Daily COVID-19 Disability Rights Calls: 

The Partnership for Inclusive Disaster Strategies has been hosting daily COVID-19 Disability Rights Calls since February 28, where partners across the nation come together to share good and promising practices, systematic rising issues, and community-wide advocacy engagement related to the rights and needs of people with disabilities during this public health emergency and concurrent disasters. To be added to the daily email distribution list for the COVID-19 Disability Rights Calls please contact us at dart@disasterstrategies.org 

National Disability Rights Call To Action: 

On March 3rd, 2020 The Partnership, along with World Institute on Disability, National Council on Independent Living, and nationwide disability rights leaders and inclusive emergency management experts released a statement identifying the urgent need for immediate strategies and solutions from the federal government and governments at every level, including local, state, tribal and territorial, to address the specific needs of people with disabilities, older adults, and people with access and functional needs throughout the COVID-19 outbreak and all public health emergencies.

See the National Disability Rights Call To Action here: https://tinyurl.com/DisabilityRights-CallToAction --can this link to the sub drop down page with content there instead of mailchimp

To sign your organization's support onto the National Disability Rights Call To Action please click here: https://tinyurl.com/org-signon-form 

The list of organizational supporters for the COVID-19 National Disability Rights Call To Action continues to grow. To see live updates of organizations supporting this statement, spreading the message, and doing the good work please click here: https://tinyurl.com/live-org-updates 

Letter to the White House COVID-19 Task Force:

On March 9th 2020, The Partnership sent the National Call To Action with at the time 64 organizations and has since grown to 183 organizations signed on, to the White House COVID-19 Task Force with the following letter addressing specific questions for immediate action at all government and non-government levels.

See the community letter to the White House COVID-19 Task Force here: https://tinyurl.com/letter-wh 

Recommendations for Personal Assistance Services:

On March 12th, 2020 The Partnership, along with World Institute on Disability, National Council on Independent Living, and nationwide disability leaders and inclusive emergency management experts released initial recommendations for government at all levels to take into consideration for immediate action to ensure continuity of operations and services for people with disabilities, older adults, and people with access and functional needs who use personal assistance services and supports.

See the COVID-19 Recommended Actions for PAS here: https://tinyurl.com/PASrecommendations 

Community-Wide Take Action Alert:

On March 22, 2020 The Partnership amplified the disability communities priorities for the third COVID-19 Stimulus Package. Urging Congress to pay attention to our collective voice and make sure the third bill included people with disabilities. 

See the Take Action Alert here:  [Link]

Legislative Recommendations: 

On March 30th, 2020 The Partnership alongside the disability community released Legislative Recommendations for Public Health Emergencies and Disasters that address the need to meet the urgent and immediate needs of people with disabilities, including multiply-marginalized people, throughout the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency, Presidential Disaster Declarations, concurrent disasters and in preparation for future disasters and public health emergencies.

See Legislative Recommendations here: https://tinyurl.com/LegislativeRecommendations 

COVID-19 Disability Community-Wide Resource List:

Since the release of our community-wide National Disability Rights Call To Action on March 3rd, there has been a lot of great disability and emergency focused advocacy work from disability-led and disability-focused organizations, groups, and advocates from all over the nation and the world.

We have been cataloging a COVID-19 disability-focused Community-Wide Resource List of all the great systems advocacy tools, templates, call to actions, information, media coverage, webinars, and more that are being published and released by and throughout the community.

See below an evolving, community-wide resource document that is updated continuously, and share your COVID and disability-related resources to be added with us at dart@disasterstrategies.org

See COVID-19 Community-Wide Resource List here: [Link] 

THANK YOU TO ALL

We are incredibly thankful to our partners and supporters who have been involved and joined us in the fight for systematic advocacy on the rights and needs of people with disabilities, older adults, and people with access and functional needs throughout all phases of COVID-19 planning and response, and all public health emergencies.

Our voices are the strongest when we amplify our unified message. Community resilience is only possible when planning, response and recovery is accessible to all and includes people with disabilities and others with access and functional needs as key members of community preparedness and resilience initiatives, before, during and after disasters.

People with disabilities are 2-4 times more likely to die or be injured in a disaster, and our community can anticipate to be disproportionately impacted throughout the COVID-19 Pandemic. We must be ready to respond, together.

We thank you for your support and efforts to educate, advocate, and make a difference for people with disabilities in your community before, during and after the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak and all public health emergencies and disasters.