Sunday, April 13, 2014

Apr 14-17, 2014. First African Ministers of Health Conference Jointly Convened by the African Union Commission and the World Health Organisation

Apr.14.2014 - Apr.17.2014First African Ministers of Health Conference Jointly Convened by the African Union Commission and the World Health Organisation

GO TO ATTACHMENTS

MEDIA ADVISORY
FIRST AFRICAN MINISTERS OF HEALTH CONFERENCE JOINTLY CONVENED BY THE AFRICAN UNION COMMISSION AND THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION
INVITATION TO THE MEDIA
When: 14 – 17 April 2014
Where: Luanda, Republic of Angola
Who: African Union Commission (AUC) and the World Health Organisation (WHO).
OBJECTIVES : The key objective of the meeting is to provide an important forum for Member States, UN Agencies, Development Partners and other Stakeholders to discuss, among other the followings;
i. Universal Health Coverage in Africa: from concept to action;
ii. African Medicines Agency: setting milestones to establish a centralized regulatory system for medical products;
iii. Non-communicable diseases in Africa: policies and strategies to address risk factors;
iv. Prevention of maternal and child mortality: review of the plan of action;
v. Establishment of an African Centre for Disease Control and Prevention;
vi. Accountability mechanisms to assess the implementation of declarations and other commitments made by African Ministers of Health.
Participants: African Ministers in charge of health, development actors, private sector, NGOs and UN agencies will attend the meeting
Background:
Throughout their many years of partnership, the African Union Commission (AUC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have continuously explored ways to reinforce their collaboration and with theaim of obtaining better growth and development outcomesfor populations across Africa.
Guided by their respective legal and political instruments, and in the scope of their collaboration agreement, the two institutions decided to jointly organize biannual meetings of African Ministers of Health. These meetings should create opportunities for deliberation and decision-making on the critical health issues thataffect populations inAfrican countries, and on which political and public health authorities are requested to intervene in a strategic and efficient manner.
The need and desire by African countries was reinforced at the 6th Ordinary Session of the African Union Conference of Ministers of Health held in Addis Ababa in April 2013 and was also reiterated by the 22nd Ordinary Session of the African Union Heads of State and Government Summitheld in Addis Ababa January 2014.
For media inquiries and requests please contact:
Esther Tankou Azaa, AUC
email: YambouE@africa-union.org
Wurie Bah, AUC
email:bahw@africa-union.org
Collins Boakye-Agyemang, Communication Manager, WHO/AFRO
email: boakyeagyemangc@who.int
For any further information pleasevisit:

Saturday, April 12, 2014

Reentry Program: Grant\funding opportunities


U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance Releases SCA Adult Demonstration and Adult Mentoring Solicitations

U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice AssistanceSecond Chance Act Two-phase Adult Reentry Demonstration Program

The U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) recently released the FY2014 solicitation for the Second Chance Act Two-phase Adult Reentry Demonstration Program. These grants will provide up to $750,000 to help state and local governments and federally recognized Indian tribes plan and implement programs and strategies to reduce recidivism and ensure the safe and successful reentry of adults released from prisons and jails.

Successful applicants will be required to complete two phases of work: a project-planning phase and, after BJA approval, a project-implementation phase. The initial award period will be 24 months, with the possibility of no-penalty extensions that will allow for the completion of both the planning and implementation phases. Up to six months of the total project period can be used to complete the planning process, with the remaining months used for implementing the project. To download this solicitation, click here.  
Deadline: June 2, 2014

With funding support from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance, the National Reentry Resource Center will host a webinar for organizations responding to this solicitation. In this webinar, officials from BJA will explain the grant program and application process.

Date: April 25, 2014
Time: 2:00–3:00 p.m. ET

To register for this webinar, click here.
_________________________________

Second Chance Act Comprehensive Community-based Adult Reentry Program Utilizing Mentors

The U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance recently released the FY2014 solicitation for the Second Chance Comprehensive Community-based Adult Reentry Program Utilizing Mentors. These grants will award up to $1,000,000 over a three-year period to organizations that provide a comprehensive range of services, including mentoring, to individuals returning from prison or jail. Nonprofit organizations (including tribal nonprofit organizations) with a history of providing evidence-based reentry services are encouraged to apply. Applicants must commit to serving at least 250 participants over the three-year grant period. To download this solicitation, click here.

Deadline: June 2, 2014

With funding support from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance, the National Reentry Resource Center will host a webinar for organizations responding to this solicitation. In this webinar, officials from BJA will explain the grant program and application process.

