who cannot see and text messages for those who cannot hear. • Emergency broadcast messages on television should be closed captioned. • Others (see next slides) • Want to ensure that communication with PWD is as effective as that with those without disabilities.

14. Effective Communication • Covered entities may require reasonable advance notice from people requesting aids or services, based on the length of time needed to acquire the aid or service • But they may not impose excessive advance notice requirements • Walk-in requests for aids and services must also be honored to the extent possible

15. Parts of Emergency Message • All should be in accessible formats • What happened? • Should persons affected do? • Where can persons affected get more information? • 3 modes of emergency messages (need to do all three) • Active-alarm, siren, EAS (Emergency Alert System) • Passive- e-mail, signs, billboards. leaflets • Individual- text, phone calls

16. Auxiliary Aids and Services • Ways to facilitate effective communication with those with disabilities. • For people who are blind, have vision loss or are deaf/blind includes • qualified reader, • electronic use with a screen reader program, • audio recording of printed material

17. Auxiliary Aids and Services • For people who are deaf, have hearing loss or are deaf/blind includes: • Qualified notetaker, • qualified sign language interpreter, • oral interpreter, • cued-speech interpreter, • or tactile interpreter, • real-time captioning, • written materials

18. Other Services • For deaf/blind includes support service providers (SSPs) (not aids and services under the ADA) • They provide mobility, orientation and informal communication services for deaf/blind individuals and are a critical link to enable them to independently access the community at large. • Print on Palm (POP) method

19. Auxiliary Aids and Services • For people who have speech difficulties, may include • qualified speech-to-speech transliterator, • allowing use of paper and pencil to write out speech that cannot be understood

20. Assistive Technology • Assistive technology that can be used to facilitate effective communication includes • Assistive listening devices • Open captioning, closed captioning, real-time captioning, closed caption decoders and devices • Telephone handset amplifiers, hearing-aid compatible phones, TTYs, videophones, captioned telephones • Videotext displays • Screen reader software, magnification software, and optical readers • Video description, video relay, video remote interpreting

21. Strategies for Effective Communication • Use a combination of several methods rather than just one method • Combine visual and audible methods • Telephone calls, auto-dialed TTY messages, text messaging, e-mails • Direct door-to-door contact with pre-regiteredindividuals • Use simple words that are universal in scope (avoid abbreviations that SOP, EOP, etc.)

22. Strategies • Create a voluntary, confidential registry of PWD who need individualized notification • Make sure shelters have a plan for effective communication by providing alternative forms of communication such as both written and auditory forms of communication like large print forms, reading of printed material, interpreters, video remote interpreting, video relay • Adopt procedures to provide accessible communication to those who are deaf or hard of hearing and for people with severe speech disabilities.

23. Strategies • Train staff on basic steps or procedures for providing accessible communication, including exchanging notes or posting written announcements that go along with spoken ones. • Train personnel to read printed information, upon request, to persons who are blind or have low vision.

24. Strategies • Captioning on video broadcast • Use crawling messages that do not block closed captioning • Use sign language interpreter in the video of spoken message • Should frequently repeat emergency information

25. Resources Consulted • U.S. DOJ Effective Communication Fact Sheet • Helen Keller National Center Brochure on Interaction with People who are Deaf/Blind • FEMA Emergency Planning for Special Needs Communities Participant Guide • FEMA Guidance on Planning for Integration of Functional Needs Support Services in General Population Shelters (November 2010) • Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Report 150: Communication with Vulnerable Populations: A Transportation and Emergency Management Toolkit (2011)

26. The End • Any Questions? • Thank you.