The Profiling Australia’s Vulnerability report identifies that:

For the most part, our existing lifestyles and daily activities are heavily dependent on interconnected systems for the delivery of essential services when we need them (e.g. energy, water, food, health and education services, transport, and communications). These systems reflect a chain of accumulated decisions and choices made over generations, in different circumstances and with different priorities.[1]

This interactive and engaging workshop will lead participants through a learning experience aimed at thinking systemically about complex issues. Together, we will pull apart the systems generating increasingly volatile and complex disasters and collectively imagine radical transformations for resilience.

This professional development session is based on systems thinking models that have been successfully used worldwide to ignite transformative change and delivered by experienced practitioners.

Presentations from experienced policy makers and practitioners will set the context for the importance of understanding systemic disaster risk and systems. Participants will then take part in a workshop run by Dr Adriana Keating and Dr Zoe Darcy from the Monash Sustainable Development Institute, and Paul Ryan from the Australian Resilience Centre.

Join us as we delve into the mindsets, structures and patterns that are driving hazards to become disasters that are more frequent, severe, compounding and cascading.

Participants will learn how to use systems thinking to not only understand the challenges we face but, critically, to identify leverage points for transforming our systems for the better.

Participants will come away with:

• a deep understanding of systems thinking and the systems driving our current context
• hope for the future and a vision for radical transformation
• practical skills that they can apply in almost any context
• connections with other change-makers across the system.

The day is hosted by the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience as part of its Networking and Capability Development program and contributes to the Understanding Risk Priority of the National Disaster Risk Reduction Framework.

[1] Australian Government, Department of Home Affairs 2018, Profiling Australia’s Vulnerability: The interconnected causes and cascading effects of systemic disaster risk, p4