Centre of Resilience

Project Summary

The Centre of Resilience (CoR) is a community development model piloted at the Emerald Community House (ECH) and was created to underpin the ECH strategic plan that guides decisions in a high-risk environment. The CoR is committed to resilience building ideas and community development initiatives which stimulate collective community strength and durability to develop a ‘community continuity strategy’ similar to a business continuity model.

Background and Situation Context

The Emerald Community House manages the project in Emerald, Victoria as a pilot program to increase self-reliance and encourage other organisations to adopt a community continuity strategy.

The project was inspired after a meeting in 2008 between local and state government community strengthening representatives and the ECH executive committee. ECH sought planning funds to develop a community development strategy that connected businesses, community groups, local education, events and the arts by exercising our relationships in a practical way and developing local management capacity. The government representatives told us to ‘Say No to the community, scale back and stick to your core business’. We rejected this advice and set about acting on our vision.

‘Community continuity’ encompasses a variety of planning, preparatory and related activities which are intended to ensure that community functions will either continue to operate despite serious incidents or disasters that might otherwise have interrupted them, or will be recovered to an operational state within a reasonably short period.

The goal of CoR is to contribute to community continuity by encouraging the efficient and effective use of existing social, natural, economic and built community-based assets in a progressive and sustainable way.

Organisations within a community that set-out to have a continuity strategy could contribute directly to

• sustainable economic, environmental and social benefits
• enhancement of community governance and leadership skills through proactive processes
• an increase in community participation in education, volunteering, the arts, living and employment skills, and;
• safe, happier and connected communities.

Potential benefits could include but are not limited to

• better local connection
• improved local economy (including sustained growth in house prices)
• heritage protection
• infrastructure renewal
• arts and event management
• local education
• volunteer development
• portals for emergency services promotion, and;
• expanded abilities and trust between groups.

Activities and Results

• We undertook a proactive approach to develop and practice diverse relationships before potential disaster events. The ECH established a CoR steering group from a diverse and talent pool of people including environment, business, community development, and social science consultancy and sustainability practice. The steering group developed the initial strategy, designed a logo that reflected diversity and networks and trademarked the product.
• The idea of a ‘community continuity strategy,’ is like a ‘business continuity strategy’. The CoR Strategy details a range of activities:
  • adopts a strategy that contributes to ‘community continuity’ using social, economic, natural and built environments
  • embeds resilience building into our goals and objectives, programs, policies and strategic plans
  • commits to long term local community development approaches by empowering people to get involved and be the change they seek
  • explores what people value, where they want to be, identifies what they can do to get there and assists them to achieve it
  • identifies lateral networking opportunities and increase local interoperability through activities and partnerships
  • develops partnerships locally, nationally and internationally to create collaborative networks with other organisations to spread our collective resilience to support each other, and;
  • sources support through creative means - individual, government, philanthropic and organisational and draw interest from business and other organisation partnerships.
• Activities included speaking about CoR at Monash University, conferences and Emergency Management Victoria events, developed a Facebook page to promote the ECH CoR.
• Ensuring that the ECH has sustainable power, important community facilities like toilets, showers, free access to computers/internet/Wi-Fi, stored water supply, food, community kitchen, childcare and connections to business, local government and community groups to ensure community continuity.
• Invested in infrastructure and local economy by creating the Emerald Business Group, contributed toward and sourced state funds to refurbish Council's century old Hall and ECH buildings, sourced heritage funds to restore heritage bakery as a community enterprise and developed the largest monthly community market in the Dandenongs.
• Embedded fire safety messages into the ECH programs and arts festival (PAVE).
• Provided opportunities for local emergency services groups to engage more effectively with the community for example: the presentation of fire safety at the Burlesque night and during PAVE festival (smoke house for kids, free stall at PAVE arts festival), provision of free monthly market stalls at Emerald, CFA bush fire planning workshops at ECH where childcare parents are required to attend.
• ECH’s vision embraces many activities that reflect the central themes that have motivated similar communities, for example: Whittlesea Community Emergency Plan; Cockatoo Ready2Go project for vulnerable people inspired by The Go List; Dig-In Community Cafe inspired Cockatoo 's community dining project; the Victorian Neighbourhood House sector began to nominate projects for the Fire Awareness Awards after 2010 (previously the sector had not nominated for these awards); Neighbourhood Houses Victoria consulted with ECH to define their Bushfire Community Toolbox, promoted ECH ideas and activities on their Resilience website page; Emergency Services/EMV began to endorse Community Houses since 2009 due to ECH's related projects; MAV (MEMEG) representative began to recommend that Council childcare programs adopt a policy similar to ECH program, recognised in international studies and publications ‘to focus on building community strengths through establishing and strengthening trust and mutual benefit in each area of everyday local activities (Emerald Community House, 2014).’
• ECH used resources from the MUDRI / EMV Compendium Guidelines, literature on community recovery committees, post disaster recovery and post traumatic growth. ECH staff worked with groups in Kinglake and Marysville to increase our awareness about the challenges facing recovering communities.

This project was in-progress at the time of publication.

Results

This project is in-progress at the time of submission, however the following portray the initial results of CoR.

