Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
4 ________________________________________________________________________ Potential Research Workshop participants discussed a range of issues associated with private-public sector collaboration to enhance community disaster resilience. Issues included those related to the best means of initiating and sustaining private-public sector collaboration, metrics for measuring success of collaborative efforts, and cultural and behavioral factors that impact the success of collaborative efforts. Chapter 3 summarizes workshop discussion related to barriers to effective and sustainable collaboration. Overcoming these barriers could be informed by appropriate research. Research findings from other disciplines may inform research related to collaboration for community disaster resilience, but some areas may not have been adequately researched. This chapter organizes many of the research questions raised during workshop discussion into thematic areas. RESEARCH THEMES AND TOOLS Best Practices Several workshop participants stated that no single model or methodology will work for all communities attempting to develop sustainable collaborations for resilience building. Each community must take an approach that is most meaningful and relevant to meets its needs, history, traditions, and composition. According to several workshop participants, an important tool to help support emerging (and ongoing) collaborations in the development of their networks would be a freely accessible repository of knowledge, best practices, and subject-matter expertise from around the world. The repository could best be facilitated by a neutral party that represents the interests of all stakeholders. Tools to access the repository need to be simple, and methodologies presented need to be actionable, understandable, and scalable. Successes need to be exemplified because, as Mary Wong of the Office Depot Foundation expressed it, nothing succeeds like success. Having a compendium of best practices, however, is not the complete solution to creating a culture of resilience. Simply referring to the compendium is not a sufficient 53
54 PRIVATE-PUBLIC SECTOR COLLABORATION FOR COMMUNITY DISASTER RESILIENCE response to communities needing or requesting assistance in the development of resilience-building collaborations. One research priority described by some participants is research that could result in or inform the development of tools and templates that encourage and assist in planning business preparedness and mitigation processes. Some tools do exist, such as those of the Institute for Business and Home Safety1 and the business portal of Washington Stateâs Emergency Management website.2 The latter, according to Mr. Mullen, was chosen by the National Emergency Managers Association as an example of best practices.3 Research on lessons learned at the community level from previous disasters, in terms of both success and failure, are especially important. Frank Reddish of the Miami-Dade County Department of Emergency Management and Homeland Security described experiences of those in South Florida following Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Entire communities were destroyed but came back together. Mr. Reddish suggested that research on what contributed to the success of these and similar communities could be an asset to those looking for effective resilience building strategies. Participants repeatedly suggested the need to create a catalog of best practices but were not clear about what organizations could address this need. Many agreed that whatever organizations filled this role would have to be a neutral entity with credibility among all stakeholders. Many participants stressed this function could best be fulfilled by an agency other than the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or other funding agency, in large part because people may be disinclined to share unsuccessful efforts with their funders. It was considered essential that the eventual mechanism be a forum considered safe from punitive action. Several observed that the Lessons Learned Information Sharing national network of best practices for emergency response established by FEMA4 is useful, but not the neutral facilitative mechanism needed. It will not likely become the tool envisioned by workshop participants. Metrics Progress is a vector. To successfully measure or evaluate progress, the starting and desired endpoints have to be defined. Several participants indicated that advancing the understanding and use of collaborative approaches to disaster resilience at the community level will require research that informs how one could quantify the benefits and effectiveness of the efforts. Participants asked what needed to be measured, and how resulting metrics could be used to encourage further resilience-building efforts. Over the course of the workshop, the need for several types of metrics was identified. These ranged from those for evaluating partnerships themselves to those measuring the resilience of communities more generally, especially as a result of collaboration. The application of metrics is important from both the scientific and practical points of view, for example in determining which methodologies are most effective and under what circumstances. Metrics can also be used by funding agencies to justify that grant dollars 1 See www.disastersafety.org (accessed December 2, 2009). 2 See www.emd.wa.gov/preparedness/prep_business.shtml (accessed December 2, 2009). 3 See www.nemaweb.org/home.aspx (accessed December 2, 2009). 4 See www.llis.dhs.gov/index.do (accessed December 2, 2009).
POTENTIAL RESEARCH 55 are well spent. Being able to cite progress or success in efforts can be a good tool for mobilizing private-sector participation and investment. Metrics for Measuring Partnerships Randolph Rowel of Morgan State University suggested that science for evaluating partnerships exists and is being applied, for example in the public health community. The Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration Center for Substance Abuse and Prevention5 Community Partnership and Coalition programs, for example, have conducted rigorous cross-site evaluation of partnerships they fund using outcome data from 24 randomly selected partnerships and have matched comparison communities identified on the basis of age, gender, ethnicity, size and density of population, income levels, and geographic proximity of the jurisdiction. Community Coalition Action Theory (Butterfoss and Kegler, 2002) was applied as the comprehensive framework for coalition development and functioning. Their approach and other public health approaches could be explored to identify different means of evaluating the effectiveness of partnerships. Certain aspects of partnering and collaboration are difficult to measure, such as the levels of trust generated between network members, or the levels of acceptance of collaboration goals. The tools of social network analysis, as described in an earlier NRC workshop summary (NRC, 2009), may provide a means of measuring these less tangible qualities. Research on the social measures that would be most indicative of successful partnerships, and the development of tools to measure them, may prove beneficial. Metrics for Measuring Community-Level Resilience It can be relatively straightforward to measure physical aspects of resilience such as those associated with physical infrastructure. It is more difficult to measure the outcomes of resilience-building efforts in terms of disaster preparedness, emergency management, and community quality of life without a thorough base-level understanding of a community at the beginning of any improvement process. As Maria Vorel of FEMA pointed out, however, movement toward resilience will often be incremental and may not be linear. Tools to measure resilience-related goals are not well developed or utilized. Difficult to measure are what workshop participants termed the âsoft tissueâ changes in a community. These are associated with accumulated sociological benefits such as changes in a communityâs capacity to absorb change that result from public education and partnership development campaigns. Desired outcomes may be the impetus of the cultural shifts and attitude changes related to the concept of resilience. It may be difficult to measure such outcomes against absolute standards. Tools developed in other disciplines could be modified for measuring progress in building resilience according to some workshop participants. Social network analysis was again suggested as a possible means of measuring soft-tissue change. Some participants identified research by several government agencies seeking to measure resilience. The Economic Development Administration of the Department of 5 See www.prevention.samhsa.gov (accessed December 2, 2009).
56 PRIVATE-PUBLIC SECTOR COLLABORATION FOR COMMUNITY DISASTER RESILIENCE Commerce, for example, has been conducting research and developing tools for measuring economic resilience, according to M. John Plodinec of the Savannah River National Laboratory. Dr. Plodinec also described resilience-related research conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Some workshop participants again cited research from the public health community as a potential resource. Compiling research conducted within the federal and lower levels of government could reveal tools that have already been developed and are in use, and may inform practitioners involved in resilience- building efforts about how they may better target their own efforts. Overcoming Organizational Silos Some participants expressed frustration about the tendency for organizations, in both the public and private sectors, to exist in separate and independent silos, creating an environment unsupportive of collaboration. A more holistic approach for resilience building was considered by these participants to be more productive. Research conducted to understand how community educational, public health, workplace, transportation, and communications systems could operate and fit together could be beneficial. Understanding how the web of formal and informal relationships that comprise a communityâs civic infrastructure supports all aspects of a community, particularly when under stress, is an essential element for building community resilience, according to multiple participants. Research findings could help city managers and collaboration partners determine how to work more efficiently and measure progress toward common goals. Understanding networks within civic infrastructure could inform the creation of community planning processes that promote economic and environmental sustainability. Broad support from the community, according to many workshop participants, may be more likely under such circumstances. Communicating with organizations that exist in silos can be challenging. Jill Labbe of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram observed, however, that editorial boards of many community newspapers often have ongoing relationships with the leaders and members of many such organizations. She observed that the press could be considered an asset to collaborative efforts, rather than an adversary, and could serve a role in building community disaster resilience. Some workshop participants suggested that national media outlets may not feel integrated and may be reluctant to participate in community-level endeavors. On the other hand, local media outlets are community members and stakeholders in resilience building and recovery efforts. They could potentially enhance efforts to communicate across organizations. One challenge in reaching out to different types of organizations is overcoming issues associated with different time cycles in which the private and public sectors may operate. Public servants often work on timescales corresponding to election and budget cycles, whereas businesses may think in terms of annual or quarterly benefits. Questions were raised by some workshop participants regarding how to encourage all interest groups to plan on longer-term time horizons. This could be useful in terms of partnership sustainability and in terms of maintaining institutional memory of collaborative and resilience-building successes.
POTENTIAL RESEARCH 57 Incentivizing Community-Level Involvement Getting grassroots-level involvement during all phases of collaboration for resilience building was considered an important aspect of building a culture of resilience by many workshop participants. Though it is often community-level organizations that respond first in emergencies to provide shelter, food, and other basic necessities, uncertainty often exists, regarding how faith-based and community-level groups can be categorized. These groups may not regularly communicate with either the public sector or the business communities, sometimes because of a lack of trust. Underserved populations may include segments of a community that live with disaster on a daily basis. They often have systems and services in place for day-to-day living. Researching and understanding these systems may provide information to more effectively serve the populations at risk, and may prove beneficial to the community as a whole. The community benefits from considering populations at risk as resources and drawing them into resilience-building collaboration. This in turn empowers these groups to become more resilient and healthier. There is a need to understand how to incentivize participation in private-public sector collaboration among all groups including community and faith-based organizations, small business owners, underserved populations, and volunteers. Research on how different peer groups can be incentivized, including how partnership agendas can be reframed to be more inclusive, may help collaborations bring these groups in. Incentivizing Business Participation Incentivizing business participation in collaborative efforts involves being able to communicate with those in the business sector using meaningful language and methodologies. The concept of developing a business prospectus for building community disaster resilience through private-public sector partnership was discussed in Chapter 2 of this report. Aside from identifying the right operating models, it is essential to identify the right economic models to be applied. Many different models exist, but questions arose about how to identify those that would be most sustainable or scalable within a given business community and therefore more attractive for the business community. Further incentive to business participation could be the knowledge of the real cost of business shutdown due, for example, to lack of electrical power following a disaster. Available data on this topic are limited, but could possibly be persuasive. Because management is not only about management structure, it is also important to study the human factor issues that need to be incorporated into different models.
58 PRIVATE-PUBLIC SECTOR COLLABORATION FOR COMMUNITY DISASTER RESILIENCE Establishing Bases of Information Partnership Models Establishing and applying metrics was considered by many workshop participants to be largely dependent on establishing bases of information from which to draw. Some workshop participants stated that case studies of effective partnerships can be an important means of establishing that base. Longitudinal studies to understand how partnerships did or did not function under different circumstances, on how they were made sustainable, or how they failed are also means, according to some workshop participants, of creating a body of knowledge on best practices for building sustainable partnerships. Comparison studies of different partnerships and their infrastructures could identify factors critical to sustainable collaborative efforts. Organizational effectiveness models were suggested as useful by some participants. Research on effective models for collaboration and partnership within government, the private sector, and in private-public sector collaboration were also described as important by various workshop participants. Some described the need to quantify this research in structured ways. Additionally, the importance of understanding the economic impacts of various approaches