Australian Disaster Resilience Conference 2021

Speaker profiles

Speakers and panels

Explore the people and presentations coming to the 2021 Australian Disaster Resilience Conference.

Keynote speakers

Stan Grant

ABC's International Affairs Analyst

Dominique Hogan-Doran SC

Counsel Assisting the Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements

Shane Fitzsimmons AFSM

Commissioner, Resilience NSW

Turia Pitt

Mindset Coach, Author and Athlete

Conference presentations | Day 1

8.15am	Opening Ceremony
9.00am	KEYNOTE: Dominique Hogan-Doran SC
9.45am	KEYNOTE: Shane Fitzsimmons
10.30am	Morning Tea
	RESILIENCE POLICY AND STRATEGY	CHILDREN AND YOUTH
11.40am	A national approach to disaster preparedness and recovery Nico Padovan PSM, National Recovery and Resilience Agency	Learner agency in bushfire education: an explanatory case study from Harkaway Primary School, Victoria Dr Briony Towers, RMIT University/Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC
12.10pm	Policy maker to policy taker - applying learnings from a lived experience Karen McPaul, Queensland Reconstruction Authority	Engaging young people at the centre of bushfire recovery Quinn Obran and Carla Hall, Youth Affairs Council Victoria
12.40pm	Disaster resilient and adaptive to change - narratives to shape achievable visions of resilience, support coordinated practice and catalyse collective action Dr Deborah O’Connell, CSIRO	Shifting the paradigm: trialling student and school community led disaster risk reduction programs in South Australia Belinda Dunbar and Chris Sedunary, SA Country Fire Service
1.20pm	Lunch
	THE BUSINESS OF RESILIENCE	PLACE-BASED RESILIENCE
2.30pm	PANEL: Sharing responsibility with the business community to build national resilience Daniel Aldrich, Northeastern University Boston, Kate Carnell AO, Renae Hanvin and James Ritchie, corporate2community and David Parsons, Crisis Management Australia	City of Ryde resilience planning - A journey of collaboration and engagement Kylie McMahon, City of Ryde Council
3.00pm		Building resilience in remote Indigenous communities across northern Australia Dr Kamaljit K Sangha, Charles Darwin University
3.30pm	A deeper look at the economic cost drivers of natural disasters Shauna Coffey, Australian Business Roundtable for Disaster Resilience and Safer Communities	Resilient Byron Inc - A systems thinking model to bolster community regeneration and resilience Dr Jean Renouf, Southern Cross University
4.10pm	Afternoon tea
		DISABILITY INCLUSION
4.50pm		Person-centred emergency management approach: A case study from Mackay, Queensland Helen Styles, Mackay Regional Council, Michelle Villeneuve, University of Sydney
5.20pm		Ask me what I need? Autism awareness training project for emergency services Belinda Karp, Next Step Inc
6.00pm	Resilience NSW Resilient Australia Awards Ceremony

Conference presentations | Day 2

8.30am	KEYNOTE: Turia Pitt
9.15am	KEYNOTE: Stan Grant
10.10am	Morning Tea
	RECOVERY	RESILIENCE THROUGH COLLABORATION
11.10am	Understanding preparedness and recovery. A survey of people’s preparedness and recovery experience for emergencies John Richardson, and Agathe Randrianarisoa, Australian Red Cross	The Resilient Sydney story Beck Dawson, Resilient Sydney
11.40am	An Australia wide learning network: Grappling with complexity to sustain a responsive community recovery Louise Mitchell, Social Recovery Reference Group, and Miranda Hampton, Adelaide Hills Council	PANEL: Putting together the jigsaw puzzle: a case study on collaborative grass roots community-led and coordinated efforts driving recovery and resilience Anne Crestani, Jo Davies, Vicki Edmunds, Rosemary Glassock, Andrew Kaye, Kris Newton, Mountains Community Resource Network, and Esther Perry,
12.10pm	Seeking the ideal in the realm of recovery - community led recovery Andrew Coghlan, Australian Red Cross, and Lisa Gibbs, University of Melbourne
12.50pm	Lunch
	COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP	ENGAGEMENT IN ACTION
2.00pm	Enabling communities - from the heart of the community Trish Curtis, Upper Murray Regional Neighbourhood House Network	Social housing and flood risk in the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley. A place-based community engagement and action research approach Dr Amanda Nixon, University of Sydney and Madeleine Dignam, Hawkesbury Nepean Flood Risk Management Directorate
2.30pm	Australian Red Cross South Australia Community-Led Emergency Resilience Project Cristel Chambers, Australian Red Cross	Harnessing community networks responding to COVID-19 - The case of African migrants in Melbourne’s public housing Dr Sandra Carrasco, University of Newcastle
3.00pm	Community leadership and emerging partnerships Dr Margaret Moreton, Minderoo Foundation	The Rockhampton VOAD consortium: a mechanism to support collaboration, coordination and communication of volunteer organisations active in disasters Amanda Nixon, Volunteering Queensland
3.35pm	CLOSING PANEL: Beyond impact and expectations Karen O'Connor, Minderoo Foundation, Lisa Harrison, Suncorp, Stuart Ellis AM, AFAC, Alistair Dawson, Queensland Inspector-General Emergency Management, Carlene York APM, NSW State Emergency Service, Jenny Brockie (moderator)
4.35pm	Closing Ceremony

About the conference

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Conference proceedings

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Dominique Hogan-Doran SC

Counsel Assisting the Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements

Keynote speaker – shared with AFAC21

Dominique Hogan-Doran SC is a leading Senior Counsel of the Australian Bar. She conducts a national practice, appearing as an advocate in superior courts & tribunals, as well as Royal Commissions & public inquiries, including ICAC. Drawing on her operational experience as a trustee & company director, she also advises on risk, integrity, and governance issues.

During 2020, Dominique led the Counsel Assisting team for the Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements.

Dominique is a graduate of the University of Sydney (B.Ec (Soc Sc), LLB (Hons I), LLM) where she was awarded the Convocation Medal, and the University of Oxford (BCL (Hons I)), where she was the Sir Robert Menzies Memorial Scholar in Law.

Dominique was called to the independent Bar in 1995, following stints as Research Director to the Chief Justice of New South Wales and as a lawyer at Mallesons Stephen Jacques. She built her career as a barrister whilst balancing the responsibilities of raising three young children.

Dominique is a past President of Australian Women Lawyers Inc and the Women Lawyers Association of New South Wales. She is Chair of the Australian Bar Association’s Futures Committee and an Officer of the International Bar Association’s Bar Regulation Committee.

In 2016, Dominque was awarded ‘Barrister of the Year’ at the Australian Law Awards.

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Shane Fitzsimmons AFSM

Commissioner

Resilience NSW

Keynote speaker – shared with AFAC21

Shane Fitzsimmons was appointed as the inaugural Commissioner of Resilience NSW and Deputy Secretary, Emergency Management with the Department of Premier and Cabinet from May 1, 2020. This appointment followed a distinguished career with the NSW Rural Fire Service of over 35 years.

In 1998, he was appointed an Assistant Commissioner with the RFS and has held portfolio responsibilities for Operations, Strategic Development and Regional Management. In 2004, he was appointed the inaugural Australasian Fire Authorities Council (AFAC) Visiting Fellow to the Australian Institute of Police Management (AIPM) for a period of 12 months.

From September 2007 to April 2020, he was Commissioner of the NSW Rural Fire Service and was also the Chair of the NSW RFS Bushfire Coordinating Committee and the Rural Fire Service Advisory Council. He was also a member of the NSW State Emergency Management Committee and the NSW State Rescue Board (SRB) and was Chair of SRB from 2008 to November 2015.

In July 2012, he was appointed a Board Member of the NSW Government Telecommunications Authority. He was appointed a Director of the National Aerial Firefighting Centre (NAFC) in March of 2008 and was the Chair of the NAFC Board from 2009 to 2013. He was a Director on the Bushfire Co-Operative Research Centre from 2009 to 2014.

He was a member of the Australasian Fire and Emergency Services Authority Council from 2007 and was a member of its Board from November 2016 to November 2019 and held the position of Deputy President upon retirement from the Board.

In January 2016, he was appointed as a Councillor of the Royal Humane Society of NSW Inc. Commissioner Fitzsimmons was awarded the National Medal in 1999 and the Australian Fire Service Medal (AFSM) in 2001.

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Turia Pill Turia Pitt

Mindset Coach, Author and Athlete

Keynote speaker – shared with AFAC21

Turia Pitt is living proof that, with the right mindset, anything is possible.

Caught in a grassfire while competing in a 100km ultramarathon in 2011, Turia suffered full-thickness burns to 65% of her body. But surviving is the least of her achievements.

One of Australia’s most admired and widely recognised people, Turia has gone on to become a bestselling author, two-time Ironman and humanitarian - raising well over a million dollars for not-for-profit Interplast. Through her online presence, books and online programs, Turia has inspired millions to live with more confidence, drop their fears and smash epic goals.

Stan Grant

International Affairs Analyst

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Keynote speaker – shared with AFAC21

Stan Grant is the International Affairs Editor for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation – a multi-award-winning current affairs host, an author and an adventurer.

Well-known for having brought the former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to tears when interviewed about Indigenous affairs on The Point, Stan’s keynotes are insightful, engaging, always professional and at times, controversial.

Stan Grant’s Aboriginal heritage has shaped his dynamic, resilient personality. Born in Griffith in south-west New South Wales in 1963, Stan Grant’s mother is from the Kamilaroi people and his father is of the Wiradjuri.

Stan spent most of his childhood on the road living in small towns and Aboriginal communities across outback NSW. His father was an itinerant saw-miller who worked when and where he could. Stan moved so often, he attended 12 different schools before he was in his teens.

The early traveling gave Stan a love of adventure and stories. He grew up listening to the tales of his grandfather and uncles and aunts. Despite poverty and an early sporadic education, the security of his family and the larger Aboriginal community gave him a strong platform for life.

After attending University, Stan won a cadetship with the Macquarie Radio Network, launching a career in journalism that has spanned more than 30 years and more than 70 countries. In that time, Stan has travelled the world covering the major stories of our time from the release of Nelson Mandela, the troubles in Northern Island, the death of Princess Diana, war in Iraq, the second Palestinian intifada, the war on terror, the South Asia Tsunami, the Pakistan Earthquake and the rise of China.

