AMU Emergency Management Public Safety

Community Resiliency and Schools

By Allison G. S. Knox
Contributor, EDM Digest

Community Resiliency is an important piece of emergency management theory for how it allows a community to “bounce” back after a serious disaster.  There are many sections of society that already have systems in place to promote concepts of community resiliency: churches, synagogues, volunteer fire and rescue departments – just to name a few. However, when an issue arises in our society, politicians and citizens alike will often say that we need more training for a given area. Training is always a priority and is an important component to effectively preparing a community in addition to the emergency resources and personnel an office has on staff. Robert Gordon [link url=”http://edmdigest.com/response/emergency-management-training-needed-for-schools/” title=”writes”] that emergency training is needed in schools with the increase in school shootings. Building from Robert Gordon’s ideas, schools can be components of community resiliency. We need to hone in on this, and train students in schools to be better prepared to tighten our community resiliency efforts in towns and cities across the country.

Community Resiliency

The [link url=”http://www.rand.org/topics/community-resilience.html” title=”RAND Corporation”] defines Community Resiliency as “a measure of the sustained ability of a community to utilize available resources to respond to, withstand, and recover from adverse situations.” The concept has become a theoretical component to emergency management becoming an important piece that communities should strive to have so they’re able to function faster and more efficiently after a crisis. [link url=”https://amuedge.com/cert-teams-an-important-part-of-community-resiliency/” title=”CERT Teams”] are an important piece of community resiliency as are [link url=”https://amuedge.com/churches-lend-a-helping-hand/” title=”churches”] for the ways they build community support outside of a major crisis.

Education

Education is a thread in community resiliency.  Schools need to teach children the importance of preparation and plans so they’re able to rely on themselves more in the wake of a major crisis. In the wake of the shootings, the [link url=”https://amuedge.com/new-measure-to-save-lives-stop-the-bleed-campaign/” title=”Stop the Bleed Campaign”] has worked to teach people about controlling bleeding until emergency medical technicians and paramedics can arrive.  We need to be teaching students about community resiliency and the appropriate measures they need to take for a disaster, but we should use the school systems to our advantage. In many respects, the schools are already systems of community resiliency. The buildings can serve as shelters, and parents already communicate through telephone trees and regular after-school activities. Schools provide an interesting foundation to further community resiliency development.

Changing the Paradigm

One of the biggest problems with emergency management is changing the paradigm or the way individuals think about disasters. There are so many horror stories of individuals not being adequately prepared, and other stories where some citizens simply don’t care whether or not they have the appropriate tools to manage a major emergency on their own.   We need to counteract this though by including more preparedness education in schools. Through using a system that already has components of community resiliency, we will simply tighten what we have and build on this foundation for better preparedness efforts.

Allison G.S. Knox

Allison G. S. Knox teaches in the fire science and emergency management departments at the University. Focusing on emergency management and emergency medical services policy, she often writes and advocates about these issues. Allison works as an Intermittent Emergency Management Specialist in the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response. She also serves as the At-Large Director of the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians, Chancellor of the Southeast Region on the Board of Trustees with Pi Gamma Mu International Honor Society in Social Sciences, chair of Pi Gamma Mu’s Leadership Development Program and Assistant Editor for the International Journal of Paramedicine. Prior to teaching, Allison worked for a member of Congress in Washington, D.C. and in a Level One trauma center emergency department. She is an emergency medical technician and holds five master’s degrees.

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