Saturday, March 10, 2012

Volunteer for an advisory board, commission, or other boards in your community.

BEMA Network members (All):

Seek out, review, and apply for local government advisory, commission, and other advisory board positions in your area.  

Your talent and experience can be utilize by your community, local politicians, and administrative agencies to provide the necessary input and advice ensuring the sustainability, and resiliency of your community.

Compensation may be in the form of payments for travel, parking, or other incidental cost to attend meetings.  

Review the article below on the number of positions available serving on boards and commissions.

Remember to get involved.

Charles D. Sharp
Emergency Manager
Senior Advisor

"One of the true test of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency."       Arnold H. Glasgow

 

http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/dc/2012/03/dc-boards-sit-empty-outdated-process-stalls/351706

D.C. boards sit empty, outdated as process stalls

The District's boards and commissions, which oversee matters ranging from tax appeals to dentists, have more than 700 open seats, a Washington Examiner analysis shows. Also, more than two dozen of the city's 175 panels are empty or composed of members whose terms have expired.

The number of available slots -- 729 out of 2,071 positions -- has fallen by 74 since October. Then, 21 panels had no members at all or were exclusively made up of people whose terms had ended. Since, that figure has risen to 27.

Depending on the board, District law permits members whose terms have ended to serve 180 days or until the new selection makes it through the nomination process, meaning some members can serve indefinitely.
Help wanted
The number of District boards and commissions that are vacant or staffed only by appointees whose terms have expired has jumped to 27 from 21 in October. Those panels include:
Homeland Security Commission
Occupational Safety and Health Board
Real Property Tax Appeals Commission
Statewide Health Coordinating Council
Destination D.C.
Mayor Vincent Gray is responsible for filling the boards, and some nominations require the D.C. Council's approval.

But the process has stalled, and an additional 38 boards don't have a majority of their seats occupied by people whose terms are current, meaning 65 panels aren't functioning at all or are doing so with members whose terms have expired. Officials couldn't immediately on Thursday provide a roster of the boards that are listed as vacant yet continue to function with holdovers, but mayoral spokesman Pedro Ribeiro said they are plentiful. "A lot of the boards ... are actually fully operational and continue to do their jobs because they have that leeway," Ribeiro said.

Ribeiro also said that so far in fiscal 2012, Gray has named 44 percent more nominees than he did in the last fiscal year.

One city official suggested part of the backlog could be blamed on former Mayor Adrian Fenty.
"We inherited the largest number of vacancies a mayor has ever inherited," the official said on the condition of anonymity. "It has swamped the capacity of [the Office of Boards and Commissions.]"
Complicating Gray's efforts to fill positions: That office has only one permanent employee -- and he's on leave. An interim director and two staffers are temporarily working in the office.

The head of the city's police union, which has a lawsuit pending against the city for failing to name members to the panel that sets standards for police officers, said vacancies of any city boards are troubling.
"Obviously, Gray is just not interested in the long-term future," Kris Baumann said. "It's either paralysis or incompetence, but they have not done what they were elected to do."

ablinder@washingtonexaminer.com

National Children's Mental Health Awareness Day. May 9, 2012

As National Children's Mental Health Awareness Day approaches on May 9, 2012, a data point will be released at least once a month about trauma and resilience in children and youth. Help raise awareness about the importance of children's mental health by sharing these data points with your distribution list of child-, youth-, and family-serving organizations, associations, agencies, and individuals and encouraging them to share with their contacts.

February 2012

Among a sample of youth in juvenile detention, 93 percent of males and 84 percent of females reported exposure to a traumatic experience. Eleven percent of males and 15 percent of females met the criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD and other mental health challenges can impair a youth's capacity to reach age-appropriate developmental goals.

With help from families, friends, providers, and other Heroes of Hope, children and youth can be resilient when dealing with trauma. Visit http://1.usa.gov/zKxV8K to learn more.

January 2012

Children and youth who experience trauma display increases in stress hormones comparable to those displayed in combat veterans. Researchers point to multiple potential outcomes for children exposed to trauma, including attachment, mood regulation, dissociation, self-concept challenges, and behavioral, cognition, and biological changes, all of which can have a negative impact on school attendance, learning, and academic achievement.

With help from families, friends, providers, and other Heroes of Hope, children and youth can be resilient when dealing with trauma. Visit http://1.usa.gov/AbbNsM to learn more.

