“The Seed Grant that Grew”
by Lauren Friedman
Central Coast Children’s Foundation, Inc.
The AAC and All that Jazz Conference, which took place in February 2008 in New Orleans, was conceived by the Gulf Relief Project of the United States Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (USSAAC) as a vehicle for fueling continuing actions for post-hurricane capacity building in augmentative communication. The conference supported a variety of “activities with a continued impact” designed to stimulate this restoration process. One of these activities was the mini-grants program, which was designed to support follow-up “seed grants,” or mini-grants, to people in areas on the Gulf Coast of the United States that had been impacted by the 2005 hurricanes. Awards were distributed to individuals or organizations that were in a position to achieve the conference’s goal of restoring and rebuilding capacity for augmentative communication in the region.
The conference was preceded by a day-long AAC Action Day that focused primarily on emergency preparedness. That day sparked an idea in the mind of Dr. Tim Morse, a teacher educator at the University of Southern Mississippi-Gulf Coast and a former Assistant Director of Special Education for the Harrison County School District in South Mississippi. Morse first thought about applying for a mini grant to purchase multiple copies of the communication picture boards originally developed for Florida hurricane victims and displayed on the Action Day by Mike Weston, their developer, for their use with individuals with autism spectrum disorder. However, this originally simple proposal morphed into a springboard for a much larger, inter-county project with a much wider scope, and it continues to evolve to this day.
At the AAC and All that Jazz Conference, Tim continued discussions with Rupert Lacy, the Director of Emergency Management & Homeland Security for Harrison County, from his home state of Mississippi. Tim had invited Rupert to the conference after Tim had learned that they both shared an interest in addressing emergency preparedness issues that pertain to individuals with complex communication needs. They talked about the threat of more hurricanes in the Gulf Coast region and the need for more efficient ways to communicate with people who have limited English proficiency and those who have complex communication needs during those kinds of emergency situations.
They quickly realized that the communication picture boards that Tim wanted to use to support individuals with autism in emergency situations could also be utilized with a significantly larger portion of the general population. They began to develop a proposal for an AAC and All that Jazz mini grant to assist the Emergency Management & Homeland Security Offices of Harrison County and neighboring Hancock and Jackson Counties in their planning for emergency preparedness for individuals with complex communication needs. Throughout Morse’s conversations with him, Lacy had indicated his need to have someone educate him and his emergency response team about the emergency preparedness, response, and recovery needs of individuals with disabilities, including those with communication difficulties. Morse followed up with a brief proposal to the USSAAC mini-grant committee.
The Need
During Hurricane Katrina, the Emergency Management Agency & Homeland Security Directors realized there was a real problem communicating with many people in the county shelters. The county shelter operators were located in public schools. When they could not communicate with non-English speakers and people who could not use their natural speech, they relied on the classroom chalk and white boards to communicate with shelter occupants. As a result of varied reports of similar uses of ad hoc communication systems, the county Emergency Management & Homeland Security personnel recognized that there was a need for better communication in emergency settings.
In fact, Mike Weston’s company, called Servision, had originally developed their communication picture boards, or trifold boards with 100 or so pictures, for this specific purpose. Servision’s communication boards originated in Miami after hurricane Andrew so that shelter operators, EMTs, and others could effectively communicate with people with congenital disablilities or limited English proficiency. The boards were available in both English and Spanish. In the gulf coast region of Mississippi, Vietnamese is also a prominent language. Consequently, Tim’s team also partnered with a local organization, Boat People SOS Inc., to translate the Servision board into Vietnamese.
The mini grant that Tim received from the AAC and All that Jazz Conference served as the foundation for his project with the Emergency Management & Homeland Security personnel. However, they needed additional funds to support a larger endeavor. “When emergency management people saw that these boards met their needs, we started to brainstorm about where we could solicit additional funds to support the program,” reports Morse.
Partnering
The Emergency Management & Homeland Security Directors thought immediately of Dupont, a science-based products and services company with multiple locations throughout Mississippi and the entire Gulf South region. A business that prides itself on community outreach and safety, Dupont had expressed prior interest in partnering with the Emergency Management & Homeland Security. Subsequently, a meeting was arranged between Morse and Dupont’s Public Affairs Specialist, Ben Midgette. According to Morse, “Dupont adopted the project from the moment they heard about it.”
The project took form immediately. Morse, together with the Emergency Management & Homeland Security, worked with Dupont to purchase fifty communication picture boards to deploy throughout Harrison and Hancock Counties, both of which share the Dupont facility that is located on the counties’ common border. There are also plans to disseminate communication boards throughout neighboring Jackson County as well. These three counties have the greatest need in the state of Mississippi due to their proximity to the coast. Harrison County is the largest with a total of 30 emergency shelters and Hancock County is the smallest with only 7 shelters, all of which were destroyed during Hurricane Katrina.
The next step is for the Emergency Management & Homeland Security Directors to obtain the Servision communication boards from Dupont and to distribute them to shelters in their county. The Emergency Management Agency & Homeland Security may also display the boards on buses that transfer people to emergency shelters. If the project succeeds, all emergency shelters will be equipped with communication picture boards and the personnel in charge of the shelters, as well as other emergency responders (police, fire), will be better trained to meet the needs of persons with complex communication needs and those with limited English proficiency during complex humanitarian emergencies.
Scaling Up
All parties involved are interested in extending this project across the Mississippi coast and perhaps, with Dupont’s help, all the way to Houston and across the Gulf South region. “Dupont has been instrumental in allowing us to expand because they grasp the severity of the hurricane threat down here,” says Morse.
A variety of spin-off ideas are being developed as a result of the communication board project. “The use of communication boards is a seed project that will grow to bigger and better things,” said Morse. He, in conjunction with Dupont and the local Emergency Management & Homeland Security agencies, are considering producing a smaller board that can fit on the clip boards used for various purposes by first responders, and developing curricula for those who will use them. This will allow police, EMTs, and others to have a short conversation with those who have limited speaking capabilities during emergencies and to then triage, putting them in contact with someone who can help them more extensively. According to Morse, “this small communication board would be especially helpful in emergency situations like hurricanes.”
Other spin-off projects include distributing communication boards into Veterans’ Hospitals and training first responders/EMTs at the local community college to use communication picture boards.
All of these different project ideas stem from the mini grant that Dr. Morse received from USSAAC after the AAC and All that Jazz Conference to improve the emergency preparedness, response, and recovery needs of individuals with disabilities and those who have limited English proficiency. These efforts demonstrate that one useful tools like communication boards can have multiple uses across different settings and populations and can make a big impact in the end. According to Morse, “there is no question that these communication boards can meet multiple needs; you just have to plan the training and disseminate the tools and resources.”