Stan has hosted major news and current affairs programs on Australian commercial and public TV. He has been a political correspondent for the ABC, a Europe correspondent for the Seven Network based in London, and a senior international correspondent for the international broadcaster CNN based in Hong Kong and Beijing.

Returning to Australia in 2013, Stan continued to cover international events for Sky News Australia and reignited his passion for telling the stories of his own indigenous people. He has worked as the Indigenous editor for the Guardian Australia, managing editor for National Indigenous Television and international editor for Sky News. In 2016 Stan Grant was appointed as the special advisor to the then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Indigenous constitutional recognition.

Stan has won many major awards including an Australian TV Logie, a Columbia University Du-Pont Award (the broadcast equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize), and the prestigious U.S. Peabody Award. He is a four-time winner of the highly prized Asia TV Awards, including reporter of the year.

Stan has written ‘The Tears of Strangers’ and ‘Talking to My Country’ (Harper Collins) and has published numerous articles and opinion pieces for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian.

Stan Grant is passionate about justice and humanity. His years of international reporting has given him a deep understanding of how the world works. He is deeply immersed in the politics and history of Asia and the Middle East. He can link the importance of leadership and the impact of history and above all believes in the power and resilience of people.

Stan is married to ABC Sports Broadcaster, Tracey Holmes, and has four children. He lives in Sydney.

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Nico Padovan PSM

Chief Operating Officer and Deputy CEO

National Recovery and Resilience Agency

A National Approach to Disaster Preparedness and Recovery

Join National Recovery and Resilience Agency Chief Operating Officer and Deputy CEO Nico Padovan PSM who will present on the Agency’s establishment and vision for a national approach to disaster recovery, resilience and risk mitigation. Nico will provide an overview of the work the Agency is delivering to support recovery from previous disasters (including DRFA activations, the Black Summer bushfires and the 2019 North Queensland Monsoon Trough), the Agency’s renewed national focus on resilience, new initiatives that are in the design and implementation phases, and the National Disaster Risk Reduction Framework.

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Speaker Bio

Nico Padovan is currently the Chief Operating Officer and Deputy CEO of the newly established National Recovery and Resilience Agency in the Prime Minister’s portfolio. He has a key leadership role in ensuring the timely, effective and coordinated approach at a national level in assisting those impacted by a broad range of disasters, as well as ensuring they are better prepared to withstand future events. He has held senior leadership roles across the Australian Government and prior to joining the public service served in the military as an engineering officer for sixteen years. Nico has a keen interest in contributing to the future success of rural and regional Australia, and has a particular interest in Northern Australia.

Presentation outline

The National Recovery and Resilience Agency (NRRA) was established in direct response to a key recommendation from the Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements. The NRRA brings together expertise from across the Commonwealth for the first time to lead a new national approach to disaster preparedness and recovery. The NRRA’s mission is to help and provide relief to communities affected by national disasters and other hazards through locally-led, locally understood and locally-implemented solutions, while working at the forefront of driving efforts to minimise the impacts of future disasters at a national level.

Join NRRA Chief Operating Officer and Deputy CEO Nico Padovan PSM who will present on the Agency’s establishment and vision for a national approach to disaster recovery, resilience and risk mitigation. Nico will provide an overview of the work the Agency is delivering to support recovery from previous disasters (including DRFA activations, the Black Summer bushfires and the 2019 North Queensland Monsoon Trough), the Agency’s renewed national focus on resilience, new initiatives that are in the design and implementation phases, and the National Disaster Risk Reduction Framework.

Karen McPaul

Director, Policy, Research and Analysis, Resilience Division

Queensland Reconstruction Authority

Policy maker to policy taker - applying learnings from a lived experience

As policy makers, we base our decisions on research, knowledge and understanding. But what happens when the policy maker becomes the policy taker? What happens when the decisions made in a city office are put into practice on the ground and that same person is on the other side of the counter, in their community, standing side by side with other disaster-impacted community members?

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Speaker bio

Karen is a Senior Director in the Resilience and Recovery team at the Queensland Reconstruction Authority (QRA), a statutory body established in 2011 to coordinate recovery from natural disasters. Karen has extensive experience across communications and media, engagement and policy. Karen is dedicated to helping communities increase their disaster resilience to enable a quicker recovery following natural disasters. Karen has been with the QRA since 2014 and currently oversees the development and implementation of recovery and resilience policy to ensure communities are prepared for, and able to respond to, natural disasters. This includes working with local, state and commonwealth governments to establish resilience and recovery programs. This includes developing cases for extraordinary assistance following significant natural disaster events.

Presentation outline

This presentation will explore those questions as it relates to the Queensland Reconstruction Authority’s director of policy, who was in exactly that situation after she was forced to move out of her home immediately following a catastrophic hailstorm in October 2020. Following the storm, insurers received over 33,519 claims worth more than $805 million. The 14 centimetre hail came down with such force that tiled roofs were left shattered, ceilings collapsed with the weight of the water, and homes were left without electricity for days – even those that hadn’t been damaged.

This presentation will explore the biases that are inherent in us and the challenges faced when those biases are put into question. If a middle class woman with a stable job, a stable home, a flexible employer, family support available and much knowledge in the disaster space can be overwhelmed by an event, what happens to someone that is already in a vulnerable state as a result of current stressors when disaster strikes. How can we address those underlying stressors that make us vulnerable, and how do we convince community members that any one of them could be in a vulnerable state? This is a unique opportunity to understand needs at the community level and to use this lived experience to ensure recovery and resilience policy is fit-for-purpose, and that our inherent biases do not cloud our focus.

Dr Deborah O'Connell

CSIRO

Disaster resilient and adaptive to change - narratives to shape achievable visions of resilience, support coordinated practice and catalyse collective action

Narratives are increasingly important to catalyse systemic change. A wealth of evidence demonstrates the ways in which stories help create sense and meaning for people and support decision-making. This presentation uses the example of narrative development and use for adaptation and resilience in Queensland.

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Speaker bio

Deborah has taken leading roles across a range of projects in climate adaptation and disaster resilience including the Australian Vulnerability Profile, the Strategic Guidance to Climate and Disaster Risk Reduction, resilience narratives and a Resilience Checklist for Queensland, and currently the Enabling Resilience Investment Pathfinder project.

Deborah has expertise in systems leadership, and providing quality, contemporary scientific approaches to complex real world problems, and translating research to impact. She takes a systems approach and enjoys working with people to build strong connections between scientists; those who make decisions in business, government and NGOs; and the communities that care about the issues at stake. She has built many successful partnerships with a range of people and organisations, and focusses on achieving outcomes through a deep understanding of the process of change, and collaboration with those who can help achieve it. She uses creative and ethical approaches to collaboration and co-design across science, arts, humanities and policy. She has strong facilitation skills, and is the Lead Facilitator for the Homeward Bound program – a global initiative for leadership of women in STEMM.

Presentation outline

Narratives are increasingly important to catalyse systemic change. A wealth of evidence demonstrates the ways in which stories help create sense and meaning for people and support decision-making. There are many seminal studies on systems thinking that emphasise the role of mental models in effecting systems change, and the capacity of narrative to reframe mental models.

Representing the systems complexity of cause and effect, feedbacks, interdependencies and cascading outcomes visually and in narratives remains challenging. Visual narratives can build capability across government, business, community, and champions and advocates for resilience to do this better. Visual storytelling amplifies and makes accessible the narratives, providing a medium for transferring those stories without losing their intended meaning. Through their use, the elements become visual artefacts or memes that start to shift the way people visualise, think about and narrate their systems, thus aiding the objectives of building resilience, adapting to change and reducing disaster risk.

This presentation uses the example of narrative development and use for adaptation and resilience in Queensland. The ideas being conveyed in these narratives are complex and nuanced, and approached in novel ways. Four key narratives were produced, presented as elements of diagrams with accompanying text explanations. The visual elements can be mixed and matched with text, simplified and customised for agencies to use in their own communications. The narratives were used to help frame thinking and communication of resilience and systems approaches, as well as to support developing a Resilience Checklist to help co-ordinate practice across a range of state agencies.

Daniel Aldrich

Director of Resilience and Security Studies

Northeastern University, Boston

Kate Carnell AO

Company director and small business advisor

Renae Hanvin

Founder and Director

corporate2community

David Parsons

Director

Crisis Management Australia

James Ritchie

Strategist and International Disaster Risk and Resilience Advisor

Panel: Sharing responsibility with the business community to build national resilience

In this panel presentation Company Director and Small Business Advocate, Kate Carnell AO, global social capital expert Professor Daniel Aldrich, emergency management planning specialist David Parsons and international resilience advisor, James Ritchie will share insights and examples.

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Speaker bios

Daniel Aldrich

An award winning author, Daniel P. Aldrich is the Director of the Security and Resilience Studies program and Full Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. Since his home and belongings were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, his work has focused on how social networks and infrastructure–the ties that bind us together–help us during shocks and disasters. He has published five books including Building Resilience (University of Chicago Press, 2012) and Black Wave (University of Chicago Press, 2019), more than 60 peer-reviewed articles, and written op-eds for the New York Times, CNN, HuffPost, and many other media outlets. Aldrich has spent more than 5 years in India, Japan, and Africa carrying out fieldwork and his work has been funded by the Fulbright Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the Abe Foundation, and the Japan Foundation, among other institutions. He was the 2021 Klein Lecturer at Northeastern University and tweets at @danielpaldrich

Kate Carnell

Kate Carnell is a company director and small business advisor. Kate has extensive experience and knowledge in the business sector, having run her own small businesses for 15 years before becoming ACT Chief Minister in 1995 for a five year period. Kate completed her five year term as the inaugural Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman (ASBFEO) in March 2021. Prior to her appointment as the inaugural ASBFEO, Kate held the position of CEO of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which represents more than 300,000 businesses across Australia. She has also served as CEO of Beyond Blue, CEO of the Australian Food and Grocery Council, CEO of the Australian General Practice Network (AGPN) and CEO of the National Association of Forest Industries (NAFI). A pharmacist by profession, Kate was the inaugural chair of the ACT Branch of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia and the first female to become the National Vice-President of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia. Kate was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2006 for her services to the community through contributions to economic development and support for the business sector, knowledge industries, the medical sector and medical technology advances.