May 2011

When exposed to a traumatic event, children as young as 18 months can have serious emotional and behavioral problems later in childhood and in adulthood. More than 35 percent of children exposed to a single traumatic event will develop serious mental health problems.

With help from families, providers, and the community, young children can demonstrate resilience when dealing with trauma. Visit http://1.usa.gov/eURFX5 to learn more.

Late April 2011

In 2009, researchers found that more than 60 percent of youth age 17 and younger have been exposed to crime, violence and abuse either directly or indirectly including witnessing a violent act, assault with a weapon, sexual victimization, child maltreatment and dating violence. Nearly 10 percent were injured during the exposure to violence, 10 percent were exposed to maltreatment by caretaker, and 6 percent were a victim of sexual assault.

With help from families, providers, and the community, children and youth can demonstrate resilience when dealing with trauma. Visit http://1.usa.gov/fAInvl to learn more.

April 2011

As the number of traumatic events experienced during childhood increases, the risk for the following problems in adulthood increases: depression; alcoholism; drug abuse; suicide attempts; heart and liver disease; pregnancy problems; high stress; uncontrollable anger; and family, financial, and job problems.
With help from families, providers, and the community, children and youth can be resilient when dealing with trauma. Visit http://1.usa.gov/h1fWPD to learn more.

March 2011

Studies on the brain show that physical, emotional, or sexual abuse in childhood can cause permanent damage to the brain, reduce the size of parts of the brain, impact the way a child’s brain copes with daily stress, and can result in enduring problems such as depression, anxiety, aggression, impulsiveness, delinquency, hyperactivity, and substance abuse.

With help from families, providers, and the community, young children can demonstrate resilience when dealing with trauma. Visit http://1.usa.gov/faK4p1 to learn more.

February 2011

Young children exposed to 5 or more significant adversities in the first 3 years of childhood face a 76 percent likelihood of having one or more delays in their cognitive, language, or emotional development.
With help from families, providers, and the community, young children can demonstrate resilience when dealing with trauma. Visit http://bit.ly/ik4yas to learn more.

AT&T High School Retention Program

2012 AT&T Aspire Local High School Impact Initiative request for proposal is now open

3/8/2012

AT&T’s Local Impact RFP will provide funding for currently operating high school retention programs consisting of elements aligned to the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) Dropout Prevention Practice Guide. AT&T is looking to support organizations that are ready to expand to serve additional students or locations, or to add components to strengthen successful programs. Payments ranging from $100,000 to $300,000 for 24 months (2012-14) are available for local programs that emphasize:
  • Service to high school students at-risk of dropping out of school, particularly 9th graders or students in transition from 8th to 9th grade
  • Intervening quickly with targeted services to help these students re-engage
  • Increasing students’ chances of earning a high school diploma
  • Preparing students for college and/or career
  • Providing substantial data to demonstrate positive outcomes
The RFP deadline is April 27, 2012. Visit www.att.com/eduation-news for more information on the 2012 Local High School Impact Initiative and check back often for updates on AT&T Aspire. The AT&T Aspire Local High School Impact Initiative team will review and evaluate all those who respond to the RFP and make determinations as to eligibility after that time.

Haiti - Update

Money for Cleaning Toilets in Haiti Down the Drain? – Part 1

By Phares Jerome and Valery Daudier*http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=106976

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Mar 7, 2012 (IPS/The Nouvelliste) - The drawdown of hundreds of non-governmental organisations which have been in Haiti since the disastrous 2010 earthquake was inevitable. But with their departure, so too goes their purse and the millions earmarked for cleaning latrines.

What does that mean for the half a million displaced still living in camps?

Some 11,000 mobile toilets were installed by a rainbow of international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) following the earthquake. Supplied largely by the Clinton Foundation, the U.S. Agency for International Development and UNICEF, and then redistributed by the NGO community to hundreds of camps, these latrines improved the living conditions and staved off pending health problems for some of the 1.5 million who were displaced.

Now, donor dollars are drying up even as toilets overflow. It's one thing for the funders to cinch their belt; it's another for those in the camps.

Because of the sheer number of people and organisations involved in human waste disposal, it's nearly impossible to calculate how much has been spent over the last two years. Dozens of NGOs signed contracts with local companies to empty the latrines; eight dollars a day per toilet, or 125 dollars to empty a 125-gallon drum of sewage.

