5 Ways FEMA Honors the Americans with Disabilities Act

FEMA Disability Coordinator and Office of Disability Integration and Coordination Director Sherman Gillums Jr. shares how FEMA continues to improve how the agency uses guidance from the Americans with Disabilities Act to help survivors before, during and after disasters.

When the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed on July 26, 1990, it shaped the course of my life. Barriers, which I would have had to face when I attended graduate school, traveled, or simply moved about my community, were removed.

My career was no exception. Being competitive in the workplace starts with having the opportunity to keep pace with expectations. I knew, as long as I had reasonable accommodations, I could exceed expectations; I could make my situation less about disability and more about my ability to succeed.

I was able to take advantage of the improvements the ADA presented, but I recognize that there is still a lot of work to be done, especially in the emergency management field. As the Disability Coordinator and Office of Disability Integration and Coordination director at FEMA, I am guided by the ADA to improve policies, procedures, operation and support for disaster survivors with disabilities.

The Office of Disability Integration and Coordination is the hub for this work at FEMA. We focus on ensuring the equity and inclusion of people with disabilities into all aspects of disaster preparedness and emergency management.

Here are five ways we are using the guidelines presented in the ADA to improve the way we do things at FEMA.

We work with our state, local, Tribal and territorial partners to integrate the needs of people with disabilities into FEMA policies, programs and services.

It’s important that equitable programs not only exist, but that all people have the same access to them. This means getting involved at every level of government and community during all phases of emergency management.

One of the biggest ways ADA helps to shape our efforts is by addressing one of the most glaring vulnerabilities a community faces during a disaster: structural barriers to people with access and functional needs. An accessible community that is ADA compliant before it is affected by a disaster has a much greater chance of restoring all lives to normalcy afterwards.

We use ADA accessible design standards to help make communities more resilient.

FEMA assesses the performance of its work by the length of the disaster cycle for people with disabilities and older adults. To accomplish this, we look at 14 potential points along the disaster cycle where inequities may occur. These points begin with the critical step of including people with disabilities in emergency planning and exercises and end with a return to pre-disaster life, work and recreation. We all benefit by designing preparedness plans that are inclusive of people with disabilities.

Guided by ADA effective communication standards, we continue to upgrade the FEMA app to be more accessible. The app is:

We’ve made strides to improve our own capabilities here at FEMA. This in turn helps us to improve how FEMA staff interacts with survivors. For example, we educate our Disaster Survivor Assistance Teams on disability cultural competency when canvassing neighborhoods and engaging people and families.

Recently, we updated the National Response Coordination Center to increase accessibility for the FEMA workforce and federal partners. This center is critical to national security and supports response efforts to major disasters, emergencies and catastrophic incidents. Representatives from federal, state, Tribal, territorial and many other organizations use the center when it is activated to coordinate our response efforts.

Some of the improvements to the center include:

Our work at FEMA and in the larger emergency management community to be fully inclusive is ever expanding, but today we celebrate that the ADA makes continued progress possible.

For more information about the Office of Disability and Integration, visit FEMA.gov.