Resources for Change

What if Resources Existed to Help Your Community Improve Resilience?

This menu of resources was developed to inspire jurisdictions that have used the COPEWELL model and tools and want to implement changes that bolster their capacities in certain areas. Users can explore these interventions by following the links in each of the titles.

For example, a jurisdiction that wants to create resilience in its healthcare industry will find materials developed by several agencies, from the Centers for Disease Control to the Morehouse School of Medicine, or the RAND Corporation. The interventions, worksheets, toolkits, playbooks, and resources presented here are a curated list of the modern state of the art. They are by no means, however, exhaustive of all options available, nor do they represent the only way for a jurisdiction to move forward. Leaders should reference these resources along with others that both they, and those like them, have used for planning purposes. By so doing, progress in achieving resilience in ways relevant to each individual jurisdiction can be made.

 

Pre-Event Functioning

Community Functioning

The ability of a community, measured at the county level, to provide goods and services in the following areas: communication, economy, education, food and water, government, housing, medicine and public health, nurturing and care, transportation, and well-being.

  1. Communication
    The capacity of a community to support the organizations, personnel, procedures and networks employed to transmit and receive information by electronic means.
     
  2. Economy
    The capacity of a community to provide, maintain and repair a market structure in which products and services are bought and sold in relation to supply and demand.
     
  3. Education
    The capacity of a community to provide stable educational services, to open schools, and to maintain academic programs and extracurricular activities. Educational services include, preschool, elementary through high school, and vocational education.
     
  4. Food and Water
    The capacity of a community to provide and sustain access to safe and sufficient food and potable water.
     
  5. Government
    The capacity of a community to provide and sustain taxpayer-funded municipal services, e.g., sanitation, streets, public safety, criminal justice, vital records, building licenses/inspection, public library (U.S. Census Bureau 2013).
     
  6. Housing
    The capacity of a community to provide safe, affordable and uncrowded housing (“a private dwelling unit…[that] a family owns, rents, or lives in without paying rent” (Partnering for Change).
     
  7. Healthcare and Public Health
    The capacity of a community to provide equitable, quality and accessible pre-hospital (EMS), emergency, primary, specialty and long-term medical and mental and behavioral health care, to include the in-patient and outpatient treatment of urgent and chronic medical and mental and behavioral health conditions (Berwick, Nolan, Whittington 2008).

    The capacity of a community to protect the health of the population through promotion of healthy lifestyles, disease and injury prevention and detection and control of infectious diseases (CDC Foundation 2016).
     
  8. Nurturing and Care
    The capacity of a community to provide supportive/assistive care to citizens in need, e.g., childcare, elder care, housebound and nursing services.
     
  9. Transportation
    The capacity of a community to allow for safe and efficient movement of persons and/or resources around, into or out of area. This includes transportation infrastructure and mass transit services.
     
  10. Well-Being
    The capacity of a community to promote and support good physical and mental health of its citizens, e.g., parks and recreation, arts and culture, health promotion programs and resources.
     

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Resistance

Prevention and Mitigation

Activities or systems that prevent or reduce the effect of an event on functioning.

  1. Natural Systems
    The existence and preservation of natural systems that mitigate the effects of a disaster. These include such natural systems as: wetland and barrier dunes, stream corridors, sediment and erosion control
     
  2. Engineered Systems
    The existence and preservation of engineered systems that mitigate the effects of a disaster. These include flood levees, earthquake proof buildings, firebreaks in fire zones, etc.
     
  3. Countermeasures
    “Health management services that account for programs, products, and systems necessary to be prepared for, protected from, and be resilient against chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosives (CBRNE) agents and emerging infectious disease threats” (NHSPI, 2016, Countermeasure management). This includes both pharmaceutical and non- pharmaceutical interventions.
     
    • United States National Science and Technology Council Committee on Homeland Security CBRNE Strategy
      The National Strategy includes standards and provides guidance for jurisdictions to prepare for CBRNE emergencies.
    • ASPR TRACIE
      Brought to you by HHS ASPR, the Technical Resources, Assistance Center, and Information Exchange (TRACIE) was created to meet the information and technical assistance needs of regional ASPR staff, healthcare coalitions, healthcare entities, healthcare providers, emergency managers, public health practitioners, and others working in disaster medicine, healthcare system preparedness, and public health emergency preparedness.

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Population, Vulnerability, Inequality and Deprivation (PVID)

The panoply of social, political and economic conditions that reduce a population’s ability to detect risk, to mitigate risk or to recover from the effects of a hazard agent

  1. Vulnerability
    “The likelihood that an individual or group will be exposed to and adversely affected by a hazard. It is the interaction of the hazards of place (risk and mitigation) with the social profile of communities” (Cutter 1996, p. 532).
     
  2. Inequality
    “Unequal access to opportunities and unequal exposures to risks which are a consequence of the socio-economic system” (Cannon 1994, p. 14-15).”
     
  3. Deprivation
    “A state of observable and demonstrable disadvantage relative to the local community or the wider society or nation to which an individual, family or group belongs. . . . [It includes a
    distinction] “between material and social forms of deprivation- one involving the material apparatus, goods, services, resources, amenities, and physical environment and location of life, and the other involving the roles, relationships, functions, customs, rights, and responsibilities of membership of society and its subgroups” (Townsend 1987, p. 125; 135- 136).
     

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Recovery

Social Capital and Cohesion

Factors that help “society function effectively, including social networks between individuals, neighbors, organizations, and governments, and the degree of connection and sense of ‘belongingness’ among residents” (NHSPI, 2016, Community Planning & Engagement Coordination).

  1. Connectedness
    The ability to pull together as a community, based on a sense of belonging, neighborliness and demonstrated patterns of sharing and caring for others.
     
  2. Citizen Participation
    The involvement of community members in formal groups (e.g., religious organizations, school associations, neighborhood watch) where leadership inspires members to have opportunities to play meaningful roles.
     

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Emergency Management

  1. Hazard or Vulnerability Assessment
    Identify threats and hazards of concern: based on a combination of expertise, forecasting, subject matter expertise, and other available resources, develop a list of threats and hazards that could affect the community

    Give threats and hazards context: show how identified threats and hazards may affect the community and create challenges in response. Identify the impacts a threat or hazard may have on a community.

    Establish capability and plan targets: determine the level of capability that the community plans to achieve in order to manage the threats and hazards it faces
     
  2. Preparedness
    Implement community-based planning that engages the whole community by using a planning process that represents the actual population in the community and involves community leaders and the private sector in the planning process
     
  3. Emergency Response
    The jurisdiction has developed the capacity to implement the capabilities and objectives of the jurisdiction’s emergency plans. The emergency operations plans and annexes are routinely exercised: the exercises are community wide and include community institutions and infrastructure. Vertical and horizontal integration are objectives of the annual exercises
     
  4. Recovery
    The local jurisdiction leads pre-disaster recovery and mitigation planning and has the primary role of planning and managing all aspects of a community’s recovery post-disaster. These capabilities must be delivered in a no-notice environment regardless of the threat or hazard. Continuity of operations plans are an inherent component of pre-disaster planning processes to ensure the continuation of each core capability and of the coordinating structures that provide them. In pre-disaster times, the jurisdiction has identified and appointed a local Disaster Recovery manager to serve as the manager for recovery coordination activities.
     

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Related content

Menu of Resources to Build Capacity

Domain-Specific Resources


Download the Menu of Resources to Build Capacity (PDF)