This lesson presents strategies for ensuring that you communicate effectively with the whole community, including those with access and functional needs.

At the completion of this lesson, you should be able to:

• Analyze your community to identify groups requiring consideration when preparing and delivering communications.
• Identify factors that impact communication requirements.
• Identify strategies for communicating effectively with the whole community.
• Identify aspects of communicating with respect.

Audio Transcript, Communicating With the Whole Community

In emergency management, communication responsibilities are typically quite varied. Your responsibilities may include:

• Educating the community on emergency preparedness.
• Keeping people informed about emergency plans, issues, and events.
• Issuing alerts and warnings.
• Providing accurate information during incidents.
• Sharing information with response partners.
• Engaging the community in dialogues about disaster recovery.

Your target audience can be described generally as “everyone who can benefit from the information.”

Although up to this point we have focused primarily on oral communication skills, you have a wide variety of communication tools at your disposal, including:

• Print-based materials.
• Web-based content.
• Broadcast media (television and radio).
• Telephone and face-to-face interaction with individuals.
• Large-group forums such as public meetings.
• Social media.

We’ll look more closely at the various communication media in the next lesson. For now, let’s consider ways to ensure that your message—regardless of the medium—is appropriate for the whole community.

Communities are diverse. They include people of all ages, diverse cultural groups, and individuals with access and functional needs. A first step in communicating across cultures or with individuals who have access and functional needs is to never assume sameness. Access and functional needs are factors that impact an individual’s ability to obtain information, needed programs, and services. These factors include, but are not limited to:

• Disabilities that impact hearing, vision, speech, cognitive skills, and mobility.
• Limited English proficiency.
• Literacy limitations.

It is important to know the composition of your community and to understand what that composition means for the way you communicate.

Understanding the community is not a one-time event or analysis. Because communities are constantly changing, the process must be an ongoing effort to stay in tune with the capabilities and needs of the population.

Understand community complexity so you will know who your audience is. For example, learn about your community’s demographics, and educate your emergency management staff. Potential sources of information include:

• Census information.
• Jurisdiction profiles compiled by emergency planning teams.
• Social service agencies and organizations.
• Faith-based organizations and houses of worship.
• Advocacy groups.
• Chamber of commerce and business leaders.
• English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) programs.

Know the languages and communication methods/traditions in the community.

Consider not only what languages people speak and understand, but how they actually exchange new information and which information sources they trust. Be aware of myths and stereotypes.

Find out where the real conversations happen and decisions are made.

Decisions are not always made at the council level, but often at venues such as the community center, neighborhood block parties, social clubs, or places of worship. Tap into these opportunities to listen and learn more about the community. Develop strategies to reach community members and engage them in issues that are important to them.

Select each task below to learn how you can better understand the communication needs of your community:

• Understand community complexity.
• Know the languages and communication methods/traditions in the community.
• Find out where the real conversations happen and decisions are made.
• Implement outreach interventions.

Below are four key actions that will help you communicate effectively with the whole community:

• Ensure your message content is clear and understandable.
• Tailor your message delivery to specific needs.
• Identify alternate avenues for communication.
• Communicate with respect.

These actions will be described on the following screens.

As a baseline, all communications should be clear, user-friendly, and age appropriate.

• Be clear. Using plain language benefits most people. Avoid jargon and acronyms, passive voice, and complex structures.
• When presenting information orally, apply the basic communication skills related to listening, nonverbal cues, voice, and engaging the audience.
• Identify your audience, and make sure your presentation is age and education-level appropriate. Materials and presentations for children will not be the same as those for adults.
• Make sure the format is user-friendly, with an easy-to-follow format. Using symbols and graphics can add clarity and eliminate extra verbiage.

Segments of the population often have specific needs that, when met, enable them to participate fully in the exchange of information.

Let’s look, for example, at communicating with people who have:

• Sensory disabilities.
• Language or literacy requirements.
• Cultural factors that affect communication.

In the context of this course, sensory disabilities refer those that impact the channels of communication due to loss of hearing, vision, speech, or cognitive functioning.

Every individual is different. For example, a person with a vision disability may be blind or have low vision; the vision loss may have been present at birth, progressive, or caused by trauma, or might be happening gradually with aging.

Individuals with sensory disabilities may not be able to communicate their needs or ask for information, hear verbal announcements or alerts, see directional signs, communicate their circumstances to emergency responders, or understand how to get assistance due to their disability.

They may require auxiliary aids and services or language access services (such as interpreters and adapted materials) to participate effectively in communication.

A guiding principle for serving individuals with disabilities is access to effective communication.

• People with disabilities must be given the same information provided to the general population.
• Communication with people with disabilities must be as effective as communication with others.

Whether information is print-based, oral, or Web-based, appropriate media should be used to ensure information is communicated in alternate formats. Examples include:

• Sign language interpretation of spoken presentations.
• Video captioning.
• Downloadable large-print versions of materials.
• Braille versions of materials.
• Web content with screen reader capability.
• Recorded narrations describing visual materials.

Language and literacy factors impact the disaster experience because communication is vital to effective response activities.

