Co-designing for Community Resilience Beyond the Local

In this position paper we highlight our strategy for co-creating a platform to support community resilience that goes beyond a situated research. We first engage with a diverse set of stakeholders to conceive the design problem, and then we address the implementation aspects with local communities. We briefly illustrate a number of methods and strategies used to identify and extract the general socio-technical requirements from communities in different contexts

Participant Invitation Letter and Informational Flyer

This letter, along with the accompanying flyer, was used to solicit participants for the oral history project

Inherent complexities of a multi-stakeholder approach to building community resilience

Enhancing community resilience has increasingly involved national and regional governments adopting a multi-stakeholder approach because of the potential interagency benefits. This has led to questions about how best to involve stakeholder groups in translating community resilience policies into practice. This exploratory study contributes to this discussion by addressing two key areas that are fundamental in the concerted effort to build community resilience to natural hazards: (1) stakeholder understanding of community resilience as a concept; and (2) the difficulties associated with the processes of risk assessment and preparedness that stakeholders face locally in building community resilience. Data were collected through semistructured interviews with 25 practitioners and experts within Scotland’s resilience community, and were analyzed through an inductive approach to thematic analysis. These data show how the interpretation of community resilience differs across stakeholder groups. Analysis of the data reveals challenges around the nature of the risk assessment and its role in shaping risk perception and communication. Significant complications occur in communicating about low probability-high consequence events, perceived territoriality, competing risk prioritizations, and the challenges of managing hazards within a context of limited resources. The implications of these issues for policy and practice are also discussed

Community Resilience Research: UK Case Studies, Lessons and Recommendations report to the Cabinet Office and Defence Science and Technology Laboratory.

This report presents four case studies carried out for the Community Resilience project funded by DSTL and supported by the Civil Contingency Secretariat (CCS), Cabinet Office. The work for this project was carried out between September and December 2011. The aim of the Community Resilience project was to develop a better understanding of the role of community resilience in emergency response and recovery situations in order to inform Cabinet Office / Civil Contingencies Secretariat policy on community resilience and to inform the development of future work

How Do Communities Use a Participatory Public Health Approach to Build Resilience? The Los Angeles County Community Disaster Resilience Project.

Community resilience is a key concept in the National Health Security Strategy that emphasizes development of multi-sector partnerships and equity through community engagement. Here, we describe the advancement of CR principles through community participatory methods in the Los Angeles County Community Disaster Resilience (LACCDR) initiative. LACCDR, an initiative led by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health with academic partners, randomized 16 community coalitions to implement either an Enhanced Standard Preparedness or Community Resilience approach over 24 months. Facilitated by a public health nurse or community educator, coalitions comprised government agencies, community-focused organizations and community members. We used thematic analysis of data from focus groups (n = 5) and interviews (n = 6 coalition members; n = 16 facilitators) to compare coalitions' strategies for operationalizing community resilience levers of change (engagement, partnership, self-sufficiency, education). We find that strategies that included bidirectional learning helped coalitions understand and adopt resilience principles. Strategies that operationalized community resilience levers in mutually reinforcing ways (e.g., disseminating information while strengthening partnerships) also secured commitment to resilience principles. We review additional challenges and successes in achieving cross-sector collaboration and engaging at-risk groups in the resilience versus preparedness coalitions. The LACCDR example can inform strategies for uptake and implementation of community resilience and uptake of the resilience concept and methods

On-going community resilience from the ground up: a relational place based approach to grassroots community resilience

This paper summarises a research project that aimed to more fully understand the role of non-governmental local organisations in shaping responses to local crises, and also to investigate whether there was a case for increasing support for grassroots groups on the basis of the resilience capacities they can contribute.OverviewThe Christchurch earthquakes that occurred in September 2010 and February, June and December 2011 have wrought unprecedented devastation on the region of Canterbury. Yet amongst the disaster, hope has shone through. Communities have pulled together, supported each other and started the long process of recovery and rebuilding. Academics, community leaders and policy analysts, both locally and internationally, have looked to Christchurch to observe the effects of this disaster and the way in which Cantabrians have and will recover. Having lived in Christchurch for most of my adolescence I started this research in the hope of showing the human stories of disasters in the academic and policy realm. To do this I have focussed on the role of grassroots organisations in facilitating resilience and the role of place in shaping these processes.I approached Project Lyttelton as a possible case study for this research as they were well publicised as a grassroots group that was actively involved in immediate and on-going recovery from the earthquakes. Project Lyttelton is an organisation that focusses on building a sustainable and vibrant community in response to the issues of climate change, peak oil and consumerism. Through appreciative inquiry (searching for and telling the good stories) and hands on grassroots activities, such as a time bank, farmers market and community garden, the group has been contributing to the Lyttelton community since 2003. Due to the generous participation of members of the organisation and wider community this research was able to be undertaken in June 2012. The following information summarises the approach of the research and the results