Enhancing Networks for Resilience

Aim: To investigate the role that the Southern Grampians Glenelg Primary Care Partnership (SGGPCP) could play in supporting learning and networking for disaster preparedness.

Outcome: The National Strategy for Disaster Resilience (NSDR) recognises that the strength of partnerships and networks in the non-government and community sector are fundamental for enhancing disaster resilience (COAG 2011). SGGPCP, in collaboration with RMIT University, therefore sought to examine how networks developed through SGGPCP might contribute to disaster resilience outcomes, specifically disaster preparedness.

Stage one of the project identified that networking and applied learning both have a significant relationship with preparedness activities, but that further understanding of networking enablers and pathways to the application of learning were required.

Stage two investigated these questions of network enablers and the role that SGGPCP could play in facilitating such networking and learning in the context of disaster preparedness. This stage was conducted in three distinct phases and investigated both formal and informal learning.

Phase one evaluated what networking and applied learning resulted from a formal learning approach, using a desk-top heatwave and fire scenario in two workshops with health and community care workers. Networking was assessed using social network analysis (SNA) and applied learning was evaluated by using Kirkpatrick’s training evaluation framework. Enablers and barriers for applied learning were also identified in phase one.

Phase two investigated informal learning by analysing the conditions that facilitated informal learning within four different, regular network meetings – both informal and formally convened. It also identified the enablers and barriers to networking.

Phase three involved a community-based information distribution approach called “pass-the-parcel”, which identified reported change in community-member actions after receiving a parcel of heatwave related information and objects.