Published works

Severe to catastrophic disasters pose the potential to overwhelm traditional emergency management approaches, necessitating the adoption of a whole- of-community approach.

A key component of the whole-of-community approach is building collaborative partnerships between communities, government agencies, community organisations and businesses across the phases of prevention, preparedness, response and recovery to engage their full capacity.

To date there has been little research examining the role of Australian community organisations in disaster management although many organisations provide assistance. This research focuses specifically on the role and involvement of community organisations in disaster management.

Pertinent findings of the research were:

• Community organisations provide essential functions to support community resilience. They are part of the community fabric and their core business is building community resilience. There are significant opportunities to invest in the capabilities of community organisations to further build community resilience, to bolster critical capabilities required in the event of severe to catastrophic disasters and to integrate them further in disaster management through the adoption of a whole-of- community approach.
• Community organisations represent significant value for investment. Community organisations have played valuable roles before, during and after disasters with little funding support, often relying on the goodwill of volunteers and staff. The significant volume of service delivery provided considerably outweighs the levels of funding provided. Community organisations are critical to community-led disaster recovery initiatives: it would be impossible to achieve community involvement in recovery without community organisations.
• Unlike some government organisations, community organisations are not hazard specific but may have certain specialist capabilities.
• Community organisations are undertaking a wide diversity of roles reflecting their diverse capabilities. These roles include engaging communities to build disaster awareness and preparedness, advocacy to promote resilience, research to enhance disaster management, assistance at evacuation centres, registration of disaster victims, provision of emergency communications, assistance in identifying vulnerable people, emergency catering, dissemination of emergency warnings and information, provision of mental health and wellbeing support (psychological first aid, pastoral care), outreach, assistance in recovery centres, financial counselling, food donations, material aid, impact assessment, advocacy, dissemination of recovery information, recovery leadership, financial support, temporary accommodation, management of spontaneous volunteers, service referrals, organisation of public appeals, clean-up and reconstruction.
• Community organisations are already working effectively in collaboration with government, businesses and each other. Collaborations can either be formal or informal. In some instances, the values of organisations may not align, or there may be competition between organisations that may reduce incentives to collaborate. Community organisations can act independently, enabling services to be targeted to certain identified needs and outside the bureaucracy of government.
• Arrangements between government and community organisations vary in individual jurisdictions, making it difficult for larger community organisations to define consistent roles. Community organisations have a degree of trust in their relationships with government organisations.
• Key strengths of community organisations include understanding of community needs; access to local knowledge, skills and experience; ability to focus on people who may be vulnerable or disadvantaged; having pre-existing links to at-risk communities and their diversity of membership. People can be more comfortable dealing with community organisations than government and hold more trust in community organisations.
• Community organisations have a strong appetite to become more involved in disaster management although, ultimately, are resource constrained. Community organisations are motivated by benefit to their community and to provide a critical service or good to enable community functioning.
• There are barriers to further involvement of community organisations including funding, funding flexibility, lack of role definition and a government-centric culture to disaster management. Lack of funding reduces certainty for community organisations to be able to plan their involvement in disaster management.
• Community organisations are subject to disruption due to disasters. Such disruption may adversely impact communities: in particular, the most vulnerable. Business resilience is critical to ensure the availability of community organisations following disasters. At present, there are gaps in the readiness of community organisations that must be addressed. Existing efforts to promote business resilience have had only limited effectiveness.
• Community organisations perceive that, to enhance their involvement, they would require further funding, funding flexibility, training, greater collaboration and recognition.

Recommendations

The following recommendations are made for consideration to improve the utilisation of capabilities offered by community organisations in disaster management.

1. Australian disaster management doctrine should be revised to embrace a whole-of-community approach to disaster management.
2. The role of community organisations including peak bodies should be clearly defined in relevant emergency plans.
3. Community organisations should be involved in government-led disaster planning and exercises, including involvement in relevant emergency management committees.
4. Local councils should form community resilience committees to promote collaboration and joint planning between government, community organisations and local businesses. These committees could be sub- committees of relevant emergency management committees.
5. Government emergency management organisations should collectively work with community organisations to develop an understanding of community networks and community organisation capabilities.
6. Government funding bodies should enable funding flexibility to allow community organisations to integrate disaster management initiatives into their core business activities.
7. Specific disaster management grants should be targeted to community organisations to assist with maturing of disaster management capabilities and engagement with communities.
8. Funding arrangements should enable collaboration between different community organisations, businesses and government.
9. Community organisation peak bodies should take an active role in building the disaster management capabilities of their members.
10. Emergency management organisations should work with community organisation peak bodies to develop a training strategy to upskill the staff and volunteers of community organisations in relevant disaster management roles. This could include a toolkit for community organisations to provide guidance on roles and better practice.
11. Peak bodies and emergency management organisations should work with universities and training providers to incorporate emergency management content in relevant degree and training programs.
12. Community organisations should work to develop business resilience plans. These can be supported by relevant toolkits tailored to community organisations.
13. States and Territories should include community organisations within capability maturity assessments.
14. The roles performed by community organisations in disaster management should be continually evaluated to ensure robust measurement of the value provided by community organisations.
15. State and Territories should implement initiatives to raise the awareness of the role of community organisations in disaster management. These could include: integration of the role of community organisations within emergency management training, inclusion of community organisations in policy development and emergency management forums, specific communications outlining the role and value of including community organisations in disaster management, senior leadership involvement as champions.
16. Community recovery programs should include the provision of mental health and wellbeing support to members of community organisations.