Renae Hanvin

Renae Hanvin is a proactive driver of business sector contribution towards a disaster resilient future – by doing disasters differently. Founder of certified social enterprise, corporate2community, Renae advocates and activates for greater ‘shared responsibility’ by bringing a multi-stakeholder and collaborative approach to delivering needs-led outcomes. Renae is motivated by her personal experience of disasters, belief in the positive contribution the business sector can make, her knowledge of community needs and understanding of government responsibilities. A recognised leader of forward-thinking approaches, processes and partnerships, Renae is steering the Resilient Australia Alliance towards its mission to build vital disaster preparedness and resilience capabilities in every business leader, owner and operator across Australia. With an extensive local, national and international network, Renae has an MBA, is an iap2 certified practitioner and participates on a number of disaster-related advisory committees. Renae also hosts the ‘Doing Disasters Differently’ podcast because disasters are changing and we need to change too.

David Parsons

David’s company Crisis Management Australia provides a range of emergency management advice to jurisdictions across Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific and Europe. He is a founding partner of Response and Recovery Aotearoa New Zealand (RRANZ). RRANZ provides emergency management leadership training throughout New Zealand on behalf of the National Emergency Management Agency. David previously managed Sydney Water’s Emergency Management and Counter Terrorism Program. Following September 11 David established the Water Services Sector Group within the Australian Government’s Trusted Information Sharing Network and was a member of the Critical Infrastructure Advisory Council for 14 years. Prior to commencing at Sydney Water David served as the Regional Emergency Management Officer for Central West NSW where he was awarded a Ministerial Commendation for his efforts. David is an Adjunct Lecturer at Charles Sturt University, a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Emergency Services, a Fellow of the Business Continuity Institute, a Fellow of the Emergency Management Academy New York and a member of the International Association of Emergency Managers.

James Ritchie

James brings diverse senior leadership experience from the public, private and not-for-profit sectors and has previously worked in senior positions across diverse sectors including international development, environment, water, Australian State Government public service, community mental health and mining and engineering sectors. James has also had executive leadership accountability and expertise in disaster risk and resilience, governance and strategy. James has held various disaster preparedness and emergency management responsibilities across his career, in particular executive accountability for fire and flood response, counter terrorism planning and emergency evacuation. James holds an MBA and a Commerce Degree in Business Management and Industrial Relations. James also holds an International Diploma in Humanitarian Assistance (IHDA) from Fordham University, NewYork, USA and has completed expert training in Disaster Risk Reduction and Management in Berlin, Germany. James is an international resilience and risk expert advising Australian and International Governments, businesses and communities. James is also a member of the Resilience Advisory Network (Europe) and Principal Adviser to corporate2community.

Presentation outline

2020 clearly demonstrated that disasters don’t discriminate and disasters are here to stay.

The direct and indirect impacts from COVID-19 and the 2019-2020 bushfires highlighted an immediate need for greater preparedness and resilience within and between individuals, households, communities, businesses and governments. In 2011 the National Strategy for Disaster Resilience put focus on ‘shared responsibility’. As we move into a new decade it is now time to move forward and empower all stakeholder groups to start ‘sharing the responsibility’.

Businesses are communities. By investing in building resilience in Australian business leaders, owners and operators we are organically building resilience within communities too. In this panel presentation Company Director and Small Business Advocate, Kate Carnell AO, global social capital expert Professor Daniel Aldrich, emergency management planning specialist David Parsons and international resilience advisor, James Ritchie will share insights and examples on:

Building disaster resilience capabilities in business leaders, owners and operators to help the economic and social viability of communities;
Strengthening community social capital and social ties with businesses acting as enablers to build resilience in employees, customers, suppliers and community;
Collaborations between business communities and emergency management services in preparing, responding and recovering from disasters; and
The connections between ‘shared responsibility’, disaster risk, resilience and good governance while also giving an international perspective of current trends and activities from across Europe

Facilitated by Renae Hanvin, this panel presentation will challenge attendees on the benefits in activating a ‘sharing the responsibility’ culture. With outcomes to save Australians lives and livelihoods.

Shauna Coffey

Australian Business Roundtable for Disaster Resilience & Safer Communities

A deeper look at the economic cost drivers of natural disasters

In 2016, the Australian Business Roundtable for Disaster Resilience & Safer Communities looked at how natural disasters impact mental health, domestic violence and other social issues and developed, for the first time, a comprehensive estimate of the total economic cost of natural disasters in Australia. This presentation will share an update on the economic costs of natural disasters.

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Speaker bio

Shauna Coffey is an established sustainability professional with multi-sector experience in strategy design, managing diverse collaborations and leading research projects. She is enjoying the relatively new challenge of putting the refreshed Australian Business Roundtable strategy into action to reduce disaster risk and increase climate change preparedness.

Presentation outline

In 2016, the Australian Business Roundtable for Disaster Resilience & Safer Communities (the “ABR”) looked at how natural disasters impact mental health, domestic violence and other social issues and developed, for the first time, a comprehensive estimate of the total economic cost of natural disasters in Australia. The 2017 ABR estimate of the total tangible and intangible economic costs of natural disasters was $18.2 billion per year and forecast to rise to $39 billion per year by 2050. However, these past estimates of total economic costs were very conservative, assuming natural hazards will be as frequent as in the past. Yet we now have a significant body of evidence that climate change is already well underway and is impacting the severity and frequency of weather events here in Australia. Earlier this year, the ABR released its Special Report: update on the economic costs of natural disasters [pending] building on our previous reports by re-examining of the drivers of the economic costs of natural disasters of under various climate change scenarios. It leveraged the latest and best climate science, considering expected local variations to identify exposure nationally and for our key regions around the country.

The report found increases in the (real) structural value of housing, population growth and climate change are all driving an increase in forecast natural disaster costs. The largest increases in total economic costs of natural disasters is expected to occur in population centres vulnerable to natural disasters as well as those with both high forecast population growth and vulnerability to natural disasters. These costs are significant even under a low emissions concentration trajectory. In this presentation, the ABR will share a deeper dive on the impact of these different drivers in key locations around Australia.

Dr Briony Towers

LEADRRR

leigh johnson

Leigh Johnson

Principal

Harkaway Primary School

Learner agency in bushfire education: an explanatory case study from Harkaway Primary School, Victoria

RMIT’s Centre for Urban Research and the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC partnered with Harkaway Primary School to conduct an explanatory case study which sought to establish how project-based learning can promote learner agency in bushfire education and support children’s genuine participation in risk reduction initiatives at home, at school, and in the wider community.

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Speaker bios

Dr Briony Towers has been working with emergency management agencies, educators, children, youth and families for over a decade to develop effective and sustainable models of bushfire education for Australian schools. Briony’s PhD in sociocultural psychology at the University of Tasmania involved an in-depth investigation of children's knowledge of vulnerability and resilience to bushfire in south-eastern Australia. From 2011 to 2021, she was a Research Fellow at RMIT University. Since 2015, she has served as a Chief Investigator on the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre's project on Child-Centred Disaster Risk Reduction. In 2021, Briony founded LEADRRR, an action research organisation which promotes child and youth-led action on DRR and resilience through quality education. Briony lives and works on the unceded lands of the Boon Wurrung, Woi Wurrung and Dja Dja Wurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation.

Leigh Johnson started his teaching career hidden away in the South China Sea, on a tropical island in front of tourism students and English language teachers. That was the mid ‘90s. He’s since learned a few things. When asked 'What are schools for?' The answer is an unambiguous: ‘schools afford agency’. With a couple of master’s degrees and principalships tucked under his arm, Leigh is energised by leading all learners to harness the power to shape their world.

Leigh does this from the ‘whiteboard’ as a science and environmental educator and from the ‘staffroom’ serving in the principal role.

Presentation outline

For over eight decades, Bushfire Royal Commissions and other formal inquiries have repeatedly identified school-based bushfire education as a key strategy for reducing bushfire risk. In more recent years, researchers and practitioners working in this area have begun to recognise the importance of participatory, project-based, learner-centred pedagogies that afford students a high degree of agency in the education process. However, empirical evidence that can inform the design and implementation of effective project based learning for bushfire risk reduction remains scarce. To help address this gap, RMIT’s Centre for Urban Research and the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC partnered with Harkaway Primary School to conduct an explanatory case study which sought to establish how project-based learning can promote learner agency in bushfire education and support children’s genuine participation in risk reduction initiatives at home, at school, and in the wider community.

Drawing on ethnographic data collected over a two year period, this presentation will explain how a project based learning unit for Harkaway students in Grade 5/6 promoted learner agency and provided them with a learning experience that was purposeful, meaningful and relevant in the context of their own lives. It will identify key factors that enabled the students to take ownership of their learning and lead bushfire risk reduction initiatives that directly addressed the needs and priorities of local children and their families. The presentation will also showcase ‘Bushfire Education for Kids: A Manifesto from Harkaway Primary School’, which was developed by the students upon completion of the unit and is now being used to inform the design and implementation of the school’s bushfire safety curriculum. The presentation will conclude with a discussion of how the research outcomes and outputs from Harkaway Primary School are informing the development of scalable, sustainable bushfire education programs that support student-led innovation and change.

Quinn Obran

Youth Affairs Council Victoria

Carla Hall

Youth Affairs Council Victoria

Engaging young people at the centre of bushfire recovery

Immediately following the devastating Victorian bushfires over the 2019-20 summer, Youth Affairs Council Victoria consulted on and developed a Youth Focused Disaster Recovery Protocol. At the heart of the Protocol is the principle that young people are experts in their own lives and deserve to have their perspectives and abilities included in recovery and rebuilding.

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Speaker bios

Quinn Obran was born and raised in Corryong, and is an active member of Corryong’s youth working group which was established after the 2019-20 bushfires. It was through the youth working group that Quinn heard about YAC Vic’s bushfire disaster recovery group, which she then became a part of. At the start of this year Quinn decided to pursue a degree in criminal psychology at Wollongong University, whilst continuing to support bushfire recovery, and the advocacy of youth involvement.

