Tip #11 – Create a Safety Plan that focuses on the challenges your family member with special needs may face in the event of an emergency.

Hi, I’m Mike Walther with the Oak Wealth Advisors Special Needs Financial Planning Tip #11.

This tip actually isn’t a financial planning tip at all, but rather a safety tip, which we hope all of you will consider implementing with your families. And that tip is to create a special needs safety plan around your loved one’s abilities and challenges in the time of an emergency. This could be everything from a disaster incurring in the environment, whether that’s a flood or hurricane or a fire. It would impact your family and rush them out of their home.

What are those emergency items your loved one would need to keep them happy and safe and comfortable? Is it medications? Is it something that’s a comfort item for them?
Plan in advance for what that emergency might look like and what they need to access very quickly if you had to evacuate your home. In addition, plan for what would happen if first responders have to react to an emergency at your house. Maybe it’s a smoke alarm going off causing, you know, them to respond at the fire department. Well, oftentimes when they come in, if they’re expecting smoke and fire in a house, they’ll have their oxygen gear on, which can be very intimidating for someone who’s not used to seeing that. And if your loved one tends to hide, if they’re afraid, maybe that loud shrieking alarm is going to cause them to hide in the back of a closet behind their clothes.

Well, if the first responders are aware of that and know your loved one tends to hide in the back corner of a closet, they can go look there first. And saving valuable seconds to keep your loved one healthy and safe is incredibly important, alternatively. Maybe it’s some kind of an alarm is triggered for a burglar in the house. And if your first responding police officers don’t know what your loved one looks like and they see someone maybe dressed up cause he’s playing a video game and has a fake gun in his hand and doesn’t react the way they would expect someone to react when a police officer shows up, bad things can happen. We can avoid those things with proper planning. Have your loved one go and see a police officer and what a fireman wears when he comes to your house. So that in that time of an emergency, it’s not as surprising and doesn’t cause a reaction. It’s going to be unfavorable for your loved one. In addition, if you’ve got to be evacuated due to a medical emergency and they come with the ambulance and they’re taking you out and you can’t communicate, are they going to know that your loved one’s got to go with you to the hospital and have a social worker looking after them while you receive treatment? Or will they just assume that other people in the house can be fine left to their own? So those are the kinds of things you want to have planned for in advance.

The best approach to that is to work with your local community. In most areas, there’s what’s known as a special needs registry that you can sign up and be included upon, which is to have a picture of your loved one and to have information about them. How might they react in an emergency? What’s unique about their challenges? What do the first responders need to know to keep your loved ones safe? All that’s documented in advance. So if something gets triggered at your home, they can quickly access that information and respond most effectively. If you’re trying to find that in your community, not everyone has it, but most communities do. You can go to onlinepolicingsolutions.com/SNR for special needs registry and look for the community nearest where you live. Get added to that and hopefully that’ll keep you and your loved ones safe in the event of an emergency. If you have any questions, please reach out to your advisor at Oak Wealth Advisors. We’re hay to help you find solutions and keep your loved ones safe.