Every year, Australia experiences a range of emergencies including natural disasters and extreme weather conditions across metropolitan, regional and rural areas.
Australian Emergency Services agencies work hard to educate communities with information about these emergencies. This education includes:
- Understanding the different natural hazards experienced by Australians every year
- Learning from the experiences of other people in the community
- Understanding how to watch and act so you can take responsibility for your own safety
- Learning how to prepare, respond and recover from natural hazard events in the area
- Understanding how emergency services work together.
Emergency information is mostly available in written or spoken English. Deaf, deafblind and hard-of-hearing Australians, who cannot rely on spoken English or whose first language is Auslan, are often the last to know.
This section aims to improve access to information around emergencies for the Deaf community in Australia. This page includes Auslan resources from two specific projects as well as others developed by Deaf Societies in partnership with Government and emergency services:
National Auslan Communications for Emergencies
This project was funded by the Federal Government in 2016, led by Expression Australia with support from The Deaf Society, Deaf Services, Deaf Can:Do, Access Plus, Able Australia and Monash University.
Deaf Emergency Information
This project was funded by the State Government of Victoria in 2015 with support from Emergency Management Victoria, the Country Fire Authority, the Victoria State Emergency Service, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Better Health Channel.
Resources developed as part of these projects that are still relevant will be available in this section. You can find resources, videos and links to where you can find out more about what to do before, during and after an emergency or disaster. It is important that you get the best and most up to date information and be prepared for emergency situations in your area.