Date: April 22, 2014
Time: 2:00–3:00 p.m. ET

To register for this webinar, click here

 

Thursday, April 10, 2014

Exercise, Exercise, Exercise. Getting something you least expected from planning.

Now that you've created the plans, policies, or procedures. Time to put them to the test.

Exercises by either a table-top, drill, functional, or full-scale is one form of validating what you've planned for.  You may even get something never expected during your planning.
 

BEMA

 

http://blogs.cdc.gov/publichealthmatters/2014/04/exercise-exercise-exercise/

Exercise! Exercise! Exercise!

 
You could say that those of us who work in preparedness are a little obsessed with making sure we’ve got our emergency kits stocked and ready, our emergency plans up to date, and our neighbors are ready too.  So we’ve got a few households in Georgia ready for a public health emergency (and a few others around the country – don’t forget about friends and family!), but how do we get the country ready?  How do we get the government and other response organizations prepared?
The answer, just like learning how to ride a bike, is practice. Practice, practice, and more practice.  And this past week, CDC participated in a government-wide exercise that tested our preparedness and response capabilities.  The National Exercise Program Capstone Exercise (NEPCE) 2014External Web Site Icon is a congressionally mandated preparedness exercise to test, assess, and improve the nation’s preparedness and resiliency.  CDC’s Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response (PHPR) and the National Center for Environmental Health and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (NCEH/ATSDR) worked together to participate in this event.  
NEPCE 2014 was designed to educate and prepare the whole community – from schools to businesses and hospitals to families – to prevent, mitigate against, protect from, respond to, and recover from acts of terroristic and catastrophic incidents. This was the first Capstone Exercise, formerly known as National Level Exercise, incorporated into the newly revised National Exercise Plan (NEP)External Web Site Icon, concluding and building on two years of smaller scale exercises.  The NEP includes exercises of all types, designed to engage all levels of government, non-government organizations and private sector organizations. 
This exercise culminated over nine months of interagency planning efforts among DHS, HHS and CDC along with our state and local partners.  CDC planning officials attended planning meetings in Washington, D.C. to integrate CDC operations into the exercise. Additionally, CDC deployed four public health personnel with the HHS Incident Response Coordination Team to Sacramento, California, during the exercise to simulate coordination activities that CDC would normally provide to the impacted population.
History Repeats Itself for Exercise Purposes
The exercise scenario centered on a 9.2 magnitude earthquake in Alaska that caused catastrophic damage across multiple communities, requiring federal response and recovery assistance.  A similar event happened in Alaska at the same time in 1964.
As it did 50 years ago, the earthquake resulted in several tsunamis with substantial threat and damage to critical infrastructure like buildings, bridges, and roads, along with injuries, deaths, and population displacement across Alaska and Canada. While national officials confronted earthquake and tsunami impacts, disruption in and around Juneau, the capital, resulted in a requirement for government entities to relocate to alternate sites.
RADM Scott Deitchman, M.D. M.P.H., USPHS, Assistant Surgeon General who is the Associate Director for Environmental Health Emergencies in NCEH/ATSDR served as the Incident Manager and lead for the exercise. He remarked, “I appreciated the opportunity the exercise gave us, like the rest of government, to exercise how we would respond to a catastrophic disaster of this magnitude. A real earthquake, like a nuclear detonation, suddenly puts you in a situation where the things we take for granted – communications systems to give messages to the public, transportation systems to send responders to the area, data systems for collecting surveillance data – all are gone. How do we launch a public health response in that setting? In exercises like this, the goal is to “test to fail” – to see where things break down, in a setting where we can learn without failing people in actual need. That gives us the opportunity to strengthen our response systems in anticipation of a real disaster.”
One of CDC’s primary missions is to ensure that we are prepared to assist the nation to respond to, recover from, and alleviate the impacts of public health disasters.  Participation in last week’s exercise enhanced our overall ability to support our nation during emergency situations. 
During this and other exercises, all aspects of CDC’s response capabilities are tested.  Managed out of CDC’sEmergency Operations Center (EOC), this exercise brought together experts in public health preparedness, as well as those with expertise in earthquakes.  During a real emergency, CDC would activate the EOC in order to help coordinate the Agency’s response.  Although no exercise will truly mimic a real life emergency, we do everything possible to imagine what could happen – from dealing with power outages to delays in supplies reaching affected areas to incorrect media reports and wild rumors – in order to test who we would respond.  After the exercise is over, we work with the other organizations involved and analyze what went well and what could be improved upon next time.
David Maples, Exercise Lead for OPHPR’s Division of Exercise Operations, commented, “The Alaska Shield earthquake exercise provided CDC the primary venue to validate our All-Hazards Plan and its Natural Disaster Annex and Earthquake Appendix.  We engaged our whole of community partners in this exercise at the federal, state and local levels, our tribal partners as well as several non-governmental organizations and private public health partners.  Maintaining these relationships is essential to our ability to get our public health guidance and messaging into the hands of those impacted by an event like this.  In a catastrophic natural disaster similar to the one we just exercised, CDC’s mission is just the beginning. Similar to our real world response to Superstorm Sandy, the recovery phase of an event like this will challenge our public health capabilities for some time.  But that is the goodness of our Public Health Preparedness and Response exercise program; it gives us the opportunity to prepare for no-notice disasters and emergent outbreaks before they occur.”

