A preparedness resource for individuals, families, caregivers, support teams, and communities.
An emergency plan should account for more than where someone will go. It should account for who they are.
Emergencies rarely happen when families are together. A tornado warning can go out while someone is at a day program. A hazardous-material incident can force an evacuation of a neighborhood in minutes. A person can become separated from their caregiver in a crowd, or become disoriented and get found by a police officer, firefighter, or paramedic who has never met them before.
In those moments, reunification is about more than locating someone. It is about making sure the people helping them understand who they are, how they communicate, what they need, what may overwhelm them, and who can safely receive them.
That is the job of a Reunification Profile.
What reunification means in emergency management
In emergency management, reunification is the process of reconnecting people who have been separated by an emergency or disaster. It comes up more often than most families expect: people evacuated to different locations, individuals transported for medical care, students released from a school or program, or a family member whose whereabouts are simply unknown while an incident is still unfolding.
FEMA’s family emergency communication planning guidance recommends identifying meeting places, establishing out-of-area contacts, understanding local evacuation procedures, and making sure reunification locations are accessible to household members with disabilities or other access and functional needs.
For many of the people GMA serves, there is one more question the plan has to answer:
If a first responder found this person and their caregiver was not there, what would that responder need to know?
Why a name and an emergency contact are not enough
Picture a responder who encounters someone after an evacuation. The person appears safe, but they are not answering questions.
Are they injured, or are they non-speaking? Do they use an AAC device that was left behind? Are they hard of hearing? Do they need extra processing time before they can respond? Are they frightened by flashing lights, sirens, or unexpected touch? Could an intellectual or developmental disability, a traumatic brain injury, dementia, or another condition change how they respond under stress? Do they rely on a wheelchair, walker, service animal, hearing aid, or other assistive technology that needs to stay with them? And who is the right person to call?
Every one of those answers changes the interaction. A responder who knows them can slow down, use simple language, keep the equipment with the person, and reach the right contact on the first try. A responder who does not know them is guessing, and guessing under pressure is how well-intentioned encounters go wrong.
FEMA’s preparedness guidance for people with disabilities recommends keeping contact information for important people and care providers, medication and allergy information, details about durable medical equipment, and other need-to-know information that could assist first responders. FEMA’s Disaster Preparedness Guide for Caregivers goes a step further, advising caregivers to create a profile that helps responders learn about the needs of the person in their care.
A Reunification Profile is that profile, built around the person rather than the paperwork.
What a Reunification Profile is
A Reunification Profile is a concise, responder-focused summary of what someone would need to know to identify, communicate with, support, and safely reunify an individual during an emergency.
It is not a substitute for calling 911, for a local emergency plan, for a medical record, or for instructions from public safety officials. It is a preparedness tool, and the best ones do not read like a list of diagnoses. They explain the person.
Emergency managers often use the CMIST framework to think about access and functional needs: Communication, Maintaining health, Independence, Support and safety, and Transportation. A good Reunification Profile touches each of those areas in a few sentences apiece.
Identification. Responders need to confirm quickly who they are helping. Include a current photograph, full and preferred name, approximate age, and a short physical description. Update the photo whenever appearance changes significantly.
Communication. How does the person best understand and express themselves? A profile might explain that someone is non-speaking, uses an AAC device, communicates in American Sign Language, needs questions asked one at a time, responds better to visual instructions, or shuts down when overwhelmed. FEMA specifically encourages people with communication disabilities to document the best way for others to communicate with them.
Mobility and equipment. If the person depends on a wheelchair, walker, transfer equipment, communication technology, or a medical device, say so, and make clear that the equipment should stay with them whenever it is safe to do so. Practical details help here: how a power chair can be transported, or whether a device depends on electrical power.
Medical and safety information. Responders do not need a full medical history. They need the things that affect immediate safety: significant allergies, seizure information, essential medications, implanted or life-sustaining equipment, and any condition that changes how they should approach the person. Useful beats exhaustive.
What helps when the person is overwhelmed. This is the section that most often gets skipped, and it may be the most valuable. Emergency scenes involve sirens, strangers, bright lights, crowds, broken routines, physical contact, and separation from familiar people. The profile can tell a responder what works: extra personal space, plain language, using a preferred name, headphones for sensory overload, a familiar object, or a specific caregiver whose voice on the phone will settle things down.
