The Center for Disability Rights Develops Policy to Respond to COVID-19

At the Center for Disability Rights, we have been monitoring the spread of COVID-19 and taking steps to prepare locally. Last week, the day after officials from the Centers for Disease Control said that Americans should prepare for the spread of the Coronavirus in communities across the country, we posted a blog of Action Steps for Attendant Service Users in Response to Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) http://cdrnys.org/blog/programs-services/action-steps-for-attendant-service-users-in-response-to-coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19/.

Today our management team finalized the first version of an overarching organizational policy to respond to COVID-19. Although we are bound together by the same mission, we are a large organization with a diverse staff working in very different circumstances. This organizational policy is intended to support individual managers in developing their own operational plans to protect the health and lives of our consumers and staff. We are sharing this policy on our website as a way to communicate with our consumers and staff that we are taking COVID-19 seriously.

We are sharing it with you as a resource for others in the Independent Living network to support you in developing your own policies to respond to COVID-19. Based on their local circumstances, Centers for Independent Living across the country may be in very different places with regard to COVID-19. We appreciate feedback from folks about our policy because we know that it will need to change as circumstances do.

Link to CDR blog on our policy:
http://cdrnys.org/blog/uncategorized/policy-to-limit-the-spread-of-the-flu-covid-19-and-other-viruses/

Link to PDF of CDR Policy to Limit the Spread of the Flu, COVID-19 and Other Viruses:
http://cdrnys.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Policy-to-Limit-the-Spread-of-the-Flu-COVID-19-and-other-viruses.pdf