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Natural disasters – by their very nature – are terrifying and unpredictable. But having a plan which can be called into action when a bushfire or flood occurs can make a difference, even in the most challenging circumstances.
In the local government areas of Camden, Wingecarribee and Wollondilly a project is taking shape which aims to give hope to their most vulnerable community members – the aged and those with a disability.
South Western Sydney PHN (SWSPHN) commissioned the implementation of the Person Centred Emergency Planning Tool (P-CEP) for the Wollondilly community.
Co-designed and tested by people with a disability, the toolkit allows an individual to assess their preparedness, capabilities and support needs in the case of a natural or man-made emergency.
It allows them to manage their support needs in emergencies and act, together with their support network, before, during and after a disaster
Understanding how people with disability manage their everyday support needs, and how they are affected during disaster, allows for better planning for recovery if disaster does occur.
Similarly, the elderly may also be hindered during times of disaster because of their impaired physical mobility, chronic health conditions and diminished sensory awareness.
Executive Officer of Community Links Wellbeing in Tahmoor and Bowral, Greg Duffy, has been heavily involved in implementing the P-CEPs project.
For his team, the focus has been more on the senior members of the region.
“The reality is that we know something is going to happen in the future,” Greg said. “We always hope it won’t be on the scale it was previously – but we know it’s possible. Certainly, flooding happens often.”
Greg said Community Links workers had all been trained to use the P-CEP toolkit and had been busy helping vulnerable members of their community to apply it to their own situation.
So far, his team has taken a one-on-one approach to implementing the plan, given seniors feel more comfortable in a less formal setting.
“We sit down with them and go through the plan, talking about how it can apply to them and what they need to do to make it happen,” Greg said.
“We also hope to run some group sessions so that we can reach more people. We hold workshops in resilience for natural disasters anyway, so if we can get a group to do these all at once together then that would be the ideal.
“We believe in the product because we saw so much of it during the fires – one of the big things that came to light was the fact that people were not well prepared.
“It’s nice peace of mind for families to have this simple document so that, for example, people have got their important paperwork sorted and all their affairs in order.
“It also includes practical tips about what you can do around the house – like taking care of the trees around your property. All those types of things you need to do leading up to fire season.”
SWSPHN Chief Executive Officer, Dr Keith McDonald PhD, said the most vulnerable members of the community, such as the aged and those with a disability, were often hardest hit by natural disasters such as bushfires and floods.
“The P-CEPs toolkit takes some of the fear out of the process and helps the community to be more resilient in the face of what could be the most terrifying time of their lives,” he said.
“At SWSPHN we are focused on improving the health and wellbeing of our community – and this is just another way we can achieve that.”