Each agency or organisation has its own tab. UNICEF spent 1.4 million dollars cleaning portable toilets over the last two years; the French Action Against Hunger (ACF) invested 2.675 million dollars in sanitation, most of which went for cleaning latrines. The Federation of Red Cross and Islamic Red Cross spent 55 million dollars for water and sewage treatment through September 2011.

"It's important not to focus on the money but on the sanitary catastrophe that was avoided," said Moustapha Niang, UNICEF's hygiene, water and sanitation consultant.

"In an emergency situation, you have to respond quickly to save victims. This is always costly, but not sustainable. Everyone knows that," said Anne Charlotte Schneider, head of Haiti's ACF's mission.

If sustainability were the name of the game, however, everyone would also know this approach was all wrong. Temporary latrines are just that - temporary. But because many of the camps were on private land, a temporary solution was the only one considered.

"When it's impossible to build a sustainable infrastructure, we went with mobile toilets even though they were most costly," said Peleg Charles, communications director for OXFAM, which worked on waste disposal in 123 camps.

Sanitary engineer Frantz Benoît, of the Haitian Association of Sanitary Engineering and Environmental Sciences, said that if there had been a sewer system, the task of managing the human waste would have been easier.

Prior to the quake, only 17 percent of the capital's population had access to a standard flush toilet, so it was foolish to think that suddenly 1.5 million newly homeless could be connected to what was at best an antiquated sewage system. The Haitian authorities had neither the means, nor the technical competence, to do so. "Since there wasn't (a sewer system), that meant that the NGO community, which came to help us, had to use what was available," Benoit said. "The only criticism one can make of them is how the toilets were distributed among the camp dwellers."

Distribution was as erratic as the earthquake's aftershocks.

ACF identified one hundred families for only two latrines in a southern suburb; in the capital centre the latrines, stamped with the donor's logo, surrounded camp perimetres like sentinels, but rarely was the international SPHERE standard of one toilet per 20 people – by gender – respected. Most residents use plastic bags.

In the case of Camp Acra, in the residential neighbourhood of Delmas, the ravine behind the camp is the resident "plastic bag" dumping ground.

"Besides the Haitian Red Cross and Samaritan's purse (who gave us some things), we did not receive any support," said 27-year old James Pierre, a Camp Acra resident. "And for the last year, they are gone along with their resources. Since then, we've been forgotten entirely."

The most recent NGO to jump ship is the International Rescue Committee (IRC), which, as of Jan. 30, 2012, stopped all water and sanitation related activities in 31 camps in the metropolitan Port-au Prince region. IRC says it transferred its responsibility to either camp management committees, or the state agency: the National Directorate Agency of Water and Sanitation (DINEPA).

ACF will soon follow suit. At the end of the month it will stop emptying the portable toilet units at Champs Mars, across from the crumpled national palace.

To date, ACF has installed some 682 units in about 40 camps. According to its two-year financial sheet, the agency claims 800,000 people benefited from its services. In addition to Champ Mars, Schneider said ACF has also transferred latrine cleaning in all its other sites to DINEPA.

But DINEPA said it is not aware that it's responsible for the formerly ACF-serviced latrines.

"The only officially registered transfer to date has been that of the Federation of Red Crosses," said the DINEPA's director of sanitation, engineer Edwige Petit, when questioned about the number of NGOs still present in the camps.

According to the International Organisation for Migration (OIM), there are still 490,545 people living in over 650 camps in the earthquake zones. Latrine cleaning was down 18.1 percent from the month before. And a bulletin recently published by the U.N.'s Organisation for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance (OCHA) states that "356 latrines are going to be removed."

"We are working with earthquake victims to return home," said ACF's Schneider. "We are now working on a multi latrine project (five families per latrine) for a total of 600,000 dollars."

With the absence of data, it's hard to compare sanitation before and after Haiti's earthquake, but with an extensive outreach campaign it appears that there is better sanitation awareness among the population. And more tangibly, there is an excreta treatment center in Morne-à-Cabri north of the capital.

UNICEF, the European Union's humanitarian branch, OCHA and the American Red Cross have earmarked 2.6 million dollars for the centre, which receives between 30-50 barrels of excreta every day. A soon-to- be released report by the U.N.-led group of non-governmental and governmental agencies working in water and sanitation (the WASH Cluster) says that 17,000 cubic metres of excreta have already been treated since the launch of operations three months ago.

