Education

NFPA Journal, Sep/Oct 2004 by Diment, Earl, Mieszala, Pat

Plans for 2005 WSCE program

Board members are developing program ideas for the 2005 World Safety Conference and Exposition� in Las Vegas next June. Topics being considered are Public Education 101; college housing fire safety; a focus on adolescents; the older adult audience; learning challenges for special-needs audiences of all ages; and fire safe cigarette legislation in Canada, as well as section business and brainstorming.

Directors Monique Cardwell and Lynn Schofield will review our bylaws and suggest revisons to reflect the changes in meeting schedule and methods for balloting members.

Pat Mieszala, RN, is the Education section Board secretary.

New Study Needs Your Input

The Education section is working with the Research & Training Center on Independent Living (RTCIL) at the University of Kansas to determine whether community disaster plans and emergency response systems take into account the health, safety, and survival needs of persons with mobility impairments. The RTCIL has established a Web site called "Nobody Left Behind" to investigate 30 randomly selected counties, cities, and boroughs in the United States that have recently experienced a natural or man-made disaster to identify the morbidity and mortality of persons with mobility impairments in these disasters; assess any post-disaster changes made to address the needs of such persons; and develop best practices for counties to help them formulate disaster plans that meet such persons' needs.

If you have a mobility impairment and you've experienced a disaster, we'd like to ask you to complete a brief on-line survey to help researchers and emergency managers determine if persons with mobility limitations have equal access to building evacuation methods, what obstacles complicate post-disaster services at shelters or re-entery services, and what did and did not work during the disaster.

The survey, which can be found at http://rtcil.org/survey.htm, takes less than 10 minutes to complete, and your stories will remain anonymous.

If you have difficulty typing or using a computer, you can request consumer survey information from the Research & Training Center on Independent Living, The University of Kansas, 1000 Dole, Room 4089, Lawrence, Kansas 66045, Attn: Nobody Left Behind Project.

HOW TO REACH US: Judy Comoletti, Executive secretary, (617) 984-7287, jcomoletti@nfpa.org