Public Health: Assessing Population Vulnerability to Health Impacts of Climate Change

Climate change will demand human adaptation, but are healthcare providers and public health officials ready to assess who will be most vulnerable? In our upcoming webinar, learn how researchers are determining which factors matter when correlating climate change with human health. Please register and mark your calendars (see attached flyer) -- and share this announcement with your colleagues and partners.

Assessing Population Vulnerability to Health Impacts of Climate Change

Date: April 25, 2014
Time: 1:00 - 2:00 p.m. ET
Please register at:http://bit.ly/PEPH_Climate
(Registration required)

Description: Global climate change is one of the most pressing environmental and public health concerns of the 21st century. Key to adapting to the effects of climate change is an understanding of the different risks experienced by various exposed or affected populations so that interventions can be targeted and implemented more efficiently. Certain populations are particularly at risk to the health effects of climate change, including children, pregnant women, the elderly, individuals from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds, and those living in urban or coastal areas. This webinar will describe ongoing research focused on assessing factors that may mediate increased risks among select vulnerable populations.

The webinar will include two presentations:

"Extreme Heat Events and Health Risk Patterns in Urban and Rural Communities"
Julia Gohlke, Ph.D., University of Alabama - Birmingham

"Climate Change and Vulnerability in the Elderly"
Antonella Zanobetti, Ph.D., Harvard School of Public Health

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

FREE response starter kit. New York State Training Session

Love it when our tax dollars are truly at work. 

State of New York, “Outstanding”!

Is your state ‘walking the walk’?

CDS

Check the State schedule for next training location near your area.

New York State is offering two hour training sessions for residents to have the tools and resources to prepare for any type of disaster, respond accordingly and recover as quickly as possible to pre-disaster conditions. Each family participating will receive a free Citizen Preparedness Corps Response Starter Kit.


The next training will be: ...
Saturday, April 12, 2014 10:00 AM - Onondaga County - Syracuse
Onondaga Community College - Gordon Center Great Room
4585 W. Seneca Turnpike
Syracuse, NY 13215
Sessions last approximately two hours

 

 

 

Black Emergency Managers Association  

1231  Good Hope Road  S.E.

Washington, D.C.  20020

Office:   202-618-9097 

bEMA 

 

Leaders don’t create followers, they create more leaders.   Tom Peters

…….The search is on.

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

VETERAN ORGANIZATIONS: Do Veterans discharged with other then honorable need our help? YES!

 
 
 
 AIR FORCE TIMES

 
Varying sentences for MTI conduct reflect uniqueness of cases
 
 Staff Sgt. Annamarie Ellis arrives at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland for her trial on maltraining and maltreating basic trainees charges. 
Staff Sgt. Annamarie Ellis arrives at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland for her trial on maltraining and maltreating basic trainees charges. (Jerry Lara / San Antonio Express-News)

A foul-mouthed former military training instructor who threatened to send recruits home in body bags and made them work out naked will spend eight months in jail before she leaves the Air Force with a bad conduct discharge.

Ex-Staff Sgt. Annamarie Ellis, who was also busted to airman basic, pleaded guilty last month to two dozen counts of maltreatment, cruelty, dereliction of duty and obstruction of justice while working at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in 2009 and 2010.

Another MTI convicted of arguably more serious charges in a similar case a year ago was sentenced to less jail time and got to stay in the Air Force, at least for the time being.

Then-Tech. Sgt. Bobby Bass physically abused trainees, forced them to crowd naked together in a shower and apply muscle cream to their genitals. He lost one stripe.

The relatively disparate punishments illustrate how no two cases are ever alike, even if they appear to be, military law experts say.

“No two defendants are the same and no two crimes are the same,” said Geoffrey Corn, a South Texas College law professor and retired Army judge advocate general.