Immigrants, migrant workers, undocumented workers, tourists, and exchange students may have language barriers. In addition, many individuals may have literacy barriers, including those with limited English proficiency, hearing or learning disabilities, older adults, and others. An estimated 20 percent of American adults read at or below the 5th grade level.

A 2013 study of print- and Web-based emergency preparedness materials collected from local and national sources found that half of the materials tested in the 10th grade to college range, and nearly all were above the 5th grade level.

Be sure your disaster-related materials are written at appropriate reading levels and provided in languages spoken in your community.

Individuals’ cultural heritage may affect not only language, but also how they:

• Transmit and interpret nonverbal cues.
• Respond to different styles of communication.
• Interact during communication.

Such impacts may be even more pronounced in older generations. Failure to discern attitudes, beliefs, values, and rules implicit in different groups could disenfranchise some citizens and work against the community’s goal of whole community preparedness.

Approach others with interest and openness. Approach generational and cultural differences with interest, not fear or negativity. Take interest in the interests of others. You can learn fascinating things about other people if you choose to do so.

Speak slowly and clearly. Focus on slowing down your speech. Try not to rush your communication. Remember, it takes more time to correct miscommunication and misunderstanding.

Ask for clarification. If you are not sure you understand the meaning being communicated, politely ask for clarification. Avoid assuming you’ve understood what’s been said.

Check your understanding frequently. Check both that you’ve understood what’s been said and that others have fully understood you. Use active listening to check your own understanding (e.g., “So what you are saying is . . . ”), and use open-ended questions to check other people’s understanding. Avoid generational or cultural idioms. Language is contextual and has cultural implications. Examples of idioms include sports or other expressions, such as: “ace in the hole” and “a long row to hoe.” As a good general rule, if the phrase requires knowledge of other information—be it a game, generational event, a metaphor, or current social media—recognize that this reference may make your communication more difficult to understand, or even worse, offensive.

Be careful of jargon. Watch the use of TLAs (Three-Letter Abbreviations) and other language or jargon that may not be understood by others.

Be patient. Cross-cultural communication may take more time.

Be sensitive to whether you are understood. Watch for “puzzled” looks from your audience. Most people show it on their faces when they don’t understand. Look for changes in body language

It’s not realistic to become an expert on every culture that you may encounter. However, it is reasonable for you to learn about the populations that make up major parts of your community.

Take the time to learn the basic customs of the ethnic groups in your community.

Tune in. Making yourself aware of key cultural and other differences that you will need to address during an emergency will help you learn what to expect of the groups and whether your message is being communicated.

Research. Read news articles about the groups represented in your community. Frequently, these articles can provide good insight into the people and the behaviors that are part of their cultures. (This strategy is especially helpful when you are new to a community or are from a different part of the country.)

Network. Talk to the leaders of the cultural groups in your community. You will find that most will be pleased that you care enough to make the effort and will be very willing to share key attributes of their culture with you.

Participate. Many communities sponsor special days on which the various cultures represented in the community can share their food, artwork, and other entertainment with their neighbors. Take the time to attend these events. Pay careful attention to what you see and hear.

When selecting how to communicate with and educate your community, it is wise to use multiple formats and media to reach the widest possible audience.

You should also identify distribution methods that will ensure everyone in the community gets the message. When conducting communication and education activities, include:

• Social, cultural, and religious groups.
• Advocacy groups.
• Ethnic radio and television stations that broadcast in their native languages.
• Children, to educate their parents.

And when disseminating information through public forums, be sure the facilities are accessible by those who use wheelchairs or other assistive devices.

Practice basic etiquette when meeting people with disabilities and others with access and functional needs. For example:

• Do not shout at a person with a hearing disability unless asked to do so. Speak in a normal tone but make sure your lips are visible. The same holds true for people with limited English proficiency.
• When meeting someone with a visual disability, identify yourself and others with you (e.g., “Jane is on my left and Jack is on my right.”). Continue to identify the person with whom you are speaking.
• If the person’s speech is difficult to understand, do not hesitate to ask him or her to repeat what was said. Never pretend to understand when you do not.

Additional etiquette guidelines include the following:

Find a place to sit and talk if a person has decreased physical stamina and endurance, which is preferable to standing during the entire interaction.

Place yourself at eye level with the person when conversing. Some ways to accomplish this without drawing attention to yourself are sitting on a chair or standing a little farther away to reduce the steep angle of the sightline. This is effective when interacting with all people who are sitting as well as persons with short stature.

Talk directly to the person with the disability, not to a person who accompanies them. Doing otherwise implies that you doubt their ability to understand.

Disability Etiquette Job Aid

Instructions: Take some time to analyze your community’s cultural communications needs.

Select this link to access a worksheet for organizing your analysis.  

This lesson presented strategies for ensuring that your communication meets the needs of the whole community. You should now be able to:

• Analyze your community to identify groups requiring consideration when preparing and delivering communications.
• Identify factors that impact communication requirements.
• Identify strategies for communicating effectively with the whole community.
• Identify aspects of communicating with respect.