Oakland's Journey from Emergency Management Defendant to Model City for Inclusionary Practices

Oakland's Journey from Emergency Management Defendant to Model City for Inclusionary Practices

8th January, 2014

"Oakland California's Journey from Emergency Management Defendant to Model City for Inclusionary Practices" is the part of the "Emergency Management and Preparedness - Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities" series of webinars and was held on January 8th.

In 2009, the City of Oakland was the subject of a major lawsuit saying that its emergency management policies, practices and procedures fell short of providing individuals with disabilities an equal opportunity to survive disasters and other emergencies. Hear how Oakland met the challenge by engaging a wide group of stakeholders and integrating progressive functional needs access frameworks into all aspects of its emergency management planning and response programs. The session will cover the tools that Oakland created and how local government agencies can efficiently and effectively transform their emergency preparedness programs.

Learning Objectives:

  • Participants will understand the various elements of inclusionary emergency planning and response at the local government level, including the C-MIST approach.
  • Participants will learn how to integrate functional needs frameworks and build the capacity of local government emergency preparedness programs, activities and services to serve diverse disability populations.
  • Participants will learn how local governments can effectively engage functional needs populations in all aspects of emergency planning and response.

Presenter:

  • June Isaacson Kailes operates a Disability Policy Consulting practice and is the Associate Director, Center for Disability and Health Policy at Western University of Health Sciences, Pomona, California. June is one of a handful of people with disabilities who has focused on disability and aging related emergency issues since the early 1980s. June currently works on emergency issues internationally, with local, state, local, and federal agencies, community-based organizations and an array of other emergency managers, planners and contractors. June pioneered conceiving, promoting, and moving the emergency management world from the vague "special needs" focus to operationalizing an access and functional needs approach to planning and response. This also includes conceiving and working with the State of California to adopt and implement the use of Functional Assessment Service Teams (FAST).
  • Christine Calabrese - has worked as the City of Oakland's ADA Title Coordinator for over fifteen years. In addition to leading the City's effort to create and implement its Mass Care and Shelter Plan Functional Needs Annex, Ms. Calabrese is the agreed upon monitor for the associated CFILC v. Oakland settlement (2010). In her work, Ms. Calabrese applies her considerable architectural design and program management skills to the implementation of disability civil rights laws in the local government setting. Ms. Calabrese is certified under the California Access Specialist Program (CASp) and holds a Project Management Professional credential (PMP).
  • Scott Means Means is currently the ADA Specialist for the City of Oakland ADA Programs Division. Scott came to the City of Oakland in the capacity of Inclusion Coordinator for Parks and Recreation in 2001. His unit created and opened a Magnet Inclusive Recreation Center for citywide disability resources in 2003. Scott assisted the city's ADA Programs Division and the Emergency Management Services Division on the Functional Needs Annex and developed the Oakland Parks and Recreation Emergency Plan. As one of the City's Functional Needs Coordinators, Scott has completed FEMA incident management and FAST training. He has been working with the disability community since in 1983.
  • Renee Domingo is currently the Director of Emergency Services and Homeland Security for the City of Oakland, California. Ms. Domingo established the City of Oakland's Homeland Security Division in January 2006. She has developed numerous emergency plans and programs over the last 20 years for various business and government sectors, including the first California SEMS compliant school emergency plan that served over 50,000 students and became a model for the California School Board Association and was utilized nationwide by other schools and the City of Oakland's Hazardous Materials Regulatory Program. She has been involved in emergency response, recovery, and mitigation efforts for eight presidential-declared disasters.
  • Lorraine Rosenblatt chairs the Oakland Mayor's Commission on Persons with Disabilities (MCPD) Ad Hoc Outreach Committee to ensure that Persons with Access and Functional needs have an integral presence within the greater community of Oakland. A staunch advocate of Emergency Preparedness for Persons with Access and Functional needs, Ms. Rosenblatt began her crusade in 2005 as a Commissioner with the MCPD and with the American Red Cross (Bay Area) in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Since 2010 she has been an Advisory Task Member with Communities of Oakland Responding to Emergencies (CORE).

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