Panel: Beyond Consultation: What Community Partnership Looks Like in Disaster Practice
Tracks
Southport Room 3
| Tuesday, July 28, 2026 |
| 2:15 PM - 2:35 PM |
| Southport Room 3 |
Overview
Facilitator: Tracey Martinovich, DisasterWISE
Panellists: Natasha Odgers, Disaster Resilience and Community Food Program
Panellists: Natasha Odgers, Disaster Resilience and Community Food Program
Details
Three Key Learnings
1. What are communities across Australia consistently telling us they need from the emergency management sector, and where are the gaps?
What does genuine partnership look like beyond consultation and volunteer coordination?
2. How can emergency management professionals build relationships with community networks before disaster strikes, and why does that matter for outcomes?
3. What can we learn from communities who have led their own resilience, and how do we translate that into sector practice?
Speaker
Ms Tracey Martinovich
Ceo
Disasterwise
Beyond Consultation: What Community Partnership Looks Like in Disaster Practice
Abstract
When disaster strikes, communities don't wait for the system to catch up. They activate networks, share resources, make decisions, and lead their own recovery—often before emergency services arrive and long after they leave. And yet, the sector's engagement with communities too often stops at consultation, communication, or volunteer coordination.
DisasterWISE is Australia's national community-led disaster resilience network, seeded by Fire2Flourish, Monash University's five-year research and community impact program. Built from the ground up with communities recovering from real disasters, DisasterWISE is what those communities helped create and what continues as the enduring national network after that program concludes. Over four years we've supported communities across the country to share lessons, connect and grow, including hosting a national community congress last year. This year alone we're already in active conversation with more than 30 communities focused on both preparation and recovery.
This session will share what we're learning: what communities say they need from emergency management professionals, where the system is falling short, and what partnership actually looks like in practice. We'll draw on DisasterWISE's national network alongside real case studies to ground the conversation in evidence.
Joining us will be 2–3 community voices bringing direct lived experience of disaster and recovery, offering a perspective that is rarely heard in rooms like this one.
Disaster risk is increasing, systems are under pressure, and communities are being asked to do more with less. The sector needs new models—and the communities already building them have something to say.
This isn't a session about what communities can't do. It's about what becomes possible when emergency management professionals and communities work as partners, and what practical steps you can take back to your organisation immediately.
DisasterWISE is Australia's national community-led disaster resilience network, seeded by Fire2Flourish, Monash University's five-year research and community impact program. Built from the ground up with communities recovering from real disasters, DisasterWISE is what those communities helped create and what continues as the enduring national network after that program concludes. Over four years we've supported communities across the country to share lessons, connect and grow, including hosting a national community congress last year. This year alone we're already in active conversation with more than 30 communities focused on both preparation and recovery.
This session will share what we're learning: what communities say they need from emergency management professionals, where the system is falling short, and what partnership actually looks like in practice. We'll draw on DisasterWISE's national network alongside real case studies to ground the conversation in evidence.
Joining us will be 2–3 community voices bringing direct lived experience of disaster and recovery, offering a perspective that is rarely heard in rooms like this one.
Disaster risk is increasing, systems are under pressure, and communities are being asked to do more with less. The sector needs new models—and the communities already building them have something to say.
This isn't a session about what communities can't do. It's about what becomes possible when emergency management professionals and communities work as partners, and what practical steps you can take back to your organisation immediately.
Biography
Tracey has spent more than a decade building organisations, coalitions and networks from the ground uup—often in moments of crisis, complexity and rapid change. She has convened thousands of people across civil society, from grassroots communities to government and philanthropy, and has led organisations from start-up through to scale. Her work has consistently focused on one question: how do communities organise, sustain momentum, and lead their own futures over the long term? Alongside her role at DisasterWISE, she works across the philanthropic sector with a focus on funding and sustaining community-led resilience initiatives.
I will email co-presenter bios.
Natasha Odgers
Sector Lead - Disaster Resilience and Community Food Program
Beyond Consultation: What Community Partnership Looks Like in Disaster Practice
Abstract
When disaster strikes, communities don't wait for the system to catch up. They activate networks, share resources, make decisions, and lead their own recovery—often before emergency services arrive and long after they leave. And yet, the sector's engagement with communities too often stops at consultation, communication, or volunteer coordination.
DisasterWISE is Australia's national community-led disaster resilience network, seeded by Fire2Flourish, Monash University's five-year research and community impact program. Built from the ground up with communities recovering from real disasters, DisasterWISE is what those communities helped create and what continues as the enduring national network after that program concludes. Over four years we've supported communities across the country to share lessons, connect and grow, including hosting a national community congress last year. This year alone we're already in active conversation with more than 30 communities focused on both preparation and recovery.
This session will share what we're learning: what communities say they need from emergency management professionals, where the system is falling short, and what partnership actually looks like in practice. We'll draw on DisasterWISE's national network alongside real case studies to ground the conversation in evidence.
Joining us will be 2–3 community voices bringing direct lived experience of disaster and recovery, offering a perspective that is rarely heard in rooms like this one.
Disaster risk is increasing, systems are under pressure, and communities are being asked to do more with less. The sector needs new models—and the communities already building them have something to say.
This isn't a session about what communities can't do. It's about what becomes possible when emergency management professionals and communities work as partners, and what practical steps you can take back to your organisation immediately.
DisasterWISE is Australia's national community-led disaster resilience network, seeded by Fire2Flourish, Monash University's five-year research and community impact program. Built from the ground up with communities recovering from real disasters, DisasterWISE is what those communities helped create and what continues as the enduring national network after that program concludes. Over four years we've supported communities across the country to share lessons, connect and grow, including hosting a national community congress last year. This year alone we're already in active conversation with more than 30 communities focused on both preparation and recovery.
This session will share what we're learning: what communities say they need from emergency management professionals, where the system is falling short, and what partnership actually looks like in practice. We'll draw on DisasterWISE's national network alongside real case studies to ground the conversation in evidence.
Joining us will be 2–3 community voices bringing direct lived experience of disaster and recovery, offering a perspective that is rarely heard in rooms like this one.
Disaster risk is increasing, systems are under pressure, and communities are being asked to do more with less. The sector needs new models—and the communities already building them have something to say.
This isn't a session about what communities can't do. It's about what becomes possible when emergency management professionals and communities work as partners, and what practical steps you can take back to your organisation immediately.
Biography
Natasha is passionate about supporting communities to build resilience in the face of the increasing frequency and intensity of disasters. She is the Disaster Resilience Lead with Neighbourhood Centres Queensland and as a consultant and volunteer, works directly with local communities to develop community-led disaster resilience arrangements and capacity.
Through work at the state and local levels, Natasha combines her knowledge and skills of disaster management with 25 years of study and work in community development to offer practical application and reflective insights on community-led practices for resilience.
Natasha also has a strong interest in hearing and sharing about initiatives and learnings from others to strengthen collective knowledge about community-led practices in the disaster management sector.