Morne-à-Cabri's sewage treatment plant is the first of its kind in the country. A second one is under construction in Titanyen, funded by the Spanish cooperation.

Ironically, the new plant does not receive excreta from the camps in the surrounding areas. Like much of the population, residents in nearby camps have no access to functioning latrines. And because public washrooms are not yet part of any national programme, they are also missing from public markets, bus stations, schools and churches.

With bilateral funding and financing from the Inter-American Development Bank, UNICEF and the American Red Cross, DINEPA is executing its 2012-2014 action plan to increase its sanitation work across the country.

This will include the construction of 12 wastewater treatment stations; the establishment of management/maintenance (including the reconstruction/rehabilitation) sanitary blocks in public places which include reconstruction and/or rehabilitation and a training and communication campaign to encourage the construction of toilets, according to the agency, which declined to reveal to cost of the plan.

But as necessary and ambitious as this plan is, it doesn't address the challenges facing the 490,545 people living in squalid camps. Where will they go when the need to go?

*This article has been made possible with support from the Fund for Investigative Journalism in Haiti, www.journalismeinvestigationhaiti.blogspot.com.

Friday, March 9, 2012

U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs

9-11 Commission

Senators Lieberman and McCain authored the legislation that created the 9/11 Commission to investigate why America's defenses failed leading up to September 11, 2001, and how to prevent a catastrophic attack from happening again. Senators Lieberman and Collins subsequently crafted legislation to implement the Commission's recommendations and have worked ever since to ensure those laws are working to protect the American people to the greatest extent possible.

 The Committee has originated a series of bipartisan legislative initiatives enacted by Congress and signed into law to organize and coordinate the federal government’s vast resources more effectively to prevent, prepare for, and, if necessary, respond to and recover from terrorist attacks or natural disasters, while also strengthening the capabilities of state and local governments, first responders, and the private sector.

In 2001 and 2002, the Committee led the effort to consolidate the 22 disparate agencies and bureaus responsible for disaster preparedness, prevention, and response into one Department of Homeland Security with the unified purpose of protecting the homeland.  The Homeland Security Act passed Congress in September 2002.

911 button
The 9/11 Commission produced its best-selling report in July 2004, and the Committee promptly drafted legislation to implement its main recommendations.  Congress passed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention and Act of 2004, which created a Director of National Intelligence to coordinate the work of 15 federal intelligence agencies and established a National Counter Terrorism Center to analyze intelligence information – “connecting the dots” so the government could take effective action to detect, prevent, and disrupt terrorist activity.

To ensure appropriate oversight from Congress, the Senate expanded the Committee’s jurisdiction in S. Res. 445 and changed the Committee’s name to the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

The new Department of Homeland Security was tested for the first time when Hurricane Katrina, the largest natural disaster in recent U.S. history, struck the Gulf Coast in August 2005.  The inadequate response by all levels of government to this disaster underscored the need to better prepare for both natural disasters and terrorist attacks. After a Committee investigation that included 24 hearings, review of over 840,000 documents, and interviews of more than 320 people, the Committee released the only Congressional bipartisan report on Hurricane Katrina entitled, Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared.

Cover of the Committee's May 2006 report on Hurricane Katrina
Based on the findings of this investigation, the Committee drafted and Congress enacted the Post Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006, which strengthened the Department’s ability to protect the nation from “all hazards” – whether natural or man-made.

In 2006, the Committee also worked with others to draft the SAFE Port Act of 2006, which was signed into law in October.  This legislation strengthened the security of the nation’s ports by, among other things, establishing a dedicated port security grant program.  Congress also adopted chemical security legislation in October 2006 – building on the Committee’s work - to allow the Department of Homeland Security to begin regulating the nation’s highest risk chemical plants.

In 2007, Senators Lieberman and Collins led the Senate effort to enact additional recommendations from the 9/11 Commission report and to improve the Department of Homeland Security’s existing efforts to protect the nation’s security.  The Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007 established a fair and stable formula for distributing homeland security grant programs, over 90 percent of which would be allocated based on risk.  The Act also required screening of all cargo carried on passenger airplanes within three years; gave protection from lawsuits to vigilant citizens who in good faith report suspected terrorist activity targeting airplanes, trains, buses; created a dedicated interoperability grant program to improve emergency communications for state and local first responders; and authorized more than $4 billion over four years for rail, transit, and bus security grants.

