Responsibilities of disaster advocates include knowledge of disaster services, victim interviews, needs assessment, ability to provide emotional support, and negotiate and advocate on behalf of the older victim. The disaster advocate facilitates a wide range of assistance that can be provided older victims by the aging network and other State and Federal agencies. A major difficulty in each disaster is the recruitment and training of individuals to fulfill these responsibilities in the short time frames available to responsible organizations in affected areas. Disaster advocates must always have professional supervision and an understanding that when certain levels of individual needs are encountered, there are more highly qualified individuals available to provide guidance or to assume the responsibility for follow-up activities with the victim. Disaster advocate services are needed after a disaster because older persons often have special needs and characteristics that must be accommodated, if they are to be served proportionally with the level of service provided the general population.
Many agencies make the mistake of assuming that older persons are a homogenous group.
If that were the case, an assistance strategy adopted in one situation would always be appropriate in another. This is not the case at all. People do not become more alike as they age, they become more dissimilar. Personalities and physical capacities become more distinct among aging individuals. It is important to recognize that there are few blanket statements that can be made that will apply to individual older persons.