Ellis is one of 30 MTIs sent to trial in the last two years as part of a sweeping investigation of instructor misconduct. She is the only former trainee among them not accused of a sexual offense.

Twenty-eight of the 30 cases have resulted in convictions on some or all charges.

The offenses were far-ranging: Rape, sexual assault, consensual sexual relationships with basic trainees and technical trainees, adultery, unprofessional relationships over social media, maltraining, obstruction and false official statements. So were the sentences, from 20 years in prison to no jail time.

Five former MTIs — Staff Sgt. Ryan Deraas, Master Sgt. Jamey Crawford, Staff Sgt. William Romero, Staff Sgt. John Gerbick and Staff Sgt. Emily Allen — convicted last spring of unprofessional relationships with multiple trainees got jail sentences that ranged from 45 days to seven months.

On the low end was Gerbick, convicted of unprofessional relationships with two technical trainees, adultery and giving a false statement.

Crawford, who had sexual relationships with two women, including one who had graduated from basic just one day before, got seven months and a bad conduct discharge. Crawford was also convicted of adultery and false official statements.

Two ex-staff sergeants convicted of rape saw a 16-year difference in their prison sentences. Luis Walker was sentenced to 20 years; Eddy Soto to four years. Soto, who was married at the time of the crimes, admitted to having sex with two women, including a technical trainee, but denied the rape. Walker, who was also married, had sexual relationships with several of the nine other women he victimized.

Corn said those sentences aren’t as disparate as they might appear. MTIs who engaged in improper relationships received similar sentences. Felony cases saw a wider range, which is how it should be, Corn said.

“If the sentences were all the same, I would be really worried. That would tell me judges are applying implied sentencing guidelines, which they aren’t supposed to do,” Corn said. “Each case is supposed to be decided on its own merit. The punishment should fit the crime, the criminal, the victim and all the circumstances around it.”

'No right answer'


There are no sentencing guidelines under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, said Lt. Col. Erik Coyne, a judge advocate general, who was speaking about the process and not the MTI cases. “There is no right answer. The right answer is individualized to the particular accused.”

A contrite defendant who admits to his or her crime may escape jail time for an offense an unrepentant perpetrator gets a few months or more for, Coyne said. “All those factors play in to why a sentence may go one way or another.”

Some sentences serve as retribution, said Coyne, “what we think of as punishment.” Prosecutors may also argue for a sentence in an effort to deter a would-be perpetrator, to rehabilitate the accused, to protect society or, in the military, to establish good order and discipline — or some combination of these five so-called principals of sentencing, he said.

Defense attorneys may use the same principals to make a counter-argument, Coyne said.

Every case is unique, not just in the circumstances and accused, but the jury selected, retired JAG Lt. Col. Sally Stenton said.

“Each member of the panel is an individual. The victims are all individuals. They all have their own backgrounds,” Stenton said. “Not every victim is a Girl Scout or a Boy Scout. You can have someone who is a victim of a serious crime who is not sympathetic. There’s an ugliness to that. People don’t like to talk about that. It is a factor.”

While a service member’s military record can no longer be considered when deciding whether to bring charges, it is still relevant at sentencing, Corn said. “When you have a sentencing hearing, no two airmen are the same in terms of their background, prior professional achievements, number of former colleagues willing to testify to their rehabilitative potential. So no two sentences will ever be the same.”

Only a handful of crimes, including premeditated murder and aiding the enemy, carry mandatory sentences, Corn said.

The National Defense Authorization Act passed in December added to that, requiring dishonorable discharges or the officer equivalent of dismissals for any service member convicted of rape, sexual assault and forcible sodomy.

Except for those offenses, Corn said, “every crime under the code is subject to a full and comprehensive sentencing hearing. Then the sentencing authority, whether a judge or panel, is instructed they have to consider from no punishment to the maximum authorized by the statute,” he said.

Ellis faced more than 43 years on the two dozen specifications she pleaded guilty to. She got eight months. Bass also faced decades in prison but was sentenced to six months.

“It’s very rare in a court-martial you’ll get a maximum penalty,” Corn said. Judges and jurors “are supposed to err on the side of leniency. They shouldn’t be lenient, but when selecting a sentence, you select one that serves the purpose that is the lowest in consideration.”

When considering a sentence, a panel, or jury, is instructed to begin at the low end and work up, Corn said. “As soon as they reach a consensus, they stop voting. They never even consider most sentences.”

“I think the most important point is the Air Force has been pretty diligent in bringing these cases to trial. Justice is defined through the process. The process woks, and it produces an outcome,” Corne said. “We have to be confident the outcome was right for that case. That’s the system we live in.”
 

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