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Disability Inclusive Grantmaking is the mission of DFN: inclusion of disability in grantmaking programs and inclusion of people with disabilities in grantmaking organizations.

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Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Relief for People with Disabilities and Older Adults

Guidance for Funders

Annotated Bibliography of Selected Resources (1)

Important: Readers should also check out the Resources listed elsewhere in this section.

  • American Red Cross Disaster Services, Disaster Preparedness for People with Disabilities
    Manual that encourages people with disabilities to take responsibility for being prepared for disasters. Covers understanding disasters, creating a personal support network, completing a personal assessment, personal disaster preparation, disaster supplies and strategies to make your home/office safer. An excellent resource for people with disabilities.
  • American Red Cross/FEMA, Preparing for Emergencies: A Checklist for People with Mobility Impairments
    A brochure that encourages people with mobility disabilities to deal with emergencies such as fires and floods. Covers such topics as: ask questions; create a plan; prepare a disaster supply kit, develop an escape plan (including diagrams of rooms with floor plans), assess home hazards, develop evacuation plan, prepare a car kit and issues of fire safety.
  • Peter David Blanck, Disaster Mitigation for People with Disabilities: Fostering a New Dialogue
    Article that provides seven key principles for guiding the dialogue between leaders of the disability and disaster communities. Seems more geared to educating the disaster community about the disability community than vice versa. Good principles.
  • Dale Brown, Coping with the Attack on America: Recommendations for People with Learning Disabilities
    Article on tips for dealing with stress and preparing for emergencies for people with learning disabilities. Includes some good information, but the tone is a bit patronizing.
  • California Community Foundation, Emergency Preparedness
    Comprehensive emergency preparedness plan and manual and disaster emergency response protocols developed by the California Community Foundation (Los Angeles) in consultation with Emergency Network Los Angeles. Contents include the foundation’s mission during a disaster, disaster assumptions, levels of disasters (minimal impact, moderate impact, major impact, catastrophic impact), staff responsibilities (program staff to focus on determining areas of greatest need in community, loan or grants priorities, distribution of funds, and monitoring emerging situations and making recommendations for follow-up funding), evacuation protocols for different types of emergencies, and evacuation checklist (including assistance for visitors with disabilities).
  • Carl T. Cameron (Inclusion International), Emergency Preparedness for People with Disabilities and Other Special Needs
    Article that identifies issues related to the inclusion of people with disabilities in the emergency planning process, that identifies the information and support needs of people with disabilities, and that discusses the options for including people with disabilities in the planning process. Emphasizes involving people with disabilities in planning.
  • The Conference Board, Corporate Disaster Relief
    A study of 92 companies addresses the corporate role in disaster relief, managing the corporate response, and forms and levels of corporate involvement. Also has four case studies and an appendix containing the disaster relief policies of 6 companies. Key findings include

    • Major reasons for corporate involvement — corporate citizenship, protection of employees and/or operating environment, employee concerns and customer concerns
    • Only 28 percent of respondents had written policies 3) what determines level of response — impact on employees/operations; need/severity of damage, and input of local management
    • Who coordinates relief activities in companies. Disasters covered include Midwest flooding, Hurricane Andrew and Los Angeles riots.
  • Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Fact Sheet on Obtaining and Using Employee Medical Information as Part of Emergency Evacuation Procedures
    Brief article on what employers can ask to facilitate emergency planning without violating the ADA.
  • European Foundation Centre and the Council on Foundations, Disaster Grantmaking: A Practical Guide for Foundations and Corporations
    Booklet that offers eight principles of good disaster management, with a series of practical suggestions for good disaster grantmaking that flow from these principles. Also describes the unique role of grantmakers in disaster management. Includes facts and figures on disasters and a range of resources, including NGOs, United Nations/international sites, official government sites, and academic/research institutions.
  • FEMA, Disaster Preparedness for People with Disabilities (2-page sheet)
    Condensed list of ways to be prepared for emergencies, e.g., check for hazards at home, be ready to evacuate, have a disaster supplies kit, maintain a list of important items, create a self-help network, register with local emergency management office, planning for evacuation.
  • FEMA, Assisting People with Disabilities in a Disaster
    Article on how to assist people with disabilities: be ready to assist, prepare an emergency plan, develop an evacuation plan, set up self-help networks.
  • Job Accommodation Network, Emergency Evacuation Procedures for Employees with Disabilities
    Set of checklists on policies and procedures, work-site modifications and accommodations and training to ensure that employers are in compliance with the ADA in their emergency preparedness procedures.
  • Robert Gorski, Disabled People and Disaster Planning (DP2): Web Site www.citycent.com/dp2/index.html
    DP2 was a group of people with disabilities and disaster planning and response professionals primarily from Los Angeles County who met during 1996 and 1997 and formulated recommendations to reduce or eliminate problems with accessibility that many people with disabilities experienced after the Northridge earthquake of 1994. The Web site contains the group’s recommendations and information to assist people with disabilities prepare for and cope with disastrous earthquakes. The Web site is maintained by DP2 members.