Carla Hall joined the Youth Affairs Council Victoria in mid-2020, working as the Rural Youth Projects Coordinator. Prior to this Carla worked directly with the flame impacted community of East Gippsland throughout the 2019-20 bushfires in the evacuation centre and brings a lived experience of disaster to her work in this space. Carla’s role involves the development of a youth-centred approach to bushfire recovery and mental health engaging directly with young people and community members in rural and regional areas about their experiences of, response to, and recovery from the devastating 2019-2020 bushfires across Eastern Victoria. This provided young people with the opportunity to share their ideas for recovery, rebuilding and preparation for a better future. For the past 15 years Carla has worked in the youth sector in local government, generalist youth work, employment, and homelessness. Carla lives and was raised on the lands of the Gunai Kurnai People and acknowledges that sovereignty was never ceded, and this always was, and always will be aboriginal land.

Presentation outline

Immediately following the devastating Victorian bushfires over the 2019-20 summer, Youth Affairs Council Victoria (YACVic) consulted on and developed a Youth Focused Disaster Recovery Protocol. The Protocol established a framework for Federal, State and Local Government emergency and recovery services and committees, institutions, local youth services, youth workers and others who engage with young people in disaster affected areas. It seeks to provide guidance on key matters for consideration and inclusion of young people in post-disaster recovery and rebuilding, and to ensure positive outcomes for young people aged 12- 25 who have been affected directly and/or indirectly by a disaster. At the heart of the Protocol is the principle that young people are experts in their own lives and deserve to have their perspectives and abilities included in recovery and rebuilding.

Following the development of the Protocol, YACVic was funded* to undertake an extensive project across Eastern Victoria to understand young people’s experience of the bushfires, and capture and improve the ways young people and their local communities can come together to develop and shape recovery and rebuilding projects. The work was co-lead and co-delivered by local young people from bushfire-affected areas. Other key elements included consultation, advocacy, training in youth participation and inclusion, and the development of fact sheets and resources for community wide use. This presentation will showcase how young people from bushfire-affected areas co-led and guided the project. The young people involved will present emerging themes from this work including:

Access and Inclusion
Preparedness and Communication
Connectiveness and Engagement
Wellbeing and Identity
Resilience and Capacity

Elevating young people to the centre of community recovery, rebuilding and planning ensures they are genuinely heard, and are meaningfully supported, valued and included in the work.

Belinda Dunbar

Child and Youth Project Officer

South Australian Country Fire Service

Chris Sedunary

Community Engagement and Partners Project Officer

South Australian Country Fire Service

Shifting the paradigm: trialling student and school community led disaster risk reduction programs in South Australia

This presentation will show how school communities can be empowered to reduce their disaster risk, create robust procedures and safer sites and deliver quality disaster resilience education through proactive and adaptive community engagement of the entire school community with embedded youth voice.

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Speaker bios

Belinda Dunbar

Belinda joined the South Australian Country Fire Service (SACFS) in a newly created role in mid-2020, working as Child and Youth Project Officer. Belinda’s role involves the development of a child and youth-centered approach to disaster risk reduction within SACFS including the implementation of disaster resilience education within the child and youth sector. The role has a focus on working with children and youth from preschool through to further education, to support them to be active participants in their own safety before, during and after a bushfire. For the past 6 years Belinda has also worked for the Royal Automobile Association (RAA), writing curriculum and delivering a road safety program in partnership with Think! Road Safety for children and youth. Before this she was a classroom teacher for 7 years, teaching across early childhood and primary schools. Belinda has studied a range of degrees relating to education including a Bachelor of Education at Flinders University and a Graduate Diploma in Early Childhood at Edith Cowan University.

Chris Sedunary

Since 2019, Chris Sedunary has been a staff member at the South Australian Country Fire Service (SACFS), working as Community Engagement and Partners Project Officer. In this role Chris works with businesses and organisations to be prepared for bushfire and other emergencies before, during and after they happen, with business continuity planning being a key element. This role has a focus on at risk and vulnerable groups such as young people, elderly and CALD communities. His operational roles include planning and public information. Chris has also been a volunteer firefighter with the SACFS since 2006, undertaking various roles including brigade captain and trainer. From 2014 to 2019 Chris was science and maths teacher across both primary and secondary schools. In this space his passion was in using project and problem-based learning to apply science and maths to real world problems while developing critical and creative thinking through problem solving. Chris has studied a range of degrees relating to education and emergency management including a Bachelor of Psychological Science and Graduate Diploma in Education at The University of Adelaide, Master of Science at Curtin University, and a Graduate Certificate in Emergency Management at Charles Sturt University.

Presentation outline

The SA Country Fire Service is employing a range of methods to engage the education and youth sector in disaster resilience education and risk reduction and using learnings to inform future activities. Traditionally, SACFS has focused on simple fire safety messaging for young people, such children’s’ activity booklets and classroom visits by fire fighters. In 2020, with the introduction of a new Child and Youth Officer, we shifted to a resilience-based model promoting shared responsibility for preparedness between the SACFS, education sites and their communities. This shift aims to empower young people and education professionals by using youth and community voice to dynamically shape the program using the principles of the UNISDR Comprehensive School Safety Framework.

We have worked with individual school sites to co-develop workshops integrating site preparedness with disaster resilience education using targeted survey data on staff and students’ knowledge, concerns and feelings about bushfires. An initial workshop on school emergency procedures and policies and professional development on disaster resilience education is then delivered in a format that fits with what works for the school. These workshops discuss the roles of the education sector and emergency service organisations in disaster resilience, and create new connections between SACFS Community Engagement, local brigades and school families to build community relationships through bushfire preparedness. SACFS seeks to build constructive partnerships with education bodies, with varying degrees of success given competing priorities. The bottom up approach has been more successful in finding highly motivated individuals who are keen to contribute to disaster resilience outcomes for young people and their communities. This presentation will show how school communities can be empowered to reduce their disaster risk, create robust procedures and safer sites and deliver quality disaster resilience education through proactive and adaptive community engagement of the entire school community with embedded youth voice.

Kylie McMahon

City of Ryde Council

City of Ryde resilience planning - A journey of collaboration and engagement

This presentation shares key elements of this resilience journey and learnings from a complex process of collaboration. The Ryde Resilience Plan 2030 is the first to be adopted by local government in NSW and one of the first of its kind in Australia. The Plan serves as a local blueprint combining planning, governance, conservation and adaptive risk management to ensure our city will ‘thrive and survive’ in the face of resilience obstacles.

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Speaker bio

Kylie has a background in environmental management and behavioural change management. Commencing her environmental career in biodiversity, she has worked in the areas of waterway management, community sustainability and education and climate change. For the past five years her career has focused on work in resilience planning leading to instigating the development of the Ryde Resilience Plan 2030 adopted in 2020.

The 10-year Resilience Plan for Ryde delivers a citywide call to action engaging all levels of community, schools, business, community groups as well as addressing asset and operational resilience and risk planning to ensure the city will ‘thrive and survive’ in the face of population growth and uncertainty relating to climate impacts.

Conference outline

Adoption of the Ryde Resilience Plan 2030 (2020) was the culmination of lengthy community facing process for strengthening the City’s commitment to resilience planning for its operations, across the city and its people. Ryde, a member of the Resilient Sydney (RS) collaborative network since 2015, approved a local Plan for the city to be developed in 2019. Council determined to apply a ‘hybrid’ structure building on the initial (RS) framework foundation combining risk, mitigation with adaptation, and emergency preparedness in a holistic approach to resilience.

Prioritising community as the heart of the plan, Council designed a multi-faceted program to reflect the diversity of the city to identify community values, issues and impacts experienced in a changing climate and urban growth. It drew upon known risks and vulnerabilities of the city but provided that community did not actively consider these risks, had limited knowledge or concern despite the city’s proximity to surrounding National Park, flood or heat issues. The 10 month engagement utilised a mix of tools tailored to specific groups including; disability, aged and culturally and linguistically diverse and employing all to a ‘call to action’ for resilience via a diverse platform of interaction. Engagement investigated governance frameworks, management and planning and staff providing insight into operational risks for future management. Subsequent inclusion leading to resilience planning into new corporate frameworks and cross departmental inclusion for reducing exposure.

Dr Kamaljit K Sangha

Charles Darwin University

Building resilience in remote Indigenous communities across northern Australia

Scenario planning workshop discussions and associated analyses will be presented, offering insights into the delivery of cost-effective and improved emergency management services and country-based economic opportunities that can empower and build resilience of vulnerable remote communities, and help address emergency management issues in culturally appropriate ways.

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Speaker bio

Dr Kamaljit Sangha works as an Outstanding Future Researcher in Ecological Economics at the Research institute for the Environment and Livelihoods, Charles Darwin University. Her research focus is on understanding the impacts of natural hazards, assessing economic costs, and informing policy decision making, particularly from remote Indigenous communities’ perspectives in northern Australia. For the last 7 years, through a BNHCRC funded project, she has been working with communities and government agencies to enhance Indigenous participation, highlighting issues that communities experience on-ground in emergency situations, and developing solutions in collaboration with Indigenous and other stakeholders.

Presentation outline

Despite frequent exposure to severe natural hazards including extensive and wild bushfires, tropical cyclones and floods, remote Indigenous communities across northern Australia typically have little engagement in managing, mitigating or planning for such hazards, and have minimal local economies. A scenario planning project, funded by the BNHCRC, explores how these communities can effectively and sustainably mitigate the risks of natural hazards, influence, and develop effective partnerships with emergency management (EM) decision-making processes. This research integrates and analyses EM resources and services available through various agencies responsible for remote locations, and the related EM costs. Several remote communities have been consulted through scenario planning workshops and informal discussions to find and develop efficient, cost-effective and culturally appropriate EM arrangements.

Representatives from emergency services in the Northern Territory (NT Emergency Services, Fire and Rescue Services, Bushfires NT), the Northern and Central Land Councils, and other local organizations, Queensland Fire and Emergency Services (QFES), and Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES) have been actively involved in the consultation phase. Discussions, held to date, with the rangers and Traditional Owners from the selected remote communities, representatives from the relevant EM agencies, and other interested parties have all indicated keen interest for finding long-term solutions to develop resilience in remote communities. Workshop discussions and associated analyses will be presented, offering insights into the delivery of cost-effective and improved EM services and country-based economic opportunities that can empower and build resilience of vulnerable remote communities, and help address EM issues in culturally appropriate ways.

