Resilience - The art of coping with disasters

What is Resilience? Resilience is often perceived as an abstract term that varies in meaning for people from different fields and backgrounds. Nevertheless, it has been a “buzzword” in the discussion around crises and disasters in recent decades.

In this course, we willintroduce structure into this confusion andprovide clearer definitions for the intangible multidisciplinary and sometimes ambiguous term resilience.

Subsequently, this understanding will serve to improve the learners’ ability to manage crisis situations, as well as to help them plan and focus interventions and protective measures in the field of emergency preparedness and response.

At the individual level, this course will provide learners with personal tools and resources for better coping in various stressful situations.

Resilience is a capacity of society, with implications for day-to-day life as well as in crisis situations. The familiarity with the concept and its' broad aspects, is an asset to any individual in the pragmatic applied sense, beyond the academic attainment.

This course willintroduce the concept of resilience and its relevance in various arenas and times.

We will portray the impact of the disaster on individuals, families, communities, organizations, infrastructure and the interfaces between them.

We will introduce the role of media and social media in the emergency management lifecycle

You will learn how to measure resilience, how to use this assessment to guide you in building response plans for emergency situations.

Week 1 - Resilience: Introduction and overview of the concept:

• A fresh view on resilience in disasters
• The scope of disasters and basic terminology

Week 2 -The effects of crisis situations on individuals:

• The effects of crisis situations on the individual
• Death, grief, and bereavement

Week 3 -The effects of crisis situations on communities:

• The psychosocial and social effects of crisis situations on the community

• The impacts of a disaster on the community

• Healthcare in Emergency Situations

Week 4 - Personal Resilience and Coping:

• Personal resilience theories

• An integrative model of coping and resilience - BASIC Ph 1

• An integrative model of coping and resilience - BASIC Ph 2

• Practice with Coping Channels

• BASIC Ph tools for parents (Free resource for parents -not part of the course)

Week 5 - Community Resilience:

• Family resilience
• Conceptual frameworks and practical models of community resilience
• Community resilience importance and assessment
• Factors of community resilience
• Vulnerable populations
• Community response teams

Week 6 - Organizational Resilience:

• Status evaluation including worst-case scenarios

• Organizational adaptation and response to emergency situations

• Emotional effects of profession and exposure to the consequences of traumatic events

Week 7 - Crisis and the media - new and old:

• Crisis and emergency risk communication
• Media and disasters
• Effective media communication during emergencies
• Effective Messaging
• Social Media and Disaster
• Crisis informatics

Week 8 - Conclusion and summary:

• Summary of course

• Course recap and conclusion