    • Prepare for What Will Happen — what to do before an earthquake
    • Shelter Managers Should Know — how to prepare for and work with disabled people
    • Training Rescue Workers — suggestions to train rescue workers before a disaster
    • Evacuating Wheelchair Users — tips on assisting wheelchair users after a disaster
    • Communications After a Disaster — recommendations on how to disseminate information to people with disabilities after a disaster
    • Managing Shelters — recommendations on making emergency shelters more accessible
    • Points of Service — recommendations on how to make services accessible after a disaster
    • Related Web sites — other Web sites that have disaster-related information for persons with disabilities
      • Disaster Preparedness Information for People With Disabilities — from the Red Cross. Preparedness materials are available in English and multiple foreign languages.
      • Prepare.org (www.prepare.org). This is the Red Cross’s comprehensive disaster-preparedness site. Materials are available in English and multiple foreign languages.
      • Center for Disability and Special Needs Preparedness
  • June Kailes/The Center for Disability Issues and the Health Professions at Western University of Health Sciences, Emergency Evacuation Preparedness: Taking Responsibility for Your Safety, A Guide for People with Disabilities and Other Limitations
    Focuses on helping people with disabilities take responsibility for their own safety during emergencies and evacuations and work effectively with first responders.
  • June Kailes/Independent Living Resource Center San Francisco, Earthquake Tips for People with Disabilities
    A series of 18 “tip sheets” for people with disabilities to improve emergency preparedness in an earthquake, with applications to other disasters. The first covers issues for people with disabilities in general, the rest for people with specific disabilities; some are Spanish versions of documents. The first, “Tips for People with Disabilities,” provides a checklist of activities, including establishing a personal support network, traveling, health card, emergency contact list, emergency documents, conducting an “Ability Self-Assessment,” communication, carry-on/carry-with-you supplies, disability-related supplies, medications, equipment and assistive devices.
  • The League of California Community Foundations, Disaster Preparedness: A Guide to Planning for California Community Foundations
    A tool to assist and inform community foundations in developing a disaster plan and implementing the steps necessary for disaster response. Defines stages of disaster as preparedness, response and recovery. Includes steps to consider in preparing for a disaster (one of which is identification of special needs groups requiring specific services or care, including people with disabilities — “physical, mental & developmental”); memoranda of understanding and mutual aid with other agencies; disaster response roles for community foundations; disaster recovery, which includes “rebuilding the support structure to enable those individuals (who were “living independently prior to the disaster” and who have lost “independence with the loss of support services on which they depend) to re-establish their independence.” Also includes a description of organizations involved in disaster preparedness, response and recovery; and an annotated list of other reports and documents on or useful to community foundations. Those documents are:

    • Preparing for and Responding to Emergencies and Natural Disasters: Recommendations for Philanthropic Foundations, Bill Somerville
    • Crisis Funding — article from the Council on Foundations
    • Grants to Individuals by Community Foundations, Jane Nober, Council on Foundations
    • Hurricane Hugo: A Review of the Research — report commissioned by the Community Foundation Serving Coastal South Carolina
    • Fund for Disaster Relief for Individuals — research prepared by the Community Foundation of Greater Greenville, South Carolina
    • Disaster Plan — The Community Foundation of Santa Cruz County
    • Earthquake Bulletin, Final Report — Northern California Grantmakers
    • Disaster and Emergency Community Foundation Information Packet — Council on Foundations
  • National Center on Emergency Preparedness for People with Disabilities, Emergency Preparedness on the Job for People with Disabilities
    A brochure for disabled employees on how to prepare for disasters. Includes how to get information, create a plan, prepare a disaster kit.
  • National Center on Emergency Preparedness for People with Disabilities, Emergency Preparedness Questionnaire and Ability Self-Assessment
    Two forms designed to help people with disabilities prepare for disasters.
  • National Organization on Disability (NOD), Emergency Preparedness Initiative, Guide on the Special Needs of People with Disabilities for Emergency Managers, Planners and Responders
    Booklet designed to ensure that people with disabilities are included in all four phases of emergency preparedness — not through separate, costly procedures but through inclusion. Includes a review of previous disasters, with lessons learned; the results of the NOD/Harris poll showing disabled people’s lack of knowledge, preparedness and considerable anxiety about future disasters, as well as some background on who make up “people with disabilities”; strategies for engaging diverse aspects of the disability community and people who serve them; accessible communication; evacuation strategies; including disability needs in recovery; other miscellaneous factors, such as training volunteers and accessible shelters; and a good resource list on accessibility standards, publications, training courses and videos and Web sites. The “special needs” focus is at times problematic.
  • NOD, Disaster Mobilization Initiative: Response to September 11th
    Article that includes nine principles on how to make emergency preparedness inclusive, and the role of people with disabilities in preparing themselves for emergencies. [This section is very activist-oriented, with a good tone.] Also lays out the different responsibilities of various groups, such as disability organizations, mayors/city managers/county executives, state governors, business leaders, Office of Homeland Security/FEMA and disaster relief agencies.
  • Kim Snyder, People with Disabilities Can Lend Their Strength in a Time of Crisis
    Brief article that describes how people with disabilities, as survivors, have much to offer nondisabled people coping with the uncertainty of life brought about by 9/11 and its aftermath.

(1) This bibliography was developed as an internal document at the beginning of the project to inform the interim document, “Guidance for Funders” Entries were selected from among the plethora of articles, books, and web-based material focused on either people with disabilities or foundations on the basis of their utility in helping foundations serve people with disabilities and those who work with them. It will be updated and released as a public document in phase two. [return to citation 1]