Community Service Climate Resilience Program

So why?

Title Text

You might be thinking...'how is this project relevant to me?'

Well, this project seeks to build the resilience of the community sector to natural disasters and climate change - so your organisation can keep operating through a natural disaster and provide vital services

Before we go any further, let's give you some background information on the project...

This project was born from DHHS to support their funded agencies in the face of disasters and climate change - to make them more resilient.

This arose in response to needs identified by the sector and independent research.

The project is funded jointly by the Natural Disaster Resilience Grant Scheme (Australian Department of Justice) and the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services.

The fact is...community service organisations support the most vulnerable in our society.

The vulnerable (or your clients) are often the most exposed and adversely affected by natural disasters and climate change.

But as you know, community service organisations themselves are vulnerable to disasters and climate change.

ACOSS research indicated that of CSOs exposed to a disaster, 25% cannot operate again, and 50% of organisations are out of operations for up to a week after a disaster.

If this wasn't reason enough...

the demand for these vital services is likely to increase as social vulnerability stressors are exacerbated due to the increase in frequency and intensity of natural disasters.

"The best way to increase the capacity of CSOs to plan for changes in the climate is to facilitate adaptation or resilience planning."

The Victorian Centre for Climate Change Adaptation Research 

This is what the project will do.

We will work face to face, spending time with organisations in the sector, helping you plan for natural disasters to support continuity in your service delivery.

So what value will I get out of this project?

We have a few questions to prompt thinking about resilience planning and the value you might obtain.

How did Black Saturday and other extreme bushfires affect your clients and your organisation?

Think about how your staff were affected?

Could they protect their own home or did they have to deliver services?

Were there cohorts of your clients that were more vulnerable during this event than normal?

Was your organisation physically threatened? If impacted, how long would the impact have put your organisation out of operation?

How was your organisation affected by the heatwaves in 2009 and 2014?

Staff?

Clients?

​What is core to your business?

Service delivery?

Operations?

Advocacy for clients?

How would the following affect your core business?

- Bushfires?

- Heatwaves?

- Storm?

- Drought?

How long are your planning periods?

Do these time periods interact with extreme events or disasters?

There is a process to support you! 

Engage with the project to learn more

Contact:

ali@loopandco.com.au

or

rob.turk@arup.com