5 Steps to Build an Inclusive Emergency Response
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 1.3 billion people have a significant disability, whether it is a physical or mental condition. Despite many organizations’ best efforts and intentions, people with disabilities are more likely to encounter barriers to services, including education, employment, health, or transportation.
“Evidence gathered from previous events shows that people with disabilities are disproportionately affected and experience particularly high rates of mortality and morbidity,” according to the WHO’s Guidance Note on Disability and Emergency Risk Management for Health. “…Emergencies in particular can increase the vulnerability of people experiencing disability. Statistics following the earthquake and tsunami in Japan in 2011 showed that the fatality rate for people with disabilities who were registered with the government was 2.06 percent while that for the general population, it was 1.03 percent.”
To mitigate the additional risk posed to people with disabilities in workplaces, security professionals are striving to provide equitable emergency management plans.
“I’ve learned that effective planning and preparation must be inclusive and deliberate,” says William Losefsky, CHPA, an emergency management and healthcare safety professional. “It starts with a foundational commitment: planning must account for the diverse needs of everyone—patients, residents, staff, and visitors—regardless of their physical or cognitive abilities.”
This is especially true when it comes to emergency planning, where inclusivity is a “moral and operational imperative,” Losefsky says. “When you include all departments, consider every ability level, partner with nearby facilities, and drill realistically, you create a system that is ready to respond—and save lives—under pressure,” he adds.
Rethinking the Program
Losefsky—who has led multidisciplinary planning efforts around disaster response, evacuation coordination, and compliance with the U.S. Joint Commission, Veterans Administration, and others—says that there are some crucial steps to creating a successful and inclusive emergency response plan.
Build a multidisciplinary emergency planning committee. Like most security initiatives and solutions, it starts with a plan. When putting together a task force or emergency planning committee, the most critical step is to gather a group that represents every department that would be impacted by an evacuation or emergency.
This diverse group not only provides unique perspectives but increases awareness about what others in their department may require, leading to a more comprehensive and realistic plan. For example, in a healthcare setting, the pharmacy department may point out that during an evacuation it is vital to track, access, and safely transport medications, especially controlled substances or ones that must be temperature controlled. Meanwhile, the social work department could help establish a plan to track any cognitively impaired patients and patients who do not have family or guardians present during an evacuation.
Security leaders may also want to consider collecting input from external stakeholders. To identify potential obstacles that would prevent a safe evacuation of the Arkadia Shopping Center in Medellin, Colombia, Luis Carlos Lozano, head of security, says he engages with organizations that specialize in disability rights to gain additional insights and recommendations.
Identify mobility and cognitive challenges. Evacuation plans should account for wheelchairs or alternative modes of transportation, such as assistive scooters, gurneys, and more.
Communication strategies should account for any physical auditory limitations (i.e., deafness, hard of hearing), language barriers, and cognitive diseases or conditions like dementia. Since communication is a two-way street, consider if there are people with nonverbal conditions to be aware of which would limit someone from verbally communicating with others.
In high-traffic, multipurpose facilities, adding a variety of emergency communication tools and tactics can prove invaluable. Given that the Arkadia Mall spans more than 538,000 square feet and includes more than 160 different stores that cater to various customers, Lozano relies on several different strategies to ensure effective communication even during an emergency. This included multi-modal alerts like visual alarms or lights, auditory alarms, and tactile indicators; high-contrast, large-font signage with universal symbols throughout the facility; training staff so that they are familiar with basic sign language and alternate communication methods; and providing emergency information in multiple formats, including braille, audio records, and simple language.
Plans should also determine how staff, guests, residents, or patients can be identified and accounted for during or after an evacuation. This can help event leaders and public partners be aware of anyone who might still be in a facility. In healthcare settings, this can also ensure that medication or treatment is delivered.
If the facility tends to have several people with a physical disability—such as hospitals, nursing homes, larger schools—emergency managers should consider having backup equipment like additional wheelchairs, portable oxygen tanks, and other mobile physical support solutions, Losefsky recommends.
Test everything. “I once worked with a facility whose emergency evacuation plan casually relied on renting school buses,” Losefsky says. “On paper, that may seem like a fast and economical solution, but in reality, it quickly fell apart during drills and planning discussions.” The steep steps, narrow walkways, and inability to support wheelchairs meant that people with mobility issues would have been unable to safely or quickly get onto the buses to be transported away from danger.
The drills allowed Losefsky and the planning team to consider and test out alternative transportation options, such as accessible vans, paratransit services, and other specialized medical transportation providers.
Testing applies to personnel, too, Lozano says. “All staff members—including security, maintenance, cleaning, nursing, and administrative personnel—receive training on assisting individuals with disabilities during emergencies,” he adds.
Lozano’s team has also made empathy training a priority for staff when it comes to emergency preparations.