What responders should avoid. Knowing what not to do can matter just as much. If shouting, rapid questioning, unexpected touch, separation from an assistive device, or a particular sensory input is known to escalate distress, responders benefit from knowing it. This never overrides actions needed for an immediate life-safety emergency, but it lets responders take a safer, person-centered approach whenever circumstances allow.
Trusted contacts and reunification. Who gets called first? Who else is authorized to receive the person? What happens if the primary caregiver cannot be reached? Where might the person try to go on their own? Familiar locations, residences, programs, workplaces, and schools help responders establish where someone belongs.
Build the profile before you need it
As part of your household or individual preparedness planning, consider documenting the following:
- A recent photograph and identifying information
- Preferred name
- Primary and alternate emergency contacts
- Preferred communication method
- Disability, cognitive, sensory, or communication considerations that directly affect response
- Mobility needs and essential assistive technology
- Critical medication, allergy, medical, or equipment information
- Service-animal information when applicable
- What helps the person stay calm and understand instructions
- Known situations or approaches that increase distress
- Wandering, elopement, or disorientation considerations
- Familiar locations the person may attempt to reach
- Transportation considerations
- Primary and backup reunification arrangements
- Anything else a first responder would genuinely need to help the person safely
Review the profile at least once a year and whenever something major changes: a new medication, a new device, a move, a new day program. A preparedness document nobody knows exists, or one built on information from three years ago, will not help much when the day comes.
Then practice the larger plan. Talk through where you would meet after an evacuation. Make sure everyone in the person’s support network knows who calls whom.
Protect the person’s privacy, too
Preparedness does not mean making someone’s personal information widely available. A responder-focused profile should carry what is needed for identification, safety, communication, and reunification, and no more. Think in terms of need-to-know. Keep the profile protected when it is not in use, and share it deliberately when an emergency calls for it.
Preparedness and privacy are not in tension. Done well, they reinforce each other.
During an emergency, follow the reunification process
Families understandably want to reach their loved one immediately. But driving to an active incident scene can create new problems. FEMA’s reunification guidance notes that conducting reunification at the incident site can interfere with emergency operations, and recommends designated, secure, accessible reunification locations with established procedures.
Follow instructions from emergency management, law enforcement, fire, EMS, schools, facilities, or whoever is managing the incident. Your plan should already tell you who communicates, where you go, and what happens next.
How this works inside CompassCare Command Center
Gray Matters Alliance is building these principles directly into the CompassCare Command Center, the coordination hub of the MyCompass System.
Command Center already integrates with FEMA’s Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS), the same national system that delivers Wireless Emergency Alerts to mobile phones and Emergency Alert System messages to radio and television. Learn more about IPAWS at FEMA.gov and Ready.gov. When an alerting authority issues a tornado warning, an evacuation order, or another life-safety alert for the area where a supported individual lives or spends their day, the people responsible for that person see it in Command Center alongside everything else they need to act.
Reunification Profiles close the loop on that alert. A caregiver, guardian, or provider can share an individual’s Reunification Profile with first responders when it is needed, so the responder on scene has the person-centered information described above rather than a name and a phone number.
The objective is simple: help responders understand the person they are helping, not just the incident they are responding to.
This is consistent with how GMA approaches everything in MyCompass. We are not a call center, and we do not put one between a person and the people who know them. Command Center equips families, caregivers, guardians, and provider organizations to be the responders themselves, with the information and alerts they need in one place. Technology does not replace emergency planning or human judgment. It makes the right information easier to use when every minute matters.
You do not need technology to start preparing today
Even if you never use CompassCare, we encourage every family supporting someone with communication, mobility, cognitive, medical, sensory, or functional needs to think through these questions.
Write the information down. Keep it current. Make sure trusted members of the person’s support network understand the plan. Talk about where you would reunify after an evacuation. Know who should be contacted. Consider what a responder who has never met your loved one would need to know.
September is National Preparedness Month, but preparedness is something we build all year. Because an emergency plan should account for more than where someone will go.
It should account for who they are.
Ready to see how CompassCare Command Center supports emergency preparedness for the people you serve? Start Your Journey.
Gray Matters Alliance Reunification Profiles are a GMA preparedness feature and are not a FEMA product, program, or endorsement. FEMA’s Integrated Public Alert and Warning System is operated by FEMA; alerts are issued by authorized federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial alerting authorities. References to FEMA and Ready.gov are provided for public emergency-preparedness education. Always follow instructions from local public safety and emergency management authorities during an emergency.
