Statement of Marcie Roth
Director
Office of Disability Integration and Coordination
Federal Emergency Management Agency
United States
Good Afternoon, my name is Marcie Roth and I am the Director of the Office of Disability Integration
and Coordination for the US Federal Emergency Management Agency. I want to thank the conveners of
this session, UNISDR and the DIDRRN for the opportunity to share my statement.
FEMA's mission is to support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work
together to build, sustain, and improve our capacity to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover
from, and mitigate all hazards.
Please note that the mission is to “work together”, this is fundamental to the success of disability
inclusive emergency management, and it is the primary mission of my office.
The Office of Disability Integration and Coordination (ODIC) was established in 2010. ODIC guides
FEMA’s commitment to achieving universally accessible, survivor centric, fully inclusive emergency
management. This requires integrating the whole community inclusive of people with disabilities,
people with access and functional needs, first responders, community partners and across government
to achieve program, physical, and effective communication access throughout all FEMA programs,
services, activities and functions before, during, and after disasters.
Over 50% of the US population has access and functional needs. This includes over 59 million children
and adults with disabilities, as well as older persons, people with limited language proficiency, people
who live in poverty and many others who are disproportionately impacted when disaster planning fails
to incorporate universal accessibility and specific approaches to meet the physical, program and
effective communication access needs of the whole community.
President Barack Obama has established a national preparedness goal:
“A secure and resilient Nation with the capabilities required across the whole community to prevent,
protect against, mitigate, respond to, and recover from the threats and hazards that pose the greatest
risk”.
National preparedness is the shared responsibility of our whole community where every member
contributes, including individuals, communities, the private and nonprofit sectors, faith-based
organizations, and federal, state, tribal, territorial, and local governments.”
We have learned that creating separate plans to address the needs of people with disabilities is a failed
approach. Instead, the United States strongly supports a “whole community” approach to DRR. The
whole community includes individuals who may experience a disproportionate or greater impact during
and after a disaster.
We recognize persons with disabilities and older persons face constraints in accessing assistance in
normal times. During disasters, accommodating these accessibility needs become critical to reorient
services and shape content in DRR activities.
Participation of the whole community requires equal access to local, statewide and national
preparedness activities and programs without discrimination; meeting the equal access and functional
needs of all individuals; and consistent and active engagement and involvement in all aspects of
planning.
Across the US government, and with the active involvement of the whole community, we have
established five comprehensive frameworks to achieve our National Preparedness Goal. Contained
throughout each of these frameworks are explicit references to the inclusion of disability stakeholders,
practices that advance universal accessibility and modifications to policy and practices to meet the
access and functional needs of the whole community before, during and after disaster.
In support of the goal, FEMA’s Office of Disability Integration and Coordination has grown from a staff of
one, to a fully deployable cadre of seventy disability integration advisors who have responded to over
120 disasters in the past three years. Our role is as key participants on the disaster command staff,
directly advising the Presidentially appointed Federal Coordinator for the disaster. Our team deploys at
the beginning of federal involvement and serves in our role throughout the period that the federal
government is providing disaster response and recovery.
As a result of our specific efforts on the ground, and in partnership with local communities, we have
learned some lessons:
 We must refrain from referring to people with disabilities as “vulnerable”.
 Everyone is part of “vulnerable populations”.
 People with disabilities are often experts in managing the unexpected, and
 when we are intentionally included, we can be assets, rather than liabilities for DRR efforts.
 People with disabilities, older adults, children, people who are poor, people with limited
language proficiency and many others with access and functional needs are disproportionately
impacted in disasters
 These are not “special” needs.
 Resilient communities plan for and meet access and functional needs.
 Universal accessibility optimizes physical, program and effective communication access before,
during and after disasters.
And, the most important lesson of all,
 Planning is far more successful when planning “with” the whole community rather than “for”
them.
Simply put, Nothing about us without us!
Disability Inclusive DRR requires the full participation and leadership of people with disabilities
throughout all of the following aspects of DRR:
 Preparation- equal access to actionable information and resources
 Exercises- real people, real scenarios
 Notification - information must be accessible to be actionable
 Evacuation and transportation- keep people and their assistive devices together (i.e.:
wheelchair, communication board, service animal)
 Sheltering- keep families, neighbors and natural supports together
 First aid and medical services- health maintenance is paramount, not just acute care
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Temporary lodging and housing- accessibility and visitability
Transition back to the community- universal design, all children return to school
Mitigation- Universal accessibility
Here are some of the promising practices we are firmly committed to:
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Universal accessibility is “baked in” to all aspects of community development, not an
afterthought or annex
People with disabilities are “at the table” and their role is real, not tokenized
Qualified people with disabilities serve in leadership roles in emergency management
In support of these promising practices, here are some examples of the allowable use by states in their
annual federal grant funds provided:
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Inclusive meeting practices
Producing accessible materials and tools
General population shelter planning, training, equipment and supplies
Accessible Alert, Warning and Notification systems
Gap analysis
Resource tracking
Cross training
Analysis and evaluation of potential shelter locations
Planners
Neighborhood leadership development
In closing, disability inclusive disaster risk reduction isn’t only an imperative for children and adults with
disabilities. It is an imperative for resilience in every community. When communities integrate the
access and functional needs of children and adults with and without disabilities in all phases of
community-wide emergency management, they strengthen their ability to prepare for, protect against,
respond to, recover from, and mitigate all hazards.
Thank you for the opportunity to make this statement.
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