Dr Jean Renouf

Southern Cross University

Resilient Byron Inc - A systems thinking model to bolster community regeneration and resilience

The presentation provides a comprehensive and inclusive model to bolster community resilience and regenerative capacities through the study of Resilient Byron Inc., a not-for-profit charity operating in the Byron Shire, northern NSW. Resilient Byron is a model of systems-thinking approach that fosters the cocreation of dynamic responses to uncertainties. Resilient Byron helps communities and neighbourhoods develop their own capacity to prepare for, respond to and recover from disasters, by increasing social cohesion and regenerative capacity at the individual, community, and bioregional scales in times of nonemergency.

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Speaker bio

Dr Jean S. Renouf is the founder of Resilient Byron, a Lecturer at Southern Cross University, a firefighter
with Fire and Rescue NSW and a dad of two young boys. He also spent years working in war zones and
natural disasters, including Afghanistan, Iraq, North Korea, Congo, Haiti, Yemen etc. All of this informs
his interest in climate change, community regeneration and resilience, and non-traditional security.

Presentation outline

It brings together local citizens via a web of neighbourhood groups (streets, neighbourhoods, valleys, shorelines, etc.) organised as interconnected units of local resilience, themselves supported by residents organised in thematic groups, including ‘food security'; 'water security’; ‘energy security’; ‘housing security'; 'health and wellbeing', and ‘safety and emergency’. This last thematic group is not organised hierarchically and does not have the same purpose than the existing Local Emergency Management Committee. It is made of emergency responders who, regardless of their rank or organisation affiliation, meet to exchange ideas, learn from each other, create projects such as the establishment of a network of volunteer first responders, and support the neighbourhood groups.

All of these groups are coordinated by Resilient Byron, which also collaborates and partners with existing organisations, including councils, emergency agencies, community associations, businesses, etc. In effect, Resilient Byron acts as a facilitator, creating connections in between stakeholders, but also community development organiser, supporting neighbourhoods in building their resilience, as well as lobbyist, advocating for regenerative and resilient solutions in the Shire and beyond. The Resilient Byron model, in which emergency services are flexibly integrated with communities, institutions and businesses to ensure a ‘whole-of-community’ approach, is transposable to other parts of Australia, urban or rural.

Helen Styles

Mackay Regional Council

A/Prof Michelle Villeneuve

Centre for Disability Research and Policy, University of Sydney

Person-centred emergency management approach: A case study from Mackay, Queensland

This presentation describes how one regional city employed a capacity development approach to engage community, health, aged care, and disability service providers, together with emergency managers, to learn about and use the Person-Centred Emergency Preparedness (P-CEP) toolkit to impact the disaster resilience of people with disability and other high-risk groups.

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Speaker bios

Helen Styles is passionate about working with communities to make positive social change. She has worked in community organisations, foundations, industry bodies, as a consultant, and now in government in areas such as poverty, homelessness, community sector development, social infrastructure, disaster management and recovery. Helen is interested in implementing disaster risk reduction strategies in communities.

Associate Professor Michelle Villeneuve leads the Disability-Inclusive Community Development research workstream at the Centre for Disability Research and Policy, The University of Sydney. Michelle holds an honorary adjunct position as Associate Professor at Queen’s University at Kingston, ON Canada. She is an activity lead at the World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre (WHOCC) for Strengthening Rehabilitation Capacity in Health Systems. Michelle leads research on disability-inclusive disaster risk reduction in Australia. Michelle has over 20 years of experience working in regions of conflict and natural hazard disaster to develop community-led programs and services and rebuild opportunities for people with disability in countries such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia.

Presentation outline

Emergency managers have long grappled with reducing risk for people who are more vulnerable in disasters such as people with disability and seniors. One way is to leverage the routine interactions that service providers have with the people they support. Research shows, however, that service providers are not adequately prepared for disasters, nor integrated into emergency planning.

This paper describes how one regional city employed a capacity development approach to engage community, health, aged care, and disability service providers, together with emergency managers, to learn about and use the Person-Centred Emergency Preparedness (P-CEP) toolkit to impact the disaster resilience of people with disability and other high-risk groups.

Mackay Regional Council partnered with The University of Sydney and Queenslanders with Disability Network to introduce P-CEP to over 100 service providers. Participants also included Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and Australian South Sea Islander organisations, domestic violence services, and public-facing local government staff. Participants learned to use P-CEP to enable people with disability to develop personal emergency preparedness tailored to their individual support needs. The project was supported by Peer Leaders – people with disability were trained in P-CEP. Participants also met with emergency services and learned about their capabilities and limitations during disasters, thereby resetting their expectations to create a sense of personal responsibility.

Key actions included: (a) distributing over 2,500 P-CEP resources; (b) extracting early learnings to provide practical tips distributed via an eBulletin; (c) creating opportunities for people not connected to formal support services to access and learn P-CEP; and (d) facilitating conversations with emergency services to help build shared responsibility. We will share these good practice examples and a Resource Package by people with disability designed for local government to lead disability inclusive emergency planning.

Berinda Karp

Autism STEP Australia

Ask me what I need? Autism awareness training project for emergency services

This project won both the NSW Resilience Community Award and the National Resilience Community Awards for 2020. The end product is a five minute training video providing basic Autism awareness for emergency services personnel to implement when engaging with youth and adults that identify as autistic. It is the first project to address the needs of Autistic adults in relation to emergency services. At all stages of the project Autistic adults were equally consulted and included. The Presentation will provide background to the project, further autism awareness and viewing of the video.

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Speaker bio

Berinda Karp is the CEO of Autism STEP Australia. She has 35 years of experience working with people who identify as neurodiverse. She has 27 years at TAFE (vocational education), the community and private consultancy. The evidence-based methodology she uses is unique and often unconventional. The person-centred and individual-based approach looks at prioritising the person's goals and needs to achieve positive life changing outcomes such as reduced anxiety and increased independence. Much of Berinda’s insights are gained from listening to autistic voices.

Presentation outline

This project won both the NSW Resilience Community Award and the National Resilience Community Awards for 2020. ‘Ask me what I need’ Autism Awareness training video for emergency services was funded by the joint State/Commonwealth Natural Disaster Resilience Program through the Office of Emergency Management NSW Justice Community Resilience Innovation Program (CRIP).

The end product is a five minute training video providing basic Autism awareness for emergency services personnel to implement when engaging with youth and adults that identify as autistic. It is the first project to address the needs of Autistic adults in relation to emergency services. At all stages of the project Autistic adults were equally consulted and included.

The objective:

To provide awareness, acknowledgement and acceptance of the needs of Autistic adults when they are placed in an emergency environment being immediate danger, rescue or recovery.

The outcomes:

Building of stronger networks within the community and emergency services
Front Line responders will ultimately save lives and save vital response time.
Autistics will respond, react and recover better with recommended strategies in place
A five minute video was produced that addresses the needs of Autistic adults from their personal perspective with Emergency Services front line workers and professionals.
The video can be used in a variety of training situations.
An awareness that further training is required.

Within the emergency services for both paid and volunteer members that identify as being autistic
Autistic individuals require preparedness training and skill development of what to do in an emergency or disaster
Follow up in-depth training for emergency services personnel in the areas of Autism and neurodiversity.

The Presentation will provide background to the project, further autism awareness and viewing of the video.

John Richardson

National Resilience Advisor

Australian Red Cross

Agathe Randrianarisoa

Australian Red Cross

Understanding preparedness and recovery. A survey of people’s preparedness and recovery experience for emergencies

Emergency recovery goes beyond survival. It is a complex process with potentially long-lasting impacts on people’s lives. Within research, policy and practice, there is a widespread assumption that preparing for a disaster has a positive impact on recovery. However, there is a limited amount of research proving this link between preparedness actions and recovery.

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Speaker bios

John Richardson is the National Resilience Adviser for Australian Red Cross. He is also an Honorary Fellow of the University of Melbourne in Global and Public Health focussing on the health and wellbeing trajectories of the Black Saturday Bushfires. He has been invited by United Nations Office of Disaster Risk Reduction to be part of Global Risk Assessment Framework working groups. He has 24 years of experience in preparedness, response and recovery in government and NGO settings, with individual, local, state, national and international levels. He led the development of Red Cross’ unique preparedness program, Rediplan. He has also worked closely with disaster affected individuals and communities. John has a background in Geography and Nursing, with a strong interest in the human impacts of disaster, particularly death and bereavement.

Agathe Randrianarisoa is a Senior Researcher. She has worked for wide range of organisations including Australian Red Cross. She is also a PhD student at RMIT. She has 14 years of experience in conducting research for charities and NGOs. Her work focuses on preparedness and trauma, economic empowerment, migration and development. program, Rediplan. He has also worked closely with disaster affected individuals and communities. John has a background in Geography and Nursing, with a strong interest
in the human impacts of disaster, particularly death and bereavement

Presentation outline

Over the last decade, Australia has witnessed an increase in disasters and emergencies culminating with the 2019-2020 bushfires and the COVID-19 pandemic. Emergency recovery goes beyond survival. It is a complex process with potentially long-lasting impacts on people’s lives. Within research, policy and practice, there is a widespread assumption that preparing for a disaster has a positive impact on recovery. However, there is a limited amount of research proving this link between preparedness actions and recovery.

This research aims at further our understanding of people’s experiences of emergency and recovery; people’s experiences of the emergency and of the recovery process, and whether the type of preparedness actions taken influences recovery outcomes and is influenced by personal characteristics. In particular, we wanted to better understand the link between preparedness actions and enhanced recovery. Based on a survey of 165 people and factor and cluster analyses, our main findings show a link between preparedness actions and recovery. Feeling prepared reduces stress levels which improves self-reported recovery outcomes. The source of preparedness advice matters to people’s feeling of being in control and confidence in the decisions they made during the disaster.

Preparedness actions can be grouped in three categories: ‘Protect my personal matters’, ‘Build my readiness’ and ‘Be pragmatic’ and four groups of persona or profile emerge among those who got prepared: the ‘Ready’, the ‘Sentimental’, the ‘Planner’ and the ‘Unsure’. Those who had reported they had not yet recovered were more likely to feel less prepared, more stressed, and not as confident and in control during the emergency. This research highlights the needs for an increased focus on preparing for the long-term impacts of a disaster in preparedness programs, a differentiated approach in preparedness based on people’s profile and the inclusion of psychological preparedness.