The Committee also worked on and approved legislation to strengthen the federal government's ability to respond to an attack using weapons of mass destruction, and legislation to improve the security of the nation's laboratores using the most lethal biological pathogens.

In 2011, to mark the tenth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Committee launched a series of hearings to review the efficacy of the laws it had passed over the past decade and to assess additional needs for the future.



House & Senate: Homeland Security & Emergency Management Upcoming Events.

HOUSE

Subcommittee Hearing: Ensuring the Transparency, Efficiency, and Effectiveness of Homeland Security Grants

Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Communications | 311 Cannon House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515 | Mar 20, 2012 10:00am

Opening Statements

Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), Chairman
[full text of opening statement will be available upon commencement of the hearing]

Witnesses

To Be Announced


SENATE

 

Upcoming Hearings
Contracting Oversight Contractors: How Much Are They Costing the Government?  Dirksen Senate Office Building, SD-342
Retooling Government for the 21st Century: The President's Reorganization Plan and Reducing  SD-342
Oversight of Government Management Managing Interagency Nuclear Nonproliferation Efforts: Are We Effectively Securing Nuclear Materials Around the World?  Room 342, Dirksen Senate Office Building

Training: Deaf & Hard of Hearing Preparedness Instructional Videos

Illinois Deaf and Hard of Hearing Commission Releases Emergency Preparedness Videos

The Illinois Deaf and Hard of Hearing Commission (IDHHC) has collaborated with the Illinois Emergency Management Agency to release a series of videos “Emergency Preparedness:  Together We Prepare.” The videos are intended to instruct individuals and families on how to prepare for a natural disaster. All are shown in American Sign Language and have captions.

The video’s topics are:
Introduction
Make a Plan
Get Trained
Build a Kit
Volunteer
Sheltering in Place
Going to a Shelter
Emergency Preparedness for People with Disabilities
Evacuation
Planning for Evacuation
What to do When You Are Told to Evacuate

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Autism rescue: Firefighter teaches how to help autistic people in emergencies



http://todayhealth.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/01/10543990-autism-rescue-firefighter-teaches-how-to-help-autistic-people-in-emergencies

 By Lisa A. Flam
As an experienced firefighter and a devoted father to an autistic son, Bill Cannata is combining the two worlds he knows so well to help protect others.

Being in a fire can be confusing and overwhelming -- especially for someone with autism, says Cannata, a fire captain in Westwood, Mass. And autistic people may react in a way that seems combative to emergency first responders. His mission: teaching first responders around the country how to identify someone with autism and how best to help them in an emergency, when every second counts.

Cannata knows about autism first-hand: His 21-year-old son, Ted, who has the disorder, is unable to speak and is highly sensitive to sight, sound and touch.

“They’re going to react differently,” Cannata told TODAY. “They're going to resist rescue because of the confusion. They may have extreme behaviors because of the situation.”

That could mean getting out of control, acting aggressive, or simply shutting down, Cannata says.
“People with autism follow a routine and if that routine is broken, this is where the confusion begins with a lot of them and they don't know what to do,” Cannata says. “People with autism have left a burning building, but because of the confusion, went back in because that's their safety [place], or some people will run away just to get away from all of the noise and the confusion.”

The fire/rescue autism program has educated more than 15,000 first responders, as autism spectrum disorders affect a growing number of families each year.

An estimated 1.5 million Americans may have autism, a developmental disorder marked by impaired communication and social skills. An estimated one in 110 children have an autism-spectrum disorder, making the first-responder education more crucial than ever.

“There's such a need,” Cannata says. “I'm getting calls pretty much every day for training requests.”
His work is paying off.

Shortly after participating in a training session with Cannata, emergency responder Bill Turner encountered an autistic boy who was out of control at a house fire.

“I go to grab the young boy and I got him and he started pounding me on the chest and he was just beating me like he was going to beat me to a pulp,” Turner told TODAY. “And I remembered that the class had taught me that if I put my arms around him and put him kind of in a bear hug, that he will simmer down.”
Turner did the right thing to keep the boy safe until his parents could care for him, Cannata says, adding, "It was perfect."

For all of the teaching Cannata has done, the person he learns the most from is close at heart.
“He's my best teacher,” he says of his son Ted, “and what I do is just convey that message to other first responders.”

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