Ellington CERT Team Hosts Class for Working With Persons With Disabilities

On Thursday, the Ellington Community Emergency Response Team hosted a class for working with persons with disabilities.

The event was held at the Ellington Volunteer Ambulance Corps and there were 44 attendees. The participants were from Ellington CERT, Vernon CERT, Somers CERT, Ellington Rescue Post 512, the Ellington Volunteer Ambulance Corps, and the Somers Fire Department.

The class included a power point presentation that reviewed various laws pertaining to persons with disabilities. There were also classroom “real life” training exercises where the participants worked together with persons with disabilities in the emergency shelter, at home and on the street, and also assisted the persons with disabilities with ambulance functions.

The training was brought to Ellington by the Capitol Region Emergency Planning Committee Functional Needs Unit. To date, 3,200 first responders and CERT teams have completed this training.

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There are five presenters, including two who use wheelchairs as their mobility device and one who uses a service animal and wears hearing aids.

While the specific content of each training is tailored to the unique characteristics of the participant group, the typical training event covers:

• Discussion of the prevalence of people with disabilities in the country, state, and in towns where training takes place.
• General disability awareness and appropriate interaction etiquette, with particular emphasis on the recognition of a person as a person first, not as a “disability.” The importance of assuring people and their supportive devices (e.g.; motorized wheelchairs) remain with the person throughout an emergency and the subsequent challenges this presents to first responders, shelter personnel, and emergency planners.
• The array of communication methods used and preferred by some people with particular disabilities such as Deafness and Deaf Blind. Up-to-date information on the Interpreters for the Deaf regulations is provided.
• Discussion about assistance/service animals, the bond between the animal and master, up-to-date laws related to assistance/service animals, how to interact with assistance/service animals, the role assistance/service animals play in an emergency.
• Pros and cons of developing and maintaining a “registry” of people who may need special supports in evacuation and/or emergency shelter relocation circumstances.
• Emergency response role-playing activities involving training team members and training attendees. One example includes transferring an individual who uses a motorized chair and/or one who uses a service animal.
• Discussion of the importance of people with disabilities developing their own emergency response plans and the importance of involving people with disabilities in all aspects of emergency planning.