Emergency managers need to develop cultural competence to better serve our communities. By Lucien G. Canton | May 29, 2015
As emergency managers, we’re trained to provide assistance without regard to a person’s status. That is, we are neutral to their race, economic status, age, disabilities or any of the other designators we use in daily life. But should this neutrality extend to how we do our emergency plans?
An article in this month’s issue of the Journal of Emergency Management by Wayne Bergeron speaks to this issue. Entitled Considering culture in evacuation planning and consequence management, Bergeron’s paper examines the importance of culture in the provision of emergency services and suggests that emergency managers develop “cultural competence” to help them better serve the needs of increasingly diverse populations.
Read complete article here: http://www.emergencymgmt.com/emergency-blogs/managing-crisis/Is-Your-Planning-Culturally-Sensitive.html