Communities, Organizations, and Resilience Track
2008 Natural Hazards Research and Applications Workshop
- Defining and Developing Disaster Resilience
- Coordinating Community-Based Organizations and Volunteers
- Disaster, Faith and Faith-Based Organizations
- Issues in Business Continuity Research and Practice
Defining and Developing Disaster Resiliency
Moderator
Dennis Mileti, University of Colorado at Boulder Natural Hazards Center
Panelists
Fran H. Norris, National Center for Disaster Mental Health Research
Louise Comfort, University of Pittsburgh Center for Biosecurity
Monica Schoch-Spana, University of Pittsburgh Center for Biosecurity
Scott B. Miles, Western Washington University
Recorder
Jeffrey R. Engle, University of Delaware Disaster Research Center
Summary
The moderator instructed panelists to develop a provocative ten-minute talk that answered the following questions:
What is a good definition of disaster resiliency?
What pathways are available to achieving disaster resiliency?
How will we know when we’ve reached our goals?
Fran Norris began with two points: a) resiliency is process, not an outcome and b) resilience adapts to the disturbance and facilitates a quick return to operation. She defined resiliency as the process linking a set of possible adaptive capacities. Looking at community resiliency, there are four sets of adaptive capacities—economic development, social capital, resources for information and communication, and community confidence.
To be resilient to disaster, a community should pursue traditional preparedness, as well as community-wide economic strength. This problem solving should not be specific to disaster, but involve solving community problems. By engaging people meaningfully in mitigation, a community will bolster resiliency. Resiliency is not an end goal, but a process and—as a result—not easily measured. The best time to measure resiliency is immediately after disaster by looking for “good recovery.” A resilient community is one that has a constant process for overcoming problems.
Louise Comfort continued the conversation by discussing resiliency through a cognitive and information systems perspective. Comfort defined disaster resiliency as the collectively managing recurring risk and recovering from disaster. Inherent in this are five different sub-processes: sensemaking, improvisation, innovation, problem-solving, and cognition.
Cognition is absolutely critical because resiliency requires recognizing the situation, calibrating risk, and ordering action. A key pathway is the creation of a learning environment. Since old rules don’t necessarily fit new situations, groups must be able to adapt through distributive cognition (for example, no one agency has all the capacities to manage an event) and by determining existing structures to assess risk.
Furthermore, information technology must be better incorporated to create this environment and spread knowledge. A decline in the loss of life and property will be the strongest measure of resiliency. Communities designing infrastructure to reduce risk can be another measurement of disaster resiliency.
Monica Schoch-Spana continued the discussion from a public health perspective. Before this workshop, Schoch-Spana moderated a roundtable regarding Homeland Security Presidential Directive 21: Public Health and Medical Preparedness. The roundtable, which involved the directive authors, practitioners, and grassroots leaders, discussed resiliency. Schoch-Spana referred to the proceedings of that meeting.
A resilient community will be able to bounce back promptly, minimize damage, and avoid cascading failures. A resilient community also will prepare for risk by attempting to prevent harm in the first place. These communities will have invested in institutions that actively engage citizens in planning, so there is a feeling of agency. Mass marketing promoting personal resilience and policy briefing campaigns are ineffective in achieving disaster resiliency.
There should be greater integration with community preparedness and response teams, as well as partnerships between formal organizations, grassroots leaders, and volunteers. Town hall meetings can be used to add community comments to policy. The robustness of the system is important, but the community has the more important role to play. Collective action addressing something like a disaster might not make a group more resilient, but solving a community problem, such as crime, could.
Her time ran out before she could address the final question.
Scott Miles said disaster resilience should be discussed in terms of community resilience. He defined resilience as the low likelihood of service reduction caused by event or failure that leads to similar or better quality of service in a short period of time. In that, resiliency is much more about people, services, and livelihoods than “things.” Resiliency is more about systems than individuals. The available pathways require a focus on people, organizations, livelihoods, and services.
Furthermore, system robustness and resilience can be increased by decreasing a community reliance on any one component. This requires an expansion of capital, as well as an expansion of forms of capital. Developing resiliency should result in system changes, as opposed to behavioral change. Miles closed by saying we should not try to assess if we meet these goals, but develop processes to determine what resiliency is for a particular community.
