Volume 26 Issue 4, 2011

Updating the Australian Emergency Management Handbook/Manual Series

AEMI


Article

The Australian Emergency Management Institute (AEMI) has developed two new Australian Emergency Management Handbooks – Disaster Health and Community Recovery. These are the first two handbooks in the recently retitled Australian Emergency Management Handbook Series.

The Series has been expanded to improve the alignment with the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) National Strategy for Disaster Resilience (NSDR).

These two Handbooks were developed by national consultative processes involving a range of State and Territory support service agencies and were sponsored by the Attorney-General’s Department.

The ‘Disaster Health Handbook’ updates the previous ‘Disaster Medicine Manual’ (1999) offering a more comprehensive health approach by incorporating a broader perspective on the disaster health field. A number of case studies have been included to highlight some of the key points.

It should be noted that the Disaster Health Handbook was jointly written by the Attorney-General’s Department in cooperation with the Department of Health and Ageing.

The ‘Community Recovery Handbook’ provides a comprehensive guide to community recovery in Australia and is intended for use by planners, managers and those involved in working with communities to design and deliver recovery processes, services, programs and activities.

Practitioners from any and every field involved in delivering services to the community in non-disaster times may suddenly find themselves recovery workers post-disaster. This handbook provides concepts, knowledge and resources that can increase practitioner confidence, autonomy and innovation. It provides shared grounding in key concepts, theories and practice frameworks in evidence in Australia. Communication of the commonalities and features of particular systems and practices will hopefully enable Australia’s communities to better recover after disaster.

Details of the AEMH & M Series are available at www.ema.gov.au

Please note that from January 2012 this website url will change to www.em.gov.au

Australian Emergency Management Handbook Series (2011)

Handbook 1 Disaster Health

Handbook 2 Community Recovery

Please see the information following on these recently published (October 2011) Handbooks.

Australian Emergency Manual Series Principles and Reference (1996-2011)

Manual 2 Australian Emergency Management Arrangements

Manual 3 Australian Emergency Management Glossary

Manual 4 Australian Emergency Management Terms Thesaurus

Manual 18 Community and Personal Support Services

Manual 29 Community Development in Recovery from Disaster

Manual 15 Community Emergency Planning

Manual 27 Disaster Loss Assessment Guidelines

Manual 9 Disaster Medicine – now Disaster Health Handbook 1

Manual 28 Economic and Financial Aspects of Disaster Recovery

Manual 8 Emergency Catering

Manual 1 Emergency Management Concepts and Principles

Manual 23 Emergency Management Planning for Floods Affected by Dams

Manual 5 Emergency Risk Management—Applications Guide

Manual 43 Emergency Planning

Manual 11 Evacuation Planning

Manual 20 Flood Preparedness

Manual 22 Flood Response

Manual 21 Flood Warning

Manual 44 Guidelines for Emergency Management in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Communities

Manual 25 Guidelines for Psychological Services: Emergency Managers Guide

Manual 26 Guidelines for Psychological Services: Mental Health Practitioners Guide

Manual 45 Guidelines for the Development of Community Education, Awareness and Education Programs

Manual 13 Health Aspects of Chemical, Biological and Radiological Hazards

Manual 6 Implementing Emergency Risk Management—A facilitators guide to working with committees and communities

Manual 42 Managing Exercises

Manual 19 Managing the Floodplain

Manual 17 Multi-Agency Incident Management

Manual 31 Operations Centre Management

Manual 7 Planning Safer Communities—Land Use Planning for Natural Hazards

Manual 14 Post Disaster Survey and Assessment

Manual 10 Recovery – now Community Recovery Handbook 1

Manual 24 Reducing the Community Impact of Landslides

Manual 12 Safe and Healthy Mass Gatherings

Manual 41 Small Group Training Management

Manual 46 Tsunami

Manual 16 Urban Search and Rescue—Capability Guidelines for Structural Collapse

Skills for emergency services personnel series (1989)

Manual 38 Communications

Manual 39 Flood Rescue Boat Operation

Manual 37 Four Wheel Drive Vehicle Operation

Manual 35 General and Disaster Rescue

Manual 33 Land Search Operations (refer to website http://natsar.amsa.gov.au/Manuals/index.asp.)