Louise Mitchell

Social Recovery Reference Group

Miranda Hampton

Senior Community Resilience Officer

Adelaide Hills Council

An Australia wide learning network: Grappling with complexity to sustain a responsive community recovery

The Possibility Lab Community of Practice for Recovery Practitioners was established in recognition of the potential benefits of connecting recovery practitioners across the nation, with information, expertise, peers and other resources to support and guide good practice and decision making. This presentation will outline the feedback from the evaluation of the Possibility Lab that can inform any future iterations of supports across the nation for these positions supporting our communities.

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Speaker bios

Louise Mitchell has been in a role supporting the Social Recovery Reference Group organisations across Australia from 2017–2021 in their collaborative efforts to continue to grow human and social recovery capability in agencies that support communities. This group shares policy and practice and advocate for the centrality of both individuals, and community, to successful recovery. Prior to this role Louise worked at the Australian Emergency Management Institute for 16 years with a focus on adult education and developing and facilitating workshops to continue to progress emergency management.

Miranda Hampton was appointed as the Community Recovery Officer for the Cudlee Creek bushfire in South Australia in February 2020. Drawing upon a diverse background in community development, education, the arts and health, Miranda worked closely with the Adelaide Hills community to support a community-led recovery. Miranda continues to work with the fire impacted communities in the Adelaide Hills, focussing on building resilience and preparedness in her new role as Senior Community Resilience Officer at the Adelaide Hills Council.

Presentation outline

Working as a Community Recovery Officer in a position that reports to a local government, with community development approach is unenviably complex. These positions have one of the most challenging roles that include:

supporting communities to adapt and transform after disaster and trauma;
harnessing this in the form of a recovery plan;
accessing or distributing funds and evaluating community recovery outcomes; and
often being isolated in terms of linking to other recovery practitioners, a professional body or community of practice.

The Social Recovery Reference Group (SRRG) recognised the potential benefits of connecting these recovery practitioners, across the nation, with information, expertise, peers and other resources to support and guide good practice and decision making. SRRG partnered with the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience (AIDR) in early 2019 and started the Possibility Lab Community of Practice for Recovery Practitioners. Over 50 people employed in these positions in Queensland, NSW, Victoria and South Australia are registered to attend. Each of these are employed by Local Government and funded through the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements from Commonwealth and State Government.

Some are to support communities after the 19/20 bushfires and others are still in place as a result of the Monsoonal Flooding event of 2019 and the Victorian Bunyip Complex Bushfires. In addition, twenty people in the dedicated three year positions funded and represented by Red Cross after the 19/20 bushfires also attend. After 9 months of labs, participant experience has been independently evaluated. This presentation will outline the feedback from the evaluation of the Possibility Lab that examined the extent to which the intended program outcomes have been achieved and lessons that can inform any future iterations of supports across the nation for these positions supporting our communities.

Prof Lisa Gibbs

University of Melbourne

Andrew Coghlan

Australian Red Cross

Seeking the ideal in the realm of recovery - community led recovery

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Speaker bios

Professor Lisa Gibbs, University of Melbourne, has been leading public health research for the past 15 years in the fields of: 1) disaster recovery and community resilience, including leadership of the Beyond Bushfires study and 2) child health and wellbeing. These two fields intersect through her research on child resilience. Her disaster research findings have been used by government and service providers across Australia and internationally to guide disaster preparedness and recovery.

Andrew Coghlan brings over 20 years experience in the emergency management sector. His current role is Head of Emergency Services with Australian Red Cross, overseeing the national Emergency Services function, and ensuring Australian Red Cross’ ability to promote resilience and build community capacity, both in preparation for and response to disasters throughout Australia. Andrew has played a pivotal role in the development of Red Cross’ Emergency REDiPlan project, coordinating the Red Cross response to a range of major emergencies and disasters, and the development of Red Cross leadership role in long term, community based recovery.

Presentation outline

“You cannot seek for the ideal outside the realm of reality” is a quote attributed to French Socialist Leader, Leon Blum (1872-1950). It aptly captures the challenge of supporting community-led approaches in disaster recovery. This workshop will explore these challenges using evidence developed with affected communities. The interplay between factors likely to both compromise and enable community-led recovery will be discussed.

The post disaster community context is characterised by widespread loss, damage, disruption and ongoing demands on people’s time and energy. The 10 years Beyond Bushfires 2020 report will be presented as an accessible summary of evidence about individual and community recovery experiences following the 2009 Black Saturday Victorian bushfires . High levels of resilience were evident but also profound impacts on mental health, emotional stability and social connectedness for many. This inevitably affects people’s capacity to contribute to shared decision-making processes. Local social networks and community groups were important supports for both individual and community-level recovery. However, self-reports of extreme anger were three times more common in high impact communities and some people described staying away from community activities and discussions to avoid being exposed to conflict.

Models such as deliberative democracy can provide some guidance for supporting community-led recovery, focusing on the importance of influence, inclusiveness and informed deliberation. The 10 years Beyond Bushfires 2020 report will be discussed as a resource to support informed deliberation and decision making in communities after disaster. It is not only community members who can benefit from informed deliberation. Major disaster events result in a surge in the recovery workforce and inevitably many of the policy decision makers and recovery practitioners are inexperienced in mass trauma events. Their capacity to support community-led approaches depends on their understanding of disaster resilience and recovery.

Trish Curtis

Upper Murray Regional Neighbourhood House Network

Enabling communities - from the heart of the community

Neighbourhood houses have a unique and important role in their local communities. However, they are generally not recognised by emergency services and rarely included in emergency planning. At the same time, it is difficult for external services coming into a community during and after an emergency to connect effectively and support the community to lead their own recovery. The project aims to bridge this gap by mobilising existing local knowledge, capacity and relationships to support innovative, locally relevant recovery initiatives and to improve future disaster resilience.

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Speaker bio

Trish Curtis has worked with the 16 neighbourhood houses in the Upper Murray for almost seven years and finds this role one of the most rewarding of her career: “Every day comes with something different and new learnings.” Prior to this, she worked as a consultant in her own business, undertaking a range of projects including community consultations, grant writing, business and strategic planning, training, research and evaluation. Trish worked for a number of years in adult community education in a number of positions, from administration through to senior management. Trish loves the outdoors, and hiking in particular. She hiked the 670km of the Australian Alps Walking Track in 2019 with her husband, a life-changing experience. She lives on a farm in North East Victoria.

Presentation outline

Our project, Enabling Communities: From the heart of the community is supported by Victorian Government bushfire funding and covers the fire-affected communities of Corryong, Tallangatta, Mt Beauty, Myrtleford, King Valley and Mansfield.

Using the principles of co-design our project, which began in June 2020, aims to:

Empower each community to work with their Neighbourhood House (NH) to design and deliver local initiatives that will benefit recovery and resilience
Build the capacity of participating NHs to respond more effectively to emergencies by developing a recovery plan that will link to broader emergency plans within their LGA
Supporting NHs to be included in future emergency planning

Working in recovery is new territory for our participating NHs. The project design and two-year duration provides the time needed to learn about recovery processes and how each community is affected, especially considering the additional impacts of COVID-19. Houses will then work with community members to co-design a mental health and wellbeing project that will meet the identified needs. A strong emphasis on analysis and evaluation of both the individual projects and the project model will mean that learnings can be shared with all NHs in the local network and potentially statewide, to better highlight the role of NHs as partners in recovery and emergency planning.

Cristel Chambers

Australian Red Cross

Shanti Ramasundram

Australian Red Cross

Australian Red Cross South Australia Community-Led Emergency Resilience Project

Emergency planning in Australia has traditionally been focused on the roles, responsibilities and strategies of emergency management agencies, with little input from community organisations, groups, business, and community leaders and members themselves. Recognition of a 'shared approach' to emergency planning resulted in the 18 month, Red Cross Community-Led Emergency Resilience project, based in the South Australian townships of Kangarilla and Gumeracha.

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Speaker bios

Cristel Chambers has a background in the intersection of climate, environment, and social impacts. Over the past decade, Cristel has worked across southern Australia supporting communities to organise and mobilise around multi-sector issues that deeply impact them. Having worked with diverse communities in remote locations as well as in urban centres, shared values are what underpins Cristel's view on effective community engagement. These experiences along with her own experiences of climate impacts have shaped Cristel's work in the Emergency Services space at Australian Red Cross, promoting a community-led paradigm and working alongside communities to build their emergency resilience and their capacity to prepare, cope, respond and recover from particularly, climate driven disasters.

Shanti Ramasundram has a background in electrical engineering, having worked in planning and designing cellular networks for major telecommunications companies globally. A consulting project in New York set the scene for landing in the midst of the 9/11 Twin Towers disaster. Deployed within hours to design an emergency stand up network to enable emergency responders to operate in the vicinity of the tragedy, it became the catalyst for Shanti to move into operations and project management. On migrating to Australia with her family a couple of years ago, she joined Australian Red Cross and is now involved in building disaster resilience capacity in communities, businesses and organisations. Working alongside communities in South Australia has shaped Shanti's approach to disaster resilience, influencing a paradigm shift that she hopes to share with others in the sector.

Presentation outline

Emergency planning in Australia has traditionally been focused on the roles, responsibilities and strategies of emergency management agencies, with little input from community organisations, groups, business, and community leaders and members themselves. In recent years, however, there has been greater recognition of the need to involve the community in emergency planning, where community members are equal partners in decision-making.

This recognition of a 'shared approach' to emergency planning resulted in the 18 month, Red Cross Community-Led Emergency Resilience project, based in the South Australian townships of Kangarilla and Gumeracha. The project adopted a whole of community approach, engaging individuals, community groups, local businesses, organisations and local government to co-create actions, plans and resources specific to their needs and geographical context so that they are better equipped to respond and recover from emergencies.

Utilising the Torrens Resilience Toolkit and Scorecard, community leaders engaged in the process of measuring their emergency resilience against four central resilience pillars: social connection, risk and vulnerability, policies and procedures and available resources. The results of this process were used as a basis to develop and implement community-led emergency resilience plans and activities.

