WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — 9-1-1 dispatchers at the Lycoming County Communications Center get emergency calls every day.
Some of the calls involve helping people with disabilities. That's why Roads to Freedom Center for Independent Living in Williamsport decided to create a survey, so first responders are prepared for any situation they might walk into.
"We wanted to make sure that anybody that was a resident in Lycoming County would have an opportunity to disclose some information if they wanted to," said Karen Starr, Advocacy Coordinator at Roads to Freedom Center For Independent Living.
Karen Starr approached the emergency management and homeland security department at Penn College last year for assistance on how to start the process.
"When we met with Karen, we identified an opportunity with a special needs registry, geographic information system planning, as well as some type of emergency planning," said David Bjorkman, Instructor of Emergency Management Homeland Security at Penn College.
Kayla Webb is an intern at Roads to Freedom and the Center for Independent Living and a student at Penn College of Technology. She started working on the survey in November. While doing research, Webb discovered only seven other counties in Pennsylvania have a functional access and needs survey.
"It's broken down in different sections like cognitive, there's hearing, vision, and from there it breaks down a bunch of different disabilities, I do have open options so you can select other and you can put down below what you believe you identify with better," said Webb.
The survey also has an option where you can put in medications, triggers anything you'd like for emergency responders to know.
"This is really just a great example of how the emergency management planning process should work; you should involve everybody in your community from the most vulnerable to the most under-served to the not—the opposite end of that," said Jon Mackey, Emergency Management Planning Specialist at the Lycoming County Department of Public Safety.
You can find a link to the survey here.