Access and Functional Needs

How communities care for their most vulnerable members tells much about the nature of that community.

Ensuring that all residents are equally included in community emergency planning, response, and recovery is not only a good idea, it is the law.  Communities that have failed to consider how they will proactively ensure they have planned for and have included people with disabilities, or access and functional needs, fail their populations during and after a major emergency or disaster.  GVC staff have years of experience in working at the federal, state, local, and healthcare organization levels to help clients develop or improve their emergency plans, so that the community or organization’s planning, response and recovery activities are inclusive.

Recent projects include:

• Acted as US District Court appointed monitor supervision a major county effort to improve their planning, response and recovery plans in line with a class action lawsuit settlement agreement
• Developed local jurisdiction emergency plans that actively include all residents of the community in the planning, response and recovery phases.
• Conducted a 360 survey for five emergency management agencies to determine the level of inclusion of all peoples in their programs.
• Provided recommendations to each jurisdiction based on community interviews and reviews of their individual plans and annexes.
• Provided informal consultation to Emergency Management agencies and community groups on improving their local plans to be more inclusive.
• Developed, as part of a subject matter expert team, a FEMA four-day course on Inclusive Emergency Management Planning.