What is Disaster Resilience?
Disaster resilience is the ability of all sectors of society and individuals to survive, adapt and thrive in the face of turbulent change or acute stresses. If a community is resilient then everybody is responsible, accountable and works together using evidence to:
- Reduce disaster risk
- Better withstand, recover from and adapt if disasters do occur.
Source: Tasmanian Disaster Resilience Strategy 2020-2025.
For communities to thrive they need to learn and adjust to be resilient to disasters as summarised in the chart below:In an emergency, disaster resilient individuals are capable of:
- keeping themselves and their families safe from harm,
- adapting to changes in the physical, social and economic environment,
- being self-reliant if external resources are limited or cut off, and
- learning from the experience to be more prepared next time.
Source: Disaster Resilience Education Tasmania
Resilience doesn’t happen by itself, but it can be developed through knowledge, understanding and practice.
What is Community Engagement?
Community engagement is defined by the Australian Institute of Disaster Resilience (AIDR) as the process of communities and partners working together to build resilience through collaborative action, shared capacity building and development of strong relationships built on mutual trust and respect.
Source: Community Engagement for Disaster Resilience Handbook
The peak body for community engagement, the International Association for Public Participation Australasia (IAP2), considers community engagement as an intentional process with the specific purpose of working with stakeholders across organisations, stakeholders, and communities to shape the decisions or actions that impact them.
Community engagement is not only about telling people what emergency services and local councils will do in an emergency event, but more about giving people a variety of ways to understand their risks and supporting them to take action to prepare for and respond to their risks along with their neighbours and community.
Effective community engagement and collaborations for disaster resilience across sectors and with individuals in Tasmania’s communities will encourage and support changes in attitudes and behaviours about risk. As a shared responsibility, the aim is to have Tasmanian’s work towards reducing their disaster risks and help build the capacity of themselves and their communities to be more resilient to increasing disaster events.
Fundamental principles for community engagement include: Accordian
- Place the community at the centre
Effective community engagement is responsive, flexible and recognises the community as the central reference point for planning, implementing and measuring success in any engagement process. Inclusive, respectful and ethical relationships between engagement partners and the community must guide every stage of the engagement process.
- Understand the context
Effective community engagement requires partners to develop a strong understanding of the unique history, values, diversity, dynamics, strengths, priorities and needs of each community. It is also important to understand the environmental, political, or historical context that surrounds any hazard, emergency event or disaster.
- Recognise complexity
Effective community engagement considers the complex and dynamic nature of hazards, disaster risk and emergency events and the diverse identities, histories, composition, circumstances, strengths and needs of communities and community members. Because of this complexity, effective community engagement to build disaster resilience is an evolving process that requires ongoing investment.
4. Work in partnership
Effective community engagement requires a planned and coordinated approach between the community and partners at every stage of the process. Potential issues arising from any imbalance in power, information or resources between the community and partners will be proactively managed during the process.
5. Communicate respectfully and inclusively
Community engagement is built on effective communication between the community and partners that recognises the diverse strengths, needs, values and priorities of both community members and partners.
6. Recognise and build capability
Effective community engagement recognises, supports and builds on individual, community and organisational capability and capacity to reduce disaster risk and increase resilience
Source: Community Engagement for Disaster Resilience Handbook
ADD Case Study: Bushfire-Ready Neighbourhoods
The Aim of Community Engagement?
The primary aim for community engagement is to build a sense of shared responsibility with the community and empower them to exercise choice and take responsibility, thereby reducing their reliance on emergency services.
Engagement may be broad or focused, this may include:
- access to practical and fit-for-purpose information, meeting the diverse needs of non-specialist individuals and groups
- public awareness campaigns
- inclusion of risk awareness in school education and professional training and
- local collaborations to help disseminate risk information.
Source: Tasmanian Disaster Resilience Strategy 2020-2025.
Your aims of community engagement will differ in consideration of which emergency management phase you are engaging in.
For example, in the preparation phase, a local emergency management plan is being development by the council, they want to involve the residents asking what they consider are their local hazards and the infrastructure that needs to be prioritised, this engagement process is about consulting and the feedback is added to the document.
In the response phase, when there is a flood emergency the engagement approach will be about providing the right emergency information at a critical time to enable people to act quickly and safely.
In the recovery phase, after a serious bushfire, the council of the affected area and the government is supporting the local Neighbourhood House and Recovery Enabling Group to co-design a community-led recovery funding program to assist in the community’s recovery. This demonstrates that the aim of community engagement needs to be fit for purpose in an emergency management phase.
A collaborative approach through these phases aims to engage government agencies, businesses, not for profit agencies and individuals in Tasmania’s to encourage and support changes in attitudes and behaviours about risk.
To assist with your aims, it is important to realise that behaviour change doesn’t happen overnight, and this may take time. The phases of behaviour change are:
- Precontemplation- unaware of the problem
- Contemplation- aware of the problem and of the desire to change
- Preparation- intention to take action
- Action- practice of the desired behaviour and
- Maintenance- working to sustain the behaviour over the long term.
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