2018-04-10 S&O Agenda - Attachment 1 to Item 4 - Local Disaster Recovery Subplan

6.6      Community engagement strategies
The LRC and the LRG must consider the community engagement strategies that will be needed
to ensure the community is involved and effectively contributes to the recovery effort. The LRG
should consider the stakeholders and how best to engage with them during the stages of recovery
planning. Community engagement for recovery should use the community egagement
processes as detailed in the Local Disaster Management Plan. They should be documented in
the Recovery Operational Plan. Two specific strategies to engage with the community during
recovery are:
 local advisory groups
 public forums or community meetings.

6.6.1    Local advisory groups

Forming local advisory groups is often an effective way of involving the community in the recovery
effort. These groups may be geographically based or they may be functionally based e.g.
economic, environmental, infrastructure or human and social. The formation, composition and
terms of reference of these local advisory groups will depend on the needs of the community and
the willingness, and capacity, of the community to participate.

They are formed at the discretion of the LRG and subgroups as required. Local advisory groups
have no defined structure or governance arrangements. They may have a pre-defined
membership or be ad-hoc in nature. They provide a mechanism to enable effective engagement
with the community for planning and decision making.

6.6.2    Public forums and community meetings

Public forums and/or community meetings may be called in order to listen to and talk with
communities affected by the disaster. They are useful in the needs analysis process and should
be undertaken throughout recovery to maintain public dialogue, resolve issues and to gauge
recovery progress.

Public forums are often specific to a particular function e.g. a public forum for businesses that
are economically affected by the event or land owners affected by environmental issues arising
from the disaster. Community meetings are usually geographically focused and often cover a
broad suite of issues across the four functions of recovery. They are conducted at the discretion
of the LRG and subgroups as required. Local advisory groups may augment public forums and
community meetings.

It is important that such meetings or forums are accessible, well promoted and involve community
and business leaders who can disseminate information to and from the community.

It can be valuable, where possible, to identify and utilise existing community events or activities
where the community gathers rather than initiate an additional activity that the community may
be hesitant to attend that is not a community environment that they feel comfortable with and
trust.




Noosa Local Disaster Recovery Subplan 2018                                                 Page 30