“We believe that technical knowledge alone isn’t sufficient,” he says. “Understanding and compassion are equally vital. By fostering a culture of empathy, our staff is better equipped to assist individuals with diverse needs, ensuring that everyone feels safe and respected during emergencies.”
The training can help identify and better understand specific needs, especially during evacuation drills. Both Losefsky and Lozano emphasize the importance of running drills that emulate various scenarios to promote efficiency during an incident and identify potential pain points.
The variety can also familiarize staff with appropriate actions in response to different kinds of emergencies, some of which would call for sheltering in place instead of evacuating a facility.
“In multistoried buildings, the first response is never to automatically evacuate,” says Bo Mitchell, CPP, president of 911 Consulting. From a tornado to a flash flood, a chemical spill in the parking lot to an active shooter in the area—these incidents are ones where keeping people indoors is safer. But without training, staff and others might not understand this move and instead present an internal threat if they succumb to stress and panic.
By fostering a culture of empathy, our staff is better equipped to assist individuals with diverse needs, ensuring that everyone feels safe and respected during emergencies.
Look to partners and peers. More likely than not, your organization won’t be the only one in the area, nor in its sector, developing or updating an emergency response plan. Sometimes overlooked but definitely effective, it’s worth reaching out to nearby peer facilities that are within easy driving distance, according to Losefsky.
“Once you start those conversations, you may be surprised at how many wheelchair-compliant vehicles, transport vans, spare equipment, and even temporary sheltering options are closer than you think,” he says.
Ultimately, these conversations with peers can often achieve mutual aid agreements in advance of an incident, resulting in established coordination for sharing resources during an emergency. Beyond day-of support, these agreements can also address issues of cost-sharing, insurance, and liability, Losefsky notes. He adds that agreements should be in writing, reviewed by legal, and updated regularly.
Continuously revise the plan. Nothing stays the same forever. This also applies to inclusive emergency plans, which must be drilled, reviewed, and adjusted for changes in the environment, people, equipment, and other factors.
As part of his efforts to proactively identify obstacles for a safe evacuation, Lozano conducts regular assessments of the mall, including an accessibility audit to keep an eye out for narrow passages or exits that might not be accessible by someone in a wheelchair or with a disability that impacts his or her mobility. Staff, as well as visitors, are encouraged to say something if they see something—especially any barriers they may come across, such as if a pile of boxes from a retailer either regularly or unexpectedly blocking an exit.
An inclusive plan calls for “regularly reviewing and updating the evacuation plan based on feedback and changing needs,” Lozano agrees.
Getting Buy-In
While an inclusive emergency plan seems like an obvious additional step to take to help secure the workplace safety of everyone in an organization, the steps required to achieve this rely on support from leadership and other departments.
When it comes to convincing the C-suite that this planning is worth doing the right way and repeatedly, it can help to emphasize the legal, ethical, and practical benefits that this planning provides to the whole organization.
“Investing in inclusive security measures is not just the right thing to do—it's a strategic decision that benefits the entire organization,” Lozano says.
And at least in some countries, you can remind leadership that it’s federally regulated. Mitchell points to federal legislation, regulations maintained by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and industry standards—which all tie back to an employer’s duty of care.
“Planning for people with disabilities is inherent throughout,” Mitchell says. “You call them ‘evacuation plans,’ but best to call them emergency action plans, a term of law.”
That duty of care is critical at the very beginning of any emergency, stressing the importance of an effective emergency response plan.
“First aid must be available within three to four minutes of an emergency,” OSHA noted in a fact sheet on planning and responding to workplace emergencies. However, not every worksite is located near a hospital or has an on-site infirmary, and first responders might not be able to reach an injured person within that timeframe.
“Thus, every employer is on his or her own to respond to the most injurious time of any emergency,” Mitchell says. “Employees are the first responders. You can’t change physics.” For worksites beyond that four-minute bubble from a clinic or hospital, there should be at least one on-site employee with first aid training, as well as established emergency and medical procedures.
Emphasizing a legal requirement that employers have for establishing rescue procedures can also help curb what Mitchell sees as the biggest reason for an organization to not get on board with such planning: denial, whether because an organization believes that the law doesn’t apply to it or that such planning is unnecessary.
“The vast majority of employers are not meeting their duty of care to keep all personnel safe,” Mitchell says. “They are in denial.”
While security leaders might not inherently have leverage or credibility in the C-suite at every organization, they can still emphasize with support from legal and other invested departments about the need create, maintain, and update inclusive emergency response plans. Or at least remind employers that courts and juries will punish an organization’s “CEO and senior managers with titanic-dollar settlements,” Mitchell adds.
Sara Mosqueda is associate editor for Security Management. Connect with her on LinkedIn or email her at [email protected].