The question and answer period yielded interesting discussion from a variety of people in the field. Anthony Oliver-Smith raised the point that resilience and vulnerability are on the same side of the coin, since some vulnerabilities increase resilience and vice-versa.
Coordinating Community-Based Organizations and Volunteers
Moderator
Kristina J. Peterson, University of New Orleans
Panelists
Richard Eisner, Fritz Institute
Rosina Philippe, Grand Bayou Community United
Susan Jensen, FEMA Aidmatrix Project
Recorder
Kristin O'Donovan, North Carolina State University
Summary
This panel examined issues of how to assist local communities in recovery during and after a disaster. In the United States, nonprofit organizations and community-based organizations are generous, but assistance following a disaster is not always appropriate or timely because of donor goals. The panel was tasked with discussing the ethics of delivering service after a disaster when services are provided by organizations outside the local community.
The importance of the relationship between nonprofit organizations and local communities seeking recovery assistance emerged as a key theme during the discussion. For many marginalized communities, working with volunteers and nonprofit organizations is a challenge because they don’t share the vision of community members. This is often complicated by volunteers’ preconceived notions about what can and should be done to address community problems.
The community’s vision of itself and its future is very important for recovery and affects types of organizations and volunteers with which the community will engage. To work effectively with local communities in disaster recovery, volunteers and nonprofit organizations must work with the community in a collaborative and transparent way and clearly define long- and short-term goals.
Organizations must know the limitations for the types of services they can provide after a disaster. These organizations cannot do everything and it is important for them to recognize that when they go into a community—these groups are not the “white knights” of disaster recovery. It was noted that sometimes organizations go in to a community and make recovery promises that they can’t deliver. From the perspective of the community, this creates mistrust, wastes time and resources, and derails recovery efforts.
From the perspective of the nonprofit and volunteer organizations involved in disaster recovery, the groups you work with in a community is very important. If organizations and volunteers work with a small group of community members, then community recovery needs can be very narrowly defined. This can result in providing services that may not serve the interests of the entire community.
The capacity of small, local community-based organizations to provide services in the wake of a disaster was also discussed. These small, community-based organizations, which are the last safety net for many vulnerable populations, are often not on the radar screen of traditional disaster relief and recovery services. Working with local organizations before a disaster is important because often they don’t anticipate the possibility of service interruption or have the resources to bounce back after a disaster. In instances like this, developing capacity requires sensitivity to the priorities and values of local groups.
During the discussion period, issues of coordination, community engagement and culture, and the role of grassroots organizations in traditional relief- and recovery- service frameworks were raised. Concerns about the duplication of efforts, communication, and information systems were brought up in regards to coordination. Language and culture pose problems in contexts where volunteers did not speak the local language or were unaware of cultural norms. Finally, concerns were raised about the integration of local grassroots organizations and national Voluntary Organizations Involved in Disaster, or VOADs.
Disaster, Faith, and Faith-Based Organizations: Roles of Religion in Preparedness, Response, and Recovery
Moderator
Lee Miller, Sam Houston State University
Panelists
Pamela Jenkins, University of New Orleans Center for Hazards Assessment, Response and Technology
Peter B. Gudaitis, New York Disaster Interfaith Services
Steve Cain, Purdue University; Suzanne Frew, CirclePoint
Recorder
Emmanuel Raju, University of Delaware Disaster Research Center
Summary
The panelists were asked to focus on the following questions:
1. What are special issues for faith-based organizations as they contribute to disaster preparedness, sheltering, response, and reconstruction activities?
2. What are the consequences and implications of increased reliance on faith-based organizations to manage disaster response activities?
3. How does faith shape perceptions of risk, preparedness activities, and coping strategies?
Religion plays an important part of people’s lives and how they make decisions. This can be seen in social taboos and fundamental beliefs. During a disaster, faith-based organizations can answer the questions about services, responsible community-level leadership, and how to comply with structural standards. Faith-based organizations play a crucial role during disaster situations. It is important to incorporate lessons from these organizations in making future emergency decisions.
It is necessary for organizations to overcome competitiveness. Local faith-based organizations are the first responders who care for the masses. Therefore, leadership building at the county and state level is required. Here, the key question to be answered is how can we best prepare local faith-based organizations?
