Disability Inclusive Disaster Risk Reduction

Being prepared for a disaster can save lives.

People living with disabilities are twice as likely to be injured or find themselves socially isolated during natural disasters.

To address these issues, Community Recovery has partnered with Queenslanders with Disability Network (QDN), Community Services Industry Alliance (CSIA) and The University of Sydney to develop the following:

Through engagement with people with disability, and key community stakeholders from the disability, community, and emergency services sectors, the project has co-designed tools, resources, and supports for enabling DIDRR.

The Queensland DIDRR Toolkit includes tips, resources, and tools to enable people living with disabilities, their family, carers and people who work in the community sector to take action in becoming disaster resilient.

Papers and media

Article published in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction

Source: Villeneuve, M., Abson, L., Pertiwi, P., Moss, M. (2021). Applying a person-centred capability framework to inform targeted action on disability inclusive disaster risk reduction. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. Science Direct or https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2020.101979

Articles in The Conversation

Michelle Villeneuve, University of Sydney and Helen Styles, Mackay Council co-authored the article 3 things we can do now to help people with disability prepare for disaster in The Conversation, published 11 January 2021.

Michelle Villeneuve, University of Sydney and Michelle Moss, QDN co-authored the article ‘Nobody checked on us’: what people with disability told us about their experiences of disasters and emergencies in The Conversation, published 2 December 2020.

Every Australian Counts story

An opinion piece titled COVID-19 contingency planning: everything actually worked! published 6 May 2020 on the Every Australian Counts website outlined the utility of the toolkit and how it supported planning that works for people with disability.

Awards

The project has achieved the following awards:

IGEM 2020 International Women’s Day Champion of Change Award

The project was a joint winner of the award for the development of the DIDRR framework, toolkit and companion resource library. This project was funded by the former Department of Communities, Disability Services and Seniors.

2020 Resilient Australia Award

In October 2020, QDN was announced as the winner in the Community Award Category Queensland Division for the Person-Centred Emergency Preparedness (P-CEP) for COVID-19 for People with Disability and Highly Commended at the national Resilient Australia Awards.

More information

For further information about DIDRR visit the Collaborating 4 Inclusion website.