FW: Personal Assistance Services (PAS) in Emergencies.

FYI

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Dear Colleague,

This is a notice to join the Research and Training Center for Personal Assistance Services (PAS Center) on Wednesday, August 15, 2012, for a free webinar on FEMA and Personal Assistance Services in Emergencies.  This webinar is part of a summer series of webinars from the PAS Center examining Personal Assistance Services (PAS) in Emergencies.  

About the webinar

The Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act (PKEMRA) identified an area of need in functional needs support services (FNSS) in general population shelters.  To fill this gap, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) developed the Personal Assistance Services (PAS) contract vehicle. This service will be provided upon request by the affected state for survivors in shelters and other congregate sites who have access and functional needs and require PAS in order to maintain the same level of independence as they have at home. 

This presentation will cover the Mass Care program at FEMA and the newly awarded contracts to provide Personal Assistance Services to individuals with access and functional needs in congregate facilities during disasters, when this assistance is requested by the affected state.  Background for why FEMA took this action and how it is being implemented (including types of services provided, timeframe, supervision, number of staff involved, etc.) will be discussed. 

The 60-minute webinar will begin at 2:00pm Eastern; 1:00pm Central; noon Mountain; 11:00am Pacific; 10:00am Alaska and 8:00am Hawaii.

There is no fee and no pre-registration for this webinar, which is open to everyone. An archive of this webinar will be available at a later date.

To join the Webinar on that date, please visit:

http://www.tinyurl.com/PASElluminate

It is recommended that you visit this link a few minutes beforehand, as the Webinar software (Elluminate) needs to be downloaded to your computer, which can take a few minutes. NOTE: Elluminate includes captioning.

First time user support is available at: http://www.elluminate.com/support/index.jsp

This covers downloading and installing the required software and testing your connection.

Free online training is available at: http://www.elluminate.com/support/training/

The audio of the conference can also be accessed by phone at 1-800-625-5918, passcode 7023043.

About the Presenters                                                                                                                                                                    

The presentation will be led by two FEMA officials.  Waddy Gonzalez is the Branch Chief of Mass Care and Emergency Assistance in theFEMA Individual Assistance Division.  Marcie Roth is the Director of the Office of Disability Integration and Coordination at FEMA.

For more information about the Center on Personal Assistance Services webinars, visit: http://pascenter.org/webcast/index.php