Faith-based organizations have a deep understanding of the local reality. Grassroots groups are often well organized and aware of regional situations. It is these organizations that take up recovery needs of the marginalized and under-served in their community. It is difficult to keep people engaged in discourse and bring stakeholders together. The language we use is important to bring different religions together. The difference, for example, between saying “church” and “house of worship” can be important. For sustainability in recovery efforts, it is necessary that that stakeholders bridge these differences. The panel emphasized the role of businesses, philanthropic groups, and the government in building the capacities of local faith-based organizations.
Religious leaders play an active role in community information and faith-based organizations should be clear about their role in the disaster cycle. It is important not to evangelize, but to be accountable to people. The public needs to know that these organizations serve across religions. Integrating faith-based organizations with government resources will help mobilize efforts. Peace and justice should be the ultimate vision of these groups.
Issues in Business Continuity Research and Practice
Moderator
John Copenhaver, DRI International
Panelists
Al Berman, DRI International
Alan (Avi) Kirschenbaum, Technion–Israel Institute of Technology
Joscelyn Silsby, American Red Cross
Michael Byrne, ICF Consulting
Recorder
Collin Moseley, University of Delaware Disaster Research Center
Summary
The panelists were asked the following questions:
- How would you define business continuity, both as a stand-alone discipline (i.e. business continuity planning) and as a component of enterprise risk management (or some other umbrella discipline – please specify and explain)?
- What role do you think that standards—both national and global—should play in business continuity management?
- What do you see as the three biggest challenges facing business continuity planners over the next five years?
Disruption to businesses and other organizations affect all modern life and when continuity is broken, society as a whole must adapt. Business continuity is rarely discussed at conferences like the Natural Hazards Workshop and it’s one that is difficult to agree on conclusively. The panelists made a distinction early in the discussion that there is no overlying, all-inclusive definition of business continuity, although business continuity can be described as the ability for an organization to adapt due to an event, including disasters; or as protection from being thrown off kilter.
Business continuity involves shielding major areas of an organization such as the facility, supply chain, technology, and even intellectual property, from the effects of a disaster—thus reducing the overall impact on routine business. However, as one panelist noted, the root of this vague definition is the lack of research relating to business continuity and the need to better understand it in order to predict how events will affect an organization.
A major issue in the business continuity field is the setting of standards. Currently, there are no agreed upon standards, however, this is evolving. The consensuses is that standards need to be built from the inside out, not imposed from outside. One panelist noted an example to illustrate this: The Department of Homeland Security invited many businesses to attend a meeting about economic stability and disasters and very few showed up. In contrast, Wal-Mart called a meeting with over 200 of its suppliers regarding pandemic flu and all attended.
Business as an industry should be able to develop its own standards, although they will not develop them in a quick, imposed-type time frame. It’s important to note that the development of standards is hindered by variability in the economy. When times are tough for businesses, continuity is one of the first areas to be cut because it is seen as an additional cost; one that rarely provides any short-term benefit. As profits decrease, planning for long-term, high-impact, low-probability events are disregarded; prolonging the development process. Businesses need to look past the short-term and realize that in the future they will be affected. Without proper planning, the consequences will be additionally severe.
The question and answer session led to interesting exchanges between panelists and with the audience. One question relating to how small businesses can afford business continuity preparation brought unanimous support from the panelists, who said businesses can take small steps such as backing up data or storing copies of important documents at a secondary location. Small steps like these will help ensure continuity. Similarly, an audience member made the point that businesses are now dependent on systems that our outside the organization’s control. How can they deal with those disruptions? Improvisation and redundancy were the two answers given, even though for many small businesses the options can be beyond their budget.
A fiery discussion resulted from an audience member’s argument that business continuity is directly related to community involvement. Without community support, financially and otherwise, business will not survive after an event. Businesses tend to have an idea of “returning to normal,” but after a disaster, a new normal emerges and businesses must adapt to this new normal to regain continuity. In response, it was suggested that, if each person at every level of society, home, business, and community, took personal responsibility for preparing for a disaster, the burden on the system would be lessened, enabling a more effective recovery. The government’s inability to sustain long-term recovery was noted and panelists said that, without supporting the local tax base, business and the entwined community will suffer.
Business continuity is an evolving concept. It’s growing and changing. However, it’s important that society prepare for unlikely events. When business can continue and the supply chain flows, communities survive.