• ECH developed a strategy to guide CoR.
• The COR project featured in the book Strategies for Supporting Community Resilience, Multinational Experiences, Multinational Resilience Policy Group as an Australian exemplar. Mark Duckworth quotes ‘...For instance, the Emerald Community House (ECH) has established its own Centre of Resilience within a community of almost six thousand people located at the foothills of the Dandenong Ranges near Melbourne. The centre’s vision is ‘To be a place where connections are made and opportunities realised,’ and people are empowered to confront the risks they face, especially the bushfires. The pursuit of community resilience involves efforts to integrate safety messages across several risks, build local capacities with local resources, and provide training embedded throughout numerous community programs, activities and services.’
• ECH / CoR won 5 Five Fire Awareness Awards in 5 years (2010-2014) based on CoR strategy which reflects its commitment and creativity to building resilience and empowering others.
• ECH promoted the resilience agenda to community house peak bodies. After 5 years the Neighbourhood Houses Victoria Board is now in the process of establishing a Community Resilience Task Group and asked that ECH / CoR provide advice.

CoR activities have been recognised in other international publications in the ASEAN region, for example:

• Strategies for Supporting Community Resilience, Multinational Experiences, Multinational Resilience Policy Group, Editor: Robert Bach
• ASEAN Literary Festival
• The Jakarta Globe news media and The Jakarta Post news media
• Indonesia Development of Education and Permaculture (IDEP)
• Three International PhD studies
• We believe people have been empowered by the CoR strategy. The local community has been advantaged socially, economically and environmentally, and we are collecting the evidence. Some examples include DRREA's Ranges Energy with EmFSuS and the solar power collaboration, Eastern Dandenong Ranges Association development. The Local Voice newspaper, Cockatoo's saving and restoration of the old McBride Street Kindergarten as the first heritage site in Victorian history with a bushfire theme and its associated funding based on our grant application.
• Other groups such as the Dandenong Ranges Renewable Energy Association have supported ECH solar power project to achieve sustainable power as a backup power resource, thus achieving elements of CoR
• Other ECH community development projects besides the Emerald Going Solar project that now come under the banner of CoR include :
  • Dig-In Community Cafe (self-funded, feeds people, develops skills, food safety, business partnerships)
  • Emerald Monthly Market (self-funded, raises funds for ECH, contributes to local economy and connections)
  • PAVE and FunFest Festivals (mostly self-funded, some external funding, develops local community capacity through the arts), and;
  • Emerging community enterprises (i.e., century old hall renovation, old bakery restoration, Heritage Walk).

EMV featured Dig-In Community Café as an exemplar in its ‘Community Resilience Framework’, exhibiting actions that can be planned, integrated and implemented, building safer and more resilient communities. The Dig-In Community Café was noted as a specific case study which contributes to a dynamic and diverse local economy, strengthening employment, income, skills and business/community continuity planning. https://www.emv.vic.gov.au/how-we-help/resilience/community-resilience-framework-for-emergency-management

CoR and Dig-In are still wholly self-funded by ECH and resistant to economic pressures or downturns.

Next Step

Encourage more groups and organisations to adopt Centre of Resilience community continuity strategies.

Reflection

Centres of Resilience are doable, achievable, innovative and empowering. Establishing a vision that results in a strategy that other communities can adopt to collectively raise and strengthen their resilience has the potential to increase self-reliance within Australian communities.

The success of CoR is focused on our own success and not measured by whether anyone else takes up the strategy. When we look at the Victorian Neighbourhood House Coordination Program Agreement, the goals and objectives certainly parallel the philosophy behind CoR from a community development perspective. But the addition of sustainability and ‘transition town’ values completes the CoR strategy to be more complete, more local, more relevant and more focused.

Looking at our work as a business, even though a not for profit, we still need to continue to be financially viable within the community especially during times of adversity by having a cash operational reserve. The more profit we can generate, the more local people we can employ, the more services we can support and the more independent we become. It is worth noting the ECH is the largest contributor to our own bottom line, rather than government sources which is important in maintaining a balanced view of influence. We have learned that true resilience is enhanced when an organisation feels free to comment critically about government actions, free from worry about financial penalties being leveraged. We have certainly run the gauntlet there.

There is room for centres that operate effectively with this heightened CoR strategy to be formally identified as Centres of Resilience and become eligible for 35 management hours a week funding through DHHS, especially if operating in high risk areas working with EMV's 2021 strategy and Resilient Melbourne (metro and peri-urban areas). There could be a set amount of centres that would be required to apply and maintain the work for the duration of the award. Neighbourhood houses could aspire to operate as a Centre of Resilience.

Critical Success Factors

• local partnerships and local governments’ facilitation, and;
• training of emergency services personnel in community development practices to assist communities in developing resilience to adverse events.

Challenges Faced and Solutions

• There have been incidences where some traditional emergency management/services volunteers have dismissed CoR activities as being ‘silly or irrelevant’ and ‘outside the Emergency Management Act.’ While that attitude has actually contributed to our own resilience, independence and success, it illustrates how confronting it is for of community groups to take a leadership role and determine their own local processes and partners.

Sustainability and potential for replication in other settings

Any community group can adopt CoR values; modify them to suit their objectives and increase community networks and connections. Imagine if we all did this for the next five years. How much better off we would be....

Additional Project Details