Diversity - a statement on research priorities for natural hazards emergency management in Australia
Research outputs and artefacts
03 Jul 2017
Throughout 2015-2017, emergency service agencies around Australia participated in workshops hosted by the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC to consider the major issues in natural hazards emergency management.
This publication on diversity summarises the outcomes of one of these workshops and poses questions as a guide for a national research agenda in natural hazard emergency management.
Diversity in the emergency services sector encompasses gender, disability and cultural diversity. Currently, there are low rates of participation for women and people from diverse cultural backgrounds in many areas of the sector. This has ramifications for the capacity of the emergency services to modernise and build human service capability.
The 2011 National Strategy for Disaster Resilience identifies the importance of culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities, the need for the emergency management sector to understand the needs of such communities, and the critical importance of community consultation and partnerships. The strategy also stresses the importance of “more action-based resilience planning to strengthen local capacity and capability with a greater emphasis on community engagement and better understanding of the diversity, needs, strengths and vulnerabilities within communities”. Key components of the response are to build trust and understand how natural hazard risks function.
One in four Australians – or some 5.75 million people – were born overseas. Many members of recently arrived CALD communities may not understand Australian natural hazards or the information relating to them, and may also have different levels of trust relating to officials in uniforms. Emergency management personnel need to become culturally competent and aware of the different aspects of local communities to be able to support and respond to their needs and what barriers to resilience may exist amongst diverse communities. At the same time, diversity within the emergency management sector is also an untapped area of potential that can have benefits not only for the sector, but also for the broader community. It is important to understand how existing forms of community resilience, knowledge and resourcefulness can be harnessed and strengthened, and how the benefits derived from diversity add value, and what that value is.