Community-Centric Disaster Preparedness: East Gippsland Shire Council's Unique Approach to Leveraging Existing Community Strengths and Social Infrastructure
Tracks
Norfolk Hall | In-Person Only
| Tuesday, July 23, 2024 |
| 2:15 PM - 2:35 PM |
Overview
Kath Smith, East Gippsland Shire Council
Details
Key Presentation Learnings:
1. Leverage community strengths while simultaneously supporting community capability and capacity.
2. Diverge from traditional emergency preparedness and response planning methods.
3. Recognise and incorporate existing community gathering places into a place-based local emergency response strategies.
Speaker
Mrs Kath Smith
Manager Emergency Management
East Gippsland Shire Council
Community-Centric Disaster Preparedness: East Gippsland Shire Council's unique approach to leveraging existing community strengths and social infrastructure.
Abstract
This presentation will shed light on East Gippsland Shire Council’s distinctive strategy in disaster preparedness, particularly for communities that become remote and isolated during an emergency event. Collaborating closely with community to identify and utilise community established social infrastructure, Council has incorporated these locations into the East Gippsland disaster management framework.
East Gippsland’s Local Incident Management Plans (LIMPs) are designed with a community-centric perspective, recognising and incorporating existing community gathering places into a place-based local emergency response strategy, recognised by agencies at the municipal level. These familiar spaces not only serve as assembly areas for community members and visitors during disasters, but also facilitate a sense of community ownership and engagement in the overall preparedness process.
In response to community feedback, Council has prioritised enhancing the capability of volunteers responsible for running assembly areas. Council has invested in recent training, emphasizing a strengths-based approach that identifies and harnesses unique community skills and assets to bolster overall disaster resilience. This training aimed at Community-Led Emergency Relief Centres has supported communities in assembly area response too. Topics covered include addressing place-based relief centre needs in a local handbook, efficient resource management, and fostering effective communication and support with Council.
Highlighting a place-based approach and leveraging community strengths, while simultaneously supporting community capability and capacity, East Gippsland is navigating the challenges posed by compounding, consecutive, more frequent and intense disasters in the remote, and isolated communities of the municipality. This approach diverges from traditional emergency preparedness and response planning methods and underlines the importance of agency and community collaboration in disaster preparedness, mitigation, response, relief, and recovery.
East Gippsland’s Local Incident Management Plans (LIMPs) are designed with a community-centric perspective, recognising and incorporating existing community gathering places into a place-based local emergency response strategy, recognised by agencies at the municipal level. These familiar spaces not only serve as assembly areas for community members and visitors during disasters, but also facilitate a sense of community ownership and engagement in the overall preparedness process.
In response to community feedback, Council has prioritised enhancing the capability of volunteers responsible for running assembly areas. Council has invested in recent training, emphasizing a strengths-based approach that identifies and harnesses unique community skills and assets to bolster overall disaster resilience. This training aimed at Community-Led Emergency Relief Centres has supported communities in assembly area response too. Topics covered include addressing place-based relief centre needs in a local handbook, efficient resource management, and fostering effective communication and support with Council.
Highlighting a place-based approach and leveraging community strengths, while simultaneously supporting community capability and capacity, East Gippsland is navigating the challenges posed by compounding, consecutive, more frequent and intense disasters in the remote, and isolated communities of the municipality. This approach diverges from traditional emergency preparedness and response planning methods and underlines the importance of agency and community collaboration in disaster preparedness, mitigation, response, relief, and recovery.
Biography
Kath Smith is Manager for Emergency Management at East Gippsland Shire Council, working to drive strategic and collaborative disaster risk reduction planning within the organisation, but more importantly in community through honouring social capital. An experienced emergency management professional in response agency incident control and planning over almost 3 decades. she also brings her experience and understanding of the strengths and vulnerabilities of remote and isolated communities from living and volunteering in the small town of Swifts Creek. In her final year of her Master studies in disaster risk reduction, Kath is committed to recognising community preparedness in agency planning.
