Latest AJEM issue features CRC research

The latest Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC research is featured in the October 2021 issue of the Australian Journal of Emergency Management  (AJEM), published by the Australian Institute of Disaster Resilience.

This issue includes Mental health and wellbeing in young adult fire and emergency service volunteers, an article that profiles the latest volunteer management research conducted by the CRC, in partnership with AFAC, University of Adelaide, Flinders University, University of Western Australia, University of British Columbia, Military and Emergency Services Health Australia and University of South Australia, as part of the CRC’s Positive mental health in young adult emergency services personnel project.

This project, led by Dr Amanda Taylor at the University of Adelaide, produced a practical and usable framework and several reliable resources to support positive mental health and wellbeing in young adult (16-25 year old) emergency service volunteers. The framework and resources can be utilised at an individual, local and organisation-wide level, in order to minimise the short- and long-term impacts of exposure to potentially traumatising events and maintain and promote mental health and wellbeing more generally. You can find the mental health and wellbeing resources here, which includes an interactive module with helpful animations, exercises and a quiz that volunteers can work through privately and at their own pace, to make it as easy as possible to develop and maintain the mental health support skills they need while volunteering.

The article Protecting communities with better warnings and communications introduces a new online documentary series using the latest research from the CRC about warnings, public information and recovery. The series, Driving change: the evolution of communications and warnings in emergency preparedness, response and recovery, is helping communities follows communications and engagement practitioners meeting researchers to learn how they can apply evidence-based knowledge to their work.

With links to CRC research that have been built on by CFA, An archetypal perspective on delaying evacuation explains the use of bushfire self-evacuation archetypes research to inform community safety approaches, by Dr Ken Strahan (Strahan Research) and John Gilbert (CFA). The archetypes emerged from Dr Strahan’s PhD research, for which he was a CRC associate student, on protective action decision making in bushfires. The archetypes focus on the diverse characteristics of individuals’ behaviours and decisions in a bushfire context, reflect on the different ways people respond during a bushfire and highlight the range of community safety approaches required to ­encourage them to take protective action. For this latest research, Dr Strahan and Mr Gilbert used CFA data collected after the 2020-21 fire season and applied the seven archetypes to understand more about community preparation for bushfire. Visit the Application of self-evacuation archetypes project page to learn more about the archetypes.

Also featured in this issue of AJEM is research not conducted through the CRC but by CRC researchers:

• Understanding skill decay and skill maintenance in first responders – Samuel Woodman, A/Prof Chris Bearman, Dr Peter Hayes (CQUniversity)
• Indigenous peoples and natural hazard research, policy and practice in southern temperate Australia: an agenda for change – Bhiamie Williamson (ACT Bushfire Council), Dr Jessica Weir (Western Sydney University)
• An integrated system to protect Australia from catastrophic bushfires – A/Prof Marta Yebra, Prof Nick Barnes, Dr Colleen Bryant, A/Prof Geoffrey J. Cary, A/Prof Salman Durrani, Dr Jia-Urnn Lee, Prof David Lindenmayer, Prof Robert Mahony,  Dr Roslyn Prinsley, A/Prof Philippa Ryan, Prof Rob Sharp, A/Prof Matt Stocks, Dr Andrew Tridgell, A/Prof Xiangyun Zhou (Australian National University)
• Heat Smart: building resilience to heatwaves in Western Sydney – Kelly Gee (Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils), Andrew Gissing (Risk Frontiers)
• Designing fire danger outlook products for climate timescales – Dr Naomi Benger, Dr Paul Fox-Hughes, Dr Paul Gregory, Dr Howard Jacobs, Dr David Jones, Samuel Sauvage (Bureau of Meteorology).

You can access the entire AJEM issue online for free. To receive printed copies, subscribe here. You can also subscribe to receive email alerts when the online editions are available.