Welcome to the Center on Disability at PHI

When disasters strike, accurate and timely information is one of the most important elements for individuals with disabilities to receive. This webinar will focus on communicating with people with disabilities during and after an emergency or disaster including warnings, emergency public information, and disaster recovery information using experiences and observations from the May 2013 Severe Weather, Tornadoes, and Flooding in Oklahoma. Best practices, successful approaches, and new technology for communicating with people who are blind or have visual impairments, are deaf or have hearing limitations, or have a cognitive disability will be shared by presenters.

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will be able to describe the difference between warnings, emergency public information, general public information.
• Participants will be able to identify successful and unsuccessful communications for the deaf/hard of hearing population during the May 2013 tornados in Oklahoma City.
• Participants will be able to identify how to get the word out to the blind or visually impaired population of an impending emergency; how to find this population; and best practices in continuing communication after the emergency event.
• Participants will be able to identify best practices and successful approaches for communicating with people who have a cognitive disability in a disaster.

Presenter:

• Franklin Barnes - Emergency Manager-Oklahoma City.
• Vicky Golightly - Public Information Officer, Oklahoma Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped.
• Stephanie Green Nichols, CI & CT - Executive Director of Sign Language Resource Services
• Jason Price - Program Manager - Oklahoma Department of Rehabilitation Services.

On October 3rd, Equip for Equality filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the Paddle Wheel Inn for its discriminatory termination of Donna Colvin, an employee with disabilities who needed to use oxygen in the workplace. The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court in the Northern District of Illinois, Western Division.

Ms. Colvin was a front desk clerk at the Paddle Wheel Inn for four years. She has asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and sleep apnea. As a result of these disabilities, her doctor recommended that she use oxygen at work. When Ms. Colvin told her employer about her doctor's recommendation, she was terminated.

For more information visit: http://www.equipforequality.org/news/pressreleases/october_3_2013donna_colvin.php

A federal judge has rejected arguments that a lawsuit challenging Florida's placement of severely disabled children in nursing homes should be a class action - but left open the possibility that it could become a class action in the future.

The lawsuit, filed in 2012 on behalf of several plaintiffs, contends that Florida has violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by placing children with complex medical needs in nursing homes instead of providing services in the children's homes and communities.

For more information visit: www.miamiherald.com/2013/09/25/3651063/class-action-denied-in-lawsuit.html

For Immediate Release: September 23, 2013

Washington, DC - Five members of the Commission on Long Term Care issued an alternative report today outlining and discussing their recommendations to address the challenges facing our country's long-term services and supports (LTSS) system.

The five Commissioners include: Laphonza Butler, President, SEIU-United Long Term Care Workers, Vice-President SEIU; Henry Claypool, Executive Vice President, American Association for People with Disabilities; Judith Feder, Urban Institute Fellow and Professor, Georgetown Public Policy Institute; Lynnae Ruttledge, Co-Vice Chair, National Council on Disability; Judith Stein, Founder and Executive Director, Center for Medicare Advocacy, Inc.

The Commission on Long Term Care was charged by Congress with developing recommendations for the establishment, implementation, and financing of a comprehensive, coordinated, and high-quality system that ensures the availability of long-term services and supports for individuals who depend on this system to live full and healthy lives. The five Commissioners issuing the alternative report write to fulfill this comprehensive charge. These Commissioners have a difference in vision and recommended action plan from the Commission majority.

"We are convinced that no real improvements to the current insufficient, disjointed array of LTSS and funding can be expected without developing social insurance financing," said Judith Stein, Founder & Executive Director, Center for Medicare Advocacy, Inc. "Planning and private insurance cannot meet the many exigencies of birth, injury, illness and advancing age that face individuals and families daily – often for a lifetime."

The five Commissioners seek to consider the needs of people of all ages who have disabilities and LTSS needs now – and all of us who may need long term services in the future.

"We're all at risk and we're all responsible for building an effective LTSS system. We offer our recommendations as a path for the action that our nation so sorely needs." Judith Feder said, Urban Institute Fellow and Professor, Georgetown Public Policy Institute. "A public program has to be the bedrock on which we build an effective LTSS financing system."

The Commissioners' alternative report can be found at http://www.medicareadvocacy.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/LTCCAlternativeReport.pdf.

For more information visit: www.medicareadvocacy.org/five-members-of-long-term-care-commission-release-alternative-report-and-recommendations-to-fulfill-commissions-congressional-mandate/