Updated 01.12.26
June is well known for her pioneering work. She was one of the few people with disabilities who focused on emergency issues decades before Hurricane Katrina. As far back as the 1970s and 80s, June documented the profound and dramatic lack of equal and inclusive emergency services for people with disabilities. She consistently bridges policy and practice, ensuring disability inclusion is operational, not aspirational.
She has worked nationally with FEMA, the Centers for Disease Control, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Health and Human Services on policy, planning, and training issues. For example, she co-chaired the United States Department of Homeland Security’s working group, which developed a Functional and Medical Support Sheltering Target Capabilities List, worked on FEMA’s Guidance on Planning for Integration of Functional Needs Support Services in General Population Shelters, and was a nine-year member of FEMA’s National Advisory Council.
Examples of her impact and influence in emergency services
- Two widely used and cited after-action reports: “Southern California Wildfires After Action Report” and Getting It Wrong: An Indictment with a Blueprint for Getting It Right, Disability Rights, Obligations and Responsibilities Before, During and After Disasters.
- Developing inclusive emergency management plans that emphasize and incorporate standard operating procedures, field operation guides, just-in-time checklists, and exercises.
- Conceiving, promoting, and moving the emergency management from the vague “special needs” focus to operationalizing an access and functional needs approach to planning, response, and recovery. This fosters a clearer understanding of who is included in the large numbers and diversity of people with disabilities and others with access and functional needs. June’s CMIST framework promotes the integration of five functional needs individuals will likely have in an emergency: communication; maintaining health; independence; support, safety, and self-determination; and transportation.
CMIST offers clarity, precision, and specificity for building inclusive planning and service practices. Emergency plans based on optimizing function rather than “specialness” increase the chance of accommodating predictable needs successfully. - Originating and working with the State of California to adopt and implement Functional Assistance Service Teams (FAST). These teams strategically link government, disability-led, and disability-focused organizations, and business sectors to work with individuals with access and functional needs to help people maintain mobility, health, safety, and independence during and after emergencies. Teams blend the competencies and skill sets of governments with those of community disability service workers. Teams help retool interventions to combat old, but still common, stigmatizing biases, stereotypes, and beliefs about people with disabilities. Variations of this model are being customized and implemented in other states and counties.
- Documenting the critical need to evaluate the use of emergency registries accurately and to avoid symbolic planning (i.e., planning that cannot be fully operationalized to achieve even the most well-intentioned objectives.)
In emergencies, people with disabilities continue to lose their health, independence, interdependence, and sometimes their lives. This loss occurs over decades because information transfer regarding these predictable needs and lessons observed and documented is not integrated into plans, policies, procedures, training, exercises, audits, and updates. June’s work focuses on consistently and repeatedly applying these lessons so they can eventually be claimed as lessons learned.
June believes the emergency sector’s performance depends on resilience and flexibility to evolve as economic, learning, technology, legal, and social landscapes change. As a critical thinker and lifelong learner, she never hesitates to critique and revise her work, so check the Emergencies / Disasters page for the latest editions of her materials.