Manual 32 Leadership

Manual 36 Map Reading and Navigation

Manual 34 Road Rescue

Manual 30 Storm and Water Damage Operations

Manual 40 Vertical Rescue

Handbook 1 - Disaster Health

A photograph of a disaster health handbook. The cover is green and shows emergency workers during disaster relief operations.

This edition of the previously named Disaster Medicine Manual has been significantly revised to reflect current thinking about the health aspects of disasters in Australia. It has been designed as a starting point for those interested in disaster health and presents the Australian Government’s perspective on disaster health nationally.

A key change to the manual is the new title of “Australian Emergency Management Handbook Disaster Health – Building a disaster resilient Australia”. This represents the whole-of-health focus that goes into the prevention of, preparedness for, response to and recovery from disasters in Australia.

The previous title of Disaster Medicine Manual linked with the many clinically orientated aspects of the earlier editions, focused attention on the more medical aspects of disasters, and in particular emphasised the role of doctors and nurses in the response to disasters. It is hoped this new edition of the Handbook has a more comprehensive health approach and incorporates a broader perspective on the disaster health field.

A further strategy of the new Handbook is to refer readers to authoritative resources and relevant sources of additional information whenever possible. Earlier editions have suffered because changes in the field of disaster health occur rapidly, thereby dating the Handbook’s contents. It is hoped that by directing readers to appropriate sources it is more likely they can access up-to-date information.

An extensive literature review formed the basis for much of this revised edition’s contents. It is important for health policy to be evidence-based wherever possible and the inclusion of references from recent peer-reviewed journals supports the contents of this manual.

A number of case studies have been included in this new edition of the Handbook, using real-life examples to highlight some of the key points from the text. The focusing of disaster health theory around examples from the community will help to set the discussions in their proper context.

Finally, this Handbook was developed in consultation with Australian experts in the field of disaster health, including representatives from each state and territory. With this wealth of experience and variety of viewpoints, a balanced and comprehensive introduction to the subject of disaster health has been developed.

Handbook 2 - Community Recovery

A photograph of a community recovery handbook. The cover is green and shows emergency workers and community members.

This handbook provides a comprehensive guide to community recovery in Australia. It is intended for use by planners, managers and those involved in working with communities to design and deliver recovery processes, services, programs and activities.

The first edition of this handbook, the Australian Emergency Manual Recovery, was developed in 1996 by a steering committee that represented the range of professions and government and non-government organisations responsible for recovery management and service delivery throughout Australia. The steering committee involved in this third revision, Australian Emergency Management Handbook Community Recovery – Building a disaster resilient Australia was supported by the Attorney-General’s Department. Over the past decade, many structural changes have occurred in the governance systems and policy development arenas of emergency management and recovery management. Australia wide, recovery management has been incorporated into the Public Safety Training Package, a competency-based qualification, as well as further professional development courses.

The term recovery worker is a generic description. Practitioners from any and every field involved in delivering services to the community in non-disaster times may become recovery workers post-disaster. The issues confronted by individuals and communities, and the knowledge and skills needed to navigate the post-disaster community environment, are considerable. There is a need for shared understandings that can aid discourse among practitioners, policy makers and administrators. Communication of the commonalities and features of particular systems and practices will hopefully enable Australia’s communities to better recover after disasters.

Some goals of this handbook are:

  • to provide shared grounding in key concepts, theories and practice frameworks in evidence in Australia
  • to contribute towards a common language to enable sector-wide discourse
  • to provide concepts, knowledge and resources that can increase practitioner confidence, autonomy, innovation, critique and reflective practice.

Many of the essential components of the original publications have been incorporated into this handbook, which has been updated in terms of policy, procedures and professional practice developments. It also addresses community resilience and sustainability considerations. This handbook therefore includes expanded and updated chapters, in particular on community-led recovery, operationalising community recovery and the inclusion of the natural environment.