Plan Now or Suffer and Muddle Through Later!
The Role of Disability Organizations in Disaster Advocacy, Planning, Preparedness, Response, Recovery and Mitigation Activities

REGISTRATION DEADLINE: September 22, 2006
COURSE DATES: October 2-20, 2006

PURPOSE: This three-week online course provides an survey and overview of disability related disaster issues. Few people get adequate training on helping themselves and the people they work with take greater responsibility for their own emergency safety and preparedness. This course is designed to begin to fill this existing gap in disaster preparedness and response or disability organizations.

OBJECTIVES: The objectives for this course are to:

• Cultivate thinking regarding what you can do regarding emergency preparedness that is different from what you have been doing.
• Understand that emergency preparedness: Is a life style choice, not a time limited project.
• Literacy and competencies need to be developed and woven into your life, work, culture, practices, policies and advocacy.
• Examine in depth of the use “Special needs.”
• Learn how to evaluate critically disability specific disaster preparedness materials.
• Identify some myths of disaster response.
• Develop your own preparedness plan.
• Provide you with tools to use in assisting people in developing individual and family preparedness and mitigation plans.
• Understand what issues should be addressed in an organization’s preparedness plan.
• Identify roles your organization can play in emergency preparedness, services and planning and advocacy.
• Identify funding opportunities
• Stimulate planning and advocacy through open and frank discussion!
• Understanding the importance of advocacating to make sure local, state, and national disaster management efforts address the needs of people with disabilities and functional limitations

TARGET AUDIENCE: Staff, managers, executive directors, and board members of disability specific organizations including independent living centers, state associations and State Independent Living Councils.

COURSE ACCESSIBILITY: We intend to offer a fully accessible course. If you encounter access, barriers in this course please let the instructor, June, know and as well as Alma Burgess, 435.797.0253
Email alma@cpd2.usu.edu.

FORMAT: Participants will read assignments in the course manual or posted online, complete exercises assigned by the instructor, and interact daily with the instructor and other participants in an online discussion forum. Participants will have an opportunity to learn about and share good practices. Participants can ask and receive responses to their questions about disaster preparedness and management from the instructor and their peers.

THE INSTRUCTOR: June’s national and international writing, consulting and training on disaster issues for people with disabilities is well known. Some of her disaster related publications include (http://www.jik.com/pres.html#DISASTER%20%20PREPAREDNESS%20PUB):

• Living and Lasting on Shaky Ground: an Earthquake Preparedness Guide for People with Disabilities, distributed by California Office of Emergency Safety,
• Creating a Disaster - Resistant Infrastructure for People at Risk Including People with Disabilities (used and published in several countries),
• Emergency Evacuation Preparedness: Taking Responsibility for Your Safety - a Guide for People with Disabilities and Other Activity Limitations,
• Saving Lives: Including People with Disabilities in Emergency Planning, (researched and drafted for National Council on Disability),
• Report on Special Needs Assessment  for Katrina Evacuees (SNAKE) Project (lead the analytical team, under a subcontract with National Organization on Disability)
• Emergency Preparedness: Taking Responsibility For Your Safety - Tips for People with Activity Limitations and Disabilities. (written for the Los Angeles County, Office of Emergency Management, Emergency Survival Program, www.espfocus.org.

June is a nationally and internationally recognized disability rights advocate for more than 35 years, is one of the original national leaders in the independent living movement. June operates a disability consulting practice and is the Associate Director of the Center for Disability Issues and the Health Professions at Western University of Health Sciences, Pomona, California.

As a presidential appointee to the United States Access Board, she served as its chair and vice chair. She chaired the Committee on Telecommunication and served as the board's liaison to the Telecommunication Access Advisory and the Passenger Vessels Access Advisory Committees. She also served on the boards of the National Council of Independent Living (NCIL) and the California Foundation of Independent Living (CFILC) and was the executive director of the Westside Center for Independent Living (WCIL) in Los Angeles.

PAYMENT INFORMATION: The course fee is $65 per participant. Payment may be made by credit card through the Web site at the time of registration. Credit card orders are also accepted by phone at 713.520.0232 ext. 130. Do not send credit card information by e-mail, since such transactions are not secure. Checks or money orders are also accepted and should be mailed with a completed application form. Return your completed registration form and payment to:

ILRU/ONLINE LEARNING 2006
2323 S Shepherd, Suite 1000
Houston, TX 77019

REGISTRATION FORM

ONLINE COURSES FROM ILRU: This online course is presented by the IL NET, the national training and technical assistance project for centers for independent living and statewide independent living councils. The IL NET is operated by the Independent Living Research Utilization (ILRU) Program at TIRR in partnership with the National Council on Independent Living (NCIL). Online course implementation is facilitated by the Interdisciplinary Training Division of the Center for Persons with Disabilities, Utah State University.

OTHER QUESTIONS: Contact Dawn Heinsohn at ILRU, 713.520.0232 ext. 130

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