Summary of Oregon Department of Human Services Vulnerable Populations Emergency Preparedness

Summary of Oregon Department of Human Services Vulnerable Populations Emergency Preparedness Actions and Goals –July 2007

The Oregon Department of Human Services has appropriated and deployed dedicated resources for emergency preparedness planning for Oregon’s vulnerable populations.

In December of 2006 a project manager was hired and stationed in the department’s public health emergency preparedness program office in Portland to develop a 17-month project. The two project sponsors, Dr. Susan Allan, Oregon State Public Health Officer and Mr. Clyde Saiki, Department Deputy Director, operate with the highest level of departmental authority. Dedicated staff resources have also been made available in the divisions of Seniors and People with Disabilities (SPD), Addictions and Mental Health (AMH), and Children, Adults and Family (CAF) divisions to work in conjunction with the state project. The project will be complete by mid-May of 2008. The goals and actions of the project are:

GOAL 1: To increase the amount of planning and produce more plans in Oregon communities to respond to their vulnerable populations in a disaster.

This goal will be accomplished in local one-day workshops, held in the state’s DHS districts over a period of seven months, where the stakeholders who work with the people defined by the project as the target vulnerable populations will receive instruction, support and facilitated assistance on developing emergency preparedness plans for earthquake, pandemic flu and chemical disasters. Additional support and resources will be provided to all stakeholders on Health Alert Network software through the open, Internet accessible public health library.

GOAL 2: To produce plans that are NIMS compliant in order to maintain scalability in the statewide response system for vulnerable populations.

This goal is being completed in the project work group and through structured data collection processes by project staff and DHS state level staff to discern state and local level roles, responsibilities and communications. The outcomes being produced under this goal will be a DHS state emergency preparedness plan as a part of the Public Health Emergency Preparedness All Hazard Base Plan for ESF-8, (Annex F. of the state emergency preparedness plan) for each vulnerable population and DHS state emergency preparedness plans for earthquake, pandemic flu and chemical disasters by division for each vulnerable population by April 30, 2008.

GOAL 3: To support integration of emergency response planning for vulnerable populations in local community emergency preparedness planning.

The state project is committed to locally driven emergency preparedness processes and ensures this by engaging county emergency managers in project activities, involving local health department emergency preparedness planners and public health regional liaisons using local scenarios and data and by informing a wide array of other stakeholders about vulnerable populations emergency preparedness planning activities.

In addition, CAF has dedicated a full-time Emergency Preparedness Coordinator (EPC) to draft an Emergency Preparedness Plan for the Child Welfare Program (CAF Plan), which will contribute to the Vulnerable Populations Emergency Plan (VP Plan). There will be additional requirements that will be needed for the VP Plan, which will be provided by the ongoing cooperation and support of the EPC.