Tony’s first career was in local government. After 25 years he moved to the NSW Rural Fire Service where he has been working since 2008. As a member of the Community Engagement Team, he supports and facilitates NSW RFS volunteers and staff across NSW to engage with their communities around bush fire safety, with a focus on schools.
Tony has led the NSW RFS efforts to support teachers in the delivery of disaster resilience education, drawing upon international models and evidence as well as leading practice examples here in Australia. Tony is an end-user of the Child Centred Disaster Risk Reduction project and is also undertaking a related PhD.
Tony continues to be an active volunteer firefighter in the Blue Mountains of NSW.
Blog posts on Views & Visions
| Post | Date | Key Topics |
|---|---|---|
| Sendai through a different lens | 16 Apr 2015 | communities, resilience, volunteering |
Student project
Lead end user
Children represent the most vulnerable demographic group in disasters – across the globe it is estimated that 30-50% of fatalities are children - while they are also most vulnerable to psychosocial impacts. Early research indicates that children are a resource for reducing current disaster risks and can also mitigate future risks.
The role of children’s disaster education in managing risk has been recognised as a major priority in the federal government’s National Strategy for Disaster Resilience. Yet, despite a recent surge in child-centred disaster research, the social, psychological, economic and political mechanisms that enable children to both understand and take action to reduce disaster risk remain largely unexplored and the evidence-base for best-practice remains limited.
This project is conducting a nationwide evaluation of programs and strategies based on a child-centred disaster risk reduction framework. It will develop cost-effective programs that reduce the risk and increase resilience for children, schools, households and communities.
This project is developing an index of the current state of disaster resilience in Australian communities – the Australian Natural Disaster Resilience Index. The Index is a tool for assessing the resilience of communities to natural hazards at a large scale and is designed to provide input into macro-level policy, strategic planning and community engagement activities at national, state and local government levels.
Deliverables will include development of disaster resilience indicators, maps of disaster resilience at multiples scales, a State of Disaster Resilience Report, and examples that use the Index in a natural hazard resilience planning context.
Resources credited
| Type | Released | Title | Download | Key Topics |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Presentation-Slideshow | 25 Oct 2017 | Safe at home, school and work |
 Save (2.53 MB) |
communities, resilience, risk management |
| Presentation-Slideshow | 07 Sep 2017 | An organisational response to Stage 3 Geography and the study of a contemporary bushfire event |
Save (860.25 KB) |
child-centred, education, fire |
| Presentation-Slideshow | 07 Jul 2017 | Communicating and warning: getting the message across more effectively |
Save (4.79 MB) |
communication, flood, warnings |
| Presentation-Audio-Video | 28 Oct 2016 | Child-centred disaster risk reduction - project overview |
 Save (0 bytes) |
child-centred, communities, education |
