Ready, Willing & Able is a professional, 2-hour, introductory, online training course offered for independent study and for continuing education. It was developed by the Research and Training Center on Independent Living at the University of Kansas through a partnership with the Center for Public Health Preparedness, Kansas Department of Health and Environment, and Centers for Disease Prevention and Control.
This training is designed for public health and hospital staff, health professionals, disaster preparedness managers, emergency response workers, and personnel working with people with disabilities. The course was field tested by persons with disabilities, staff at a center for independent living, nurses, other health, hospital, and medical personnel, emergency managers, and disaster and rescue volunteers.
Specific training covers disability etiquette, terminology, communications and assistance techniques during disasters for assisting people with disabilities. Course participants become familiar with various disaster assistance needs of persons with sight, mobility, hearing, and cognitive disabilities. Instruction is given in the video by professional educators, and one of the educators is a person with a disability, to enhance the experience of acquainting the audience with disabilities.
Ready, Willing, & Able shows promise as a valuable educational tool for health, safety, and other personnel to become better prepared to assist people with disabilities during disasters.; This course can be taken at anytime in the comfort of an office or home from your computer. After registering the course can be started or stopped at anytime.
It is offered through TRAIN, a project of the Public Health Foundation, funded by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, participating states, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
To get on board TRAIN, for persons living outside of Kansas, first create an account at www.train.org and for those in Kansas go to http://ks.train.org. The course name "Ready, Willing, & Able" and course number 1010882 are necessary to get to the course to register. A certificate of completion is offered by the course administrator once the pre- and post tests and course evaluation have been completed by individual course participants.
For assistance with TRAIN refer to: Computer Trouble shooting Helptool on
the homepage under Announcements or
Contact: Debbie Nickels, KS-TRAIN Administrator dnickels@kdhe.state.ks.us;
785-291-3457