The project, now at the final stages, has achieved positive results. Both communities have implemented community-wide measures to increase member's knowledge, skills and capacity to prepare for an emergency. Additionally, Gumeracha is in the early stages of producing a community-wide emergency response plan which acknowledges the role of emergency management agencies.

Activities range from the creation of emergency preparedness calendars; community-wide information sessions, emergency-based communication channels and the involvement of children as emergency planning ambassadors. Governance structures have also been a key focus of the project, ensuring sustainability beyond the scope and timeframe of the project deliverables.

Margaret Moreton

Minderoo Foundation

Community leadership and emerging partnerships

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Speaker bio

Dr Margaret Moreton has recently joined the Minderoo Foundation Fire and Flood Resilience (MFFR)
initiative as Mission Lead – Resilient Communities. Margaret is a disaster resilience specialist, working to support community preparedness before critical incidents and emergencies, and community recovery and renewal afterwards. Margaret has worked with communities, non-government organizations, all levels of government, emergency services organisations, and the business and philanthropy sectors. She is an advocate for ‘community agency and voice’ and for community-led processes. She looks forward to delivering the vision of the Resilient Communities Mission – to lift the disaster resilience of communities across Australia, so that the communities who are most exposed and vulnerable to fire and flood, are supported to become as resilient as the most resilient and prepared communities.

Presentation outline

Dr Margaret Moreton has long been a proponent of community-led resilience building policy, strategy and activity. Community-led approaches to disaster resilience building need to be more thoroughly understood and supported by governments, businesses, non-government organisations, philanthropists, and others. As a sector we need to work together more effectively to share what we do, what we know, and what we learn from the communities we support or partner with.

Margaret has recently joined the Minderoo Foundation Fire and Flood Resilience Initiative as the Mission Lead for their Resilient Communities Mission. This role provides a platform for disaster resilience building in more than 50 communities across Australia, building on local context, history and knowledge, and working with community leadership and strengths, to forge plans for disaster resilience building, and to implement those plans.

This session will outline Margaret’s vision of the Resilient Communities Mission, including key projects and priorities, emerging partnerships, and most importantly the key principles that will underpin this collaborative effort to lift community based national disaster resilience.

Beck Dawson

Chief Resilience Officer

Resilient Sydney

The Resilient Sydney story

The Resilient Sydney story showcases the role a regional local government approach can make to local resilience. The program has made significant progress. Initial feedback from survey results indicates very high levels of support for network bodies to research, network and facilitate action for community resilience and reducing large-scale community risks from shocks and stresses.

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Speaker bio

Described as the “person paid to worry about Sydney”, Beck leads the Resilient Sydney program and implementation of the first Resilient Sydney Strategy – an urban resilience roadmap for metropolitan Sydney. Collaboration projects in the strategy involve 33 metropolitan councils and their communities to build local responses to global and city system challenges from shocks and stresses. Beck has a background in strategic systems change programs for resilience and sustainability across government, business and the cultural sector in Australia and the UK. Beck holds a Masters in Sustainable Architecture and a Bachelor of Science with Honours.

Presentation outline

Five years since it began, the 33 local governments of Greater Sydney remain engaged in the Resilient Sydney program – a collaboration to drive place-based community resilience in a metropolitan Australian city. This presentation will share the outcomes from a recent evaluation of the program and the use of a system change approach to implement place-based resilience.

Since 2015, the program used international urban resilience assessment methods pioneered by 100 Resilient Cities/ Resilient Cities Network to identify the top shocks, stresses, vulnerable assets and mega trends driving regional community risk. This technical work was shared through community focus groups across Sydney to test their local accuracy with residents lived experience of the city.

The five key resilience challenges identified were then addressed through a theory of change approach. Five directions and 35 actions were developed for action and urgent system change in the city. Interventions were prioritised based on the way they addressed community needs for resilience through system influences such as raising awareness, making connections, building capacity, new tools and policies and governance arrangements.

A recent evaluation indicates a collaborative change approach is highly effective for building local resilience. The “network of networks” program design has enabled local governments to work together and with others to make significant city-scale change in; awareness of the need for preparedness and resilience activities, disaster planning, land use planning rules addressing climate risks and new tools and policies. The program also facilitated new multi-sector city governance bodies for resilience that are now influencing further change. This change model is potentially applicable to any place-based resilience program in Australia.

Anne Crestani

Manager

Step by Step Recovery Support Service

Jo Davies

Community Development Worker

Blackheath Area Neighbourhood Centre

Vicki Edmunds

Community Development

Blue Mountains City Council

Andrew Kaye

Deputy Captain

Blue Mountains Rural Fire Service

Kris Newton

Manager

Mountains Community Resource Network

Esther Perry

Community Recovery Team

Nepean Blue Mountains Primary Health Network

Panel: Putting together the jigsaw puzzle: a case study on collaborative grass roots community-led and coordinated efforts driving recovery and resilience

Black Summer & the subsequent COVID pandemic were the second time in recent years that the Blue Mountains community has dealt with Recovery from a major disaster. Our community is suffering from complex community trauma since last summer; and, due to COVID restrictions, we have also faced huge challenges most-needed activities - connecting folk (with each other, and services and supports). This panel will present a case study from the Blue Mountains on how we have dealt with two major recovery efforts in a decade, and critical collaboration lessons we have learned in the process.

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Speaker bios

Anne Crestani is the Manager of the Step by Step Recovery Support Service, funded through Resilience NSW, and providing assistance to bushfire and flood affected communities in the Blue Mountains, Lithgow and Hawkesbury LGAs. Anne first developed the support service model following the devastating Blue Mountains Bushfires in 2013, with Step by Step providing support and assistance to over 500 bushfire affected households. Anne also developed the Walk With eLearning resource to prepare community workers and organisations for the frontline work of supporting their communities after disaster. Walk With was a 2019 recipient of the NSW Resilient Australia Community Award.

Jo Davies has been working in the role of Community Development Worker in the Blue Mountains for 10 years. She has worked collaboratively with other services, organisations and the community after both the 2013 and 2019/20 bushfires, often using creative processes as a mechanism to connect, share stories and build resilience. Jo is currently undertaking a PhD using a new materialist inquiry around peoples’ experiences of living with post traumatic stress.

Vicki Edmunds has worked with Blue Mountains City Council in a number of roles. With a restructure in July 2019, community development was added to Vicki’s portfolio which also included community disaster recovery. Hitting the ground running with the 2019/20 summer fires, Vicki led the council response to community recovery. With an ongoing and ever-increasing interest in disaster recovery, Vicki is now involved with the Australian Library & Information Association Blue Shield Australia partnership.

Andrew Kaye is Deputy Captain of his Brigade and has experienced first hand a number of significant local fires and has also been deployed both intrastate and interstate as fire fighter and as part of an Incident Management Team. Andrew’s passion lies in community engagement - he is also the Community Engagement Coordinator for Blue Mountains District. His responsibilities include: overseeing the Hazard Reduction program for the Blue Mountains; assisting, guiding and mentoring volunteer community engagers within brigades; and presenting information to key community groups across the Blue Mountains. He believes that an informed and connected community is a resilient one and a resilient community has a greater opportunity to make the right decisions during a crisis, and, more importantly, to recover more quickly post an event.

Kris Newton has been Manager at MCRN since 2012, the peak body for the community sector in the Blue Mountains. In this role Kris convenes and supports a range of inter-agencies and networks, developing policy, undertaking advocacy, etc. Kris spent 40 years in Canberra – first in teaching, in several Federal Government agencies, her own consultancy business, and in the management of national NFP peaks. Following both the 2013 and 2019-20 Blue Mountains bushfires, Kris chaired the Wellbeing (Psychosocial) Recovery sub-committee, and (since 2014) the cross-sectoral Resilience & Preparedness Group. She is now a permanent observer (representing the community sector) on the Blue Mountains Local Emergency Management Committee. Kris is a passionate advocate for community-led resilience and recovery, and for the effective resourcing of local placed-based organisations trusted by community.

Esther Perry has worked in government, commercial and non-profit public relations, event management, communications, administration and community engagement over 25 years. She is currently employed in the Community Recovery Team with Wentworth Healthcare Ltd, provider of Nepean Blue Mountains Primary Health Network (NBM PHN), and is a member of the BM Wellbeing sub-committee.

Presentation outline

Black Summer & the subsequent COVID pandemic were the second time in recent years that the Blue Mountains community has dealt with Recovery from a major disaster. Our community is suffering from complex community trauma since last summer; and, due to COVID restrictions, we have also faced huge challenges most-needed activities - connecting folk (with each other, and services and supports). While often bandied about at government and emergency services levels, concepts such as "shared responsibility", "community-led" and "lessons learned" don't in practice seem to gain much traction on the ground unless the affected community takes charge of their own Recovery.

This Panel will present a case-study from the Blue Mountains on how we have dealt with two major Recovery efforts in a decade, and critical collaboration lessons we have learned in the process - based on the work of both Wellbeing from 2013, and multi-sector Resilience & Preparedness Group (2014-ongoing):

What does 'community-led' look like in practice in one affected community?
How can we undertake genuine community engagement at grass-roots?
From disaster to recovery, how seamless is it?; how should we liaise with emergency services?; what information helps?
How does one lga perceive their role as local government vis a vis the local community services sector, grass-roots community groups, & self-mobilising responses?
What are the benefits of locally-led efforts at collaboration and coordination?
What is the most valuable contribution of governments in recovery/resilience?
What needs to be done to improve the timeliness, targeting, and perceived value to community of

Recovery efforts?

How can we better resource communities for this work?
How can we incorporate lessons learned across all sectors and all levels of government (including across a state) to streamline, and more efficiently and cost-effectively resource local recovery efforts?

Dr Amanda Howard

University of Sydney

Madeleine Dignam

Community Outreach Program Manager

Hawkesbury Nepean Flood Risk Management Directorate

Social housing and flood risk in the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley. A place-based community engagement and action research approach

In many parts of Australia, some of the residential locations with highest flood risk are also areas with significant social and economic disadvantage. Research shows that vulnerable, disadvantaged communities are more susceptible to natural hazards and that communities with higher needs will face barriers in preparedness, evacuation and in recovery. This case study draws on the project to look at the convergence of natural disasters exposure and existing economic and social disadvantage. It will focus on the lessons learnt including key barriers, achievements to date and the community engagement and development principles used.

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Speaker bios

Dr Amanda Howard moved from over 20 years of community development practice to academia in 2010, previously working at The University of Newcastle and now in Social Work and Policy Studies at the University of Sydney. Amanda’s research is focused on all aspects of community. In the area of disasters, community led approaches at all stages of the disaster cycle, inclusive disaster planning and addressing uneven disaster impacts for disadvantaged communities are key focus areas. Amanda specializes in participatory action research, co-design and community led research.

Madeleine Dignam is the Community Outreach Program Manager at the Hawkesbury Nepean Flood Risk Management Directorate - she leads a program of work focused on vulnerable communities with the highest risk from flooding. This program has developed nine partnership projects focused on social housing tenants, those living with a disability in their own homes, those in CALD communities, aged care residents, families at risk, young people in childcare, animal owners and tenants in caravan parks. These collaborative projects have been developed with the combined expertise of local community service providers, academics, emergency services and state and local government .Madeleine has just returned from a two month secondment to Resilience NSW supporting flood recovery work in Hawkesbury-Nepean following the March 2021 flood event. Madeleine has worked in community and stakeholder engagement for the last twenty years, mostly in natural resource management (water).

Presentation outline

The Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley is the most flood exposed region in NSW if not Australia. South Windsor and Bligh Park are two of the valley’s geographical hot spots of high flood risk, and they also have a relatively high level of socio-economic disadvantage. The suburbs include large numbers of residents in social housing, many sole parent families, and a significant proportion of residents who identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander. Over the past two years, a project has been underway to address the elevated risk in these communities due to the overlay of disadvantage and flood exposure.

This multi-agency project has involved collaboration with state government, emergency services, NGOs, community housing providers, academics, local council, community service organisations and housing tenant representatives. This work has aimed to bring these stakeholders together to share in the responsibility of increasing resilience to flood risk for social housing tenants and other vulnerable residents in South Windsor and Bligh Park.

This case study draws on the project to look at the convergence of natural disasters exposure and existing economic and social disadvantage. It will focus on the lessons learnt including key barriers, achievements to date and the community engagement and development principles used. This project is being delivered through the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley Flood Risk Management Strategy. It is a partnership between Infrastructure NSW, the NSW State Emergency Service, Inner Sydney Voice and the University of Sydney.

Dr Sandra Carrasco

University of Newcastle

A/Prof Temitope Egbelakin

University of Newcastle

Harnessing community networks responding to COVID-19 - The case of African migrants in Melbourne’s public housing

On the 4th of July, 2020, around 3,000 residents of inner Melbourne’s public housing towers were confined to their units in the hardest lockdown imposed in the city since the beginning of the pandemic. The experience caused significant stress in the affected residents, especially African migrant and refugees who were already in condition of vulnerability. However, it also promoted the rapid creation of support networks with multiple actors involved. This presentation aims to analyse the networks’ role within and beyond the community to deal with COVID19 response in Melbourne’s public housing estates.

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Speaker bio

Sandra Carrasco is a CIFAL Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Newcastle, Australia. She received the prestigious McKenzie Fellowship for postdoctoral research at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Sandra holds a PhD in Environmental Management from Kyoto University, Japan where she completed her master and doctorate studies under the MEXT scholarship offered by the Japanese Government. Her research interests include post-disaster reconstruction and community resilience, disaster risk reduction, incremental housing, informal settlements, governance and city planning, urban poverty, and migrant and refugee studies.

Dr. Temitope Egbelakin is an Associate Professor at the School of Architecture and Built Environment
at the University of Newcastle, Australia. Dr Temi is an international scholar and leader with about 20 years of experience in teaching, research and industry practice in multiple international contexts. Her interests and expertise include disaster resilience, smart resilience cities and informatics, and maintenance and adaptive reuse of buildings. She has worked together with numerous strategic partners in Australia, New Zealand, UK, USA and China at local and international levels including Indigenous communities. Her research outcomes have been topical and timely in New Zealand and Australia, and crucial towards informing practices and national regulation developments and policy on earthquake disaster resilience and recommending practices industry practice.

Presentation outline

On the 4th of July, 2020, around 3,000 residents of inner Melbourne’s public housing towers were confined to their units in the hardest lockdown imposed in the city since the beginning of the pandemic. The precipitated lockdown imposition revealed government unplanned and disorganised actions that questioned the legitimacy of the decisions taken to deal with the crisis. In December 2020, the Victorian Ombudsman found that Melbourne’s public housing lockdown breached human rights laws. The experience caused significant stress in the affected residents, especially African migrant and refugees who were already in condition of vulnerability. However, it also promoted the rapid creation of support networks with multiple actors involved.

This paper aims to analyse the networks’ role within and beyond the community to deal with COVID19 response in Melbourne’s public housing estates. The findings from this study reveal that the precarity and hurried government decisions triggered a system of coordination and support engaging non-governmental, religious and community organisations. These networks continue supporting public housing residents until the present and might be crucial for managing further stages of the COVID-19 response. Furthermore, the lessons learned led to re-evaluating active community engagement and capacity building, particularly in culturally sensitive environments.

Amanda Nixon

Volunteering Queensland

The Rockhampton VOAD consortium: a mechanism to support collaboration, coordination and communication of volunteer organisations active in disasters

While local community groups provide important resources in disaster preparedness, response, and in long term recovery in devastated communities, often these resources are under-utilised in the Australian disaster management context. This is particularly evident in formal disaster management arrangements, resulting is missed opportunities and often miscommunication and confusion in the delivery of much needed resources. Volunteering Queensland has partnered with the Rockhampton Regional Council to explore a potential solution by establishing a coordinated network of volunteer involving organisations (VIOs). The Rockhampton Region Volunteer Organisations Assisting in Disasters builds on the VOAD model pioneered in the United States and utilised for over 50 years.

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Speaker bio

Amanda Nixon has over 20 years’ experience working with government, non-government and community. 12 of these years have been dedicated to developing community resilience and human and social recovery response in communities following disaster events. Additionally, Amanda has valuable experience and insight into the development of volunteer management frameworks within a local context and believes passionately in the strength that volunteers bring to the community

Conference outline

Volunteering Queensland has partnered with the Rockhampton regional Council to explore a potential solution by establishing a coordinated network of volunteer involving organisations (VIOs). The Rockhampton Region Volunteer Organisations Assisting in Disasters (RVOAD) builds on the VOAD model pioneered in the United States and utilised for over 50 years. As a pilot program, the VOAD model in Rockhampton explores how the Regional Council together with local VIOs can work collaboratively to prepare the region for times of disaster. This network aims to encourage communication and collaboration, resulting in a coordinated approach ready to deliver disaster relief when needed.

The newly formed VOAD adopts a community led approach that explores and implement opportunities to enhance support provided to local communities. It informs the establishment of agreed minimum standards, training and guidance, and coordination of community groups in their local community and has been incorporated within to the local government’s Disaster Management Plans and associated activities.

The United States national VOAD model was recognised in the 2020 Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements as having merit for consideration to support the capacity and coordination of local community volunteers and the organisations that utilise them. The presentation will share insights into the process and challenges of establishing a VOAD, and the opportunities created when local governments and VIOs work together, building community resilience and capability in supporting community led recovery.

Karen O'Connor

Missions Program Lead Fire and Flood Resilience

Minderoo Foundation

Lisa Harrison

CEO Insurance Product and Portfolio

Suncorp

Stuart Ellis AM

CEO

AFAC

Alistair Dawson

Inspector-General Emergency Management, Queensland

Carlene York APM

Commissioner

NSW State Emergency Service

Jenny Brockie (moderator)

Closing Panel: Beyond impact and expectations

Shared with AFAC21, this facilitated closing panel discussion will include different perspectives on the key issues facing the emergency management sector and our communities. Panellists will share their thoughts about what can be practically done to make an impact on our goal of safer and more resilient communities.

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Speaker Bios

Stuart Ellis AM is an experienced leader in the emergency management sector and was appointed Chief Executive Officer of AFAC in 2012. Stuart is focussed on national initiatives that progress the effectiveness and professional standing of fire and emergency services and has a focus on progressing an industry wide, integrated approach to emergency management. Previously, Stuart was the Chief Executive Officer/Chief Officer of the South Australian Country Fire Service. In 2002 he established a consultancy company and has been involved in over 20 operational reviews including the Canberra Bushfires, the Victorian Bushfire Royal Commission and the operational response to the Christchurch Earthquake. Prior to that Stuart was an Army Officer for 22 years serving with the Special Air Service (SAS) Regiment. He was Commanding Officer at the Royal Military College, Duntroon and commanded an Australian contingent in Somalia in 1994. He became a Member of the Order of Australia in 1996.

Carlene York APM is the Commissioner of the NSW State Emergency Service. Carlene has 40 years of experience within emergency services, possessing a unique variety of skills ranging from frontline policing, police prosecutor, senior leadership in strategy and leading police forensic services. She has performed senior executive roles including Commander Northern Region, Commander Human Resources and recently Deputy Secretary for Justice. Carlene's leadership experience has enabled her to transition from a policing background into broader community service and executive management in the emergency services field.

Jenny Brockie is one of Australia's most gifted and sought after forum facilitators. Jenny is well known for hosting SBS TV’s weekly program INSIGHT where she facilitates lively and thought-provoking discussions on a wide range of topics. Jenny’s career spans television, radio and print. She has received a swag of awards for her work including the Gold Walkley, two AFI Awards, a Logie, and a Human Rights Award. Jenny has also won eight United Nations Association Media Peace Awards for her work on INSIGHT.

Presentation outline

Throughout the AFAC21 program, presentations have discussed striking the balance between impact and expectations. Presentations have discussed the impacts of major events and subsequent reviews, working to build resilience within communities, and the importance of research and learning how to continually improve.

So, what have we learnt? What are the major challenges we face that we have not yet resolved? What should be prioritised?

This facilitated panel discussion will include different perspectives on the key issues facing the emergency management sector and our communities. Panellists will share their thoughts about what can be practically done to make an impact on our goal of safer and more resilient communities.

The panel will conclude with a challenge - between now and the AFAC22 conference in Adelaide - what changes would we like to see? What can we all do to achieve it?

The Australian Disaster Resilience Conference is proudly supported Resilience NSW.