Training

IEPC’s first new training for reception centre leaders, staff and volunteers to teach basic skills for making centre services available to all Ontarians, including people with disabilities. Numerous other kinds of trainings are available, designed to support emergency managers and responders, providers of services to people with disabilities and other vulnerable populations, and individuals with disabilities and their families. Trainings also are available for public agencies and private-sector businesses concerned about the safety of all their employees, customers, and vendors.

IEPC partner organizations have contributed to the common effort to develop and deliver trainings and technical assistance to all sectors of the community. The March of Dimes Canada is very skilled and knowledgeable about providing inclusive assistance to people with disabilities and their families and supportive organizations. The Canadian Red Cross has extensive experience working with volunteers and paid staff to provide emergency services, and experience training volunteers and staff to be able to identify and provide the needed services. The Inclusive Preparedness Center is experienced about the intersection of emergency preparedness and the more vulnerable populations that need preparedness planning more than most other groups. This includes developing trainings and technical assistance materials to effectively deliver training to hard-to-reach groups and the community organizations that serve them.

IEPC uses the combined knowledge and skills of its partners to develop a range of planning templates, guidance documents, and exercise templates to assist emergency managers as they include vulnerable individuals and families in emergency planning, exercise, assessment, and response processes.

IEPC has developed continuity of operations (COOP) planning templates to assist businesses, public agencies, and community organizations that serve people with disabilities. Trusted organizations have the greatest capacity to help vulnerable families and individuals plan for a disaster, but the organizations themselves need to be able to continue functioning when a disaster strikes. Since organizations and their clients can support each other before, during and after an emergency, COOP planning technical assistance can include ways for the organizations to provide preparedness planning to the families they serve.

IEPC has developed guidance documents and planning templates that towns and other communities can use to include vulnerable families and individuals in community-wide planning for emergencies.

In all the aforementioned planning, it is important to note that exercises and assessments of preparedness are vital to ensuring that plans are realistic and implementable. IEPC has developed inclusive exercises, both tabletop and functional, to serve a variety of planning purposes. IEPC has developed innovative exercises that not only test existing plans, but stimulate interest and participation in new planning, quickly identify critical preparedness problems for which plans can be developed, and bring together vulnerable groups and emergency managers and responders to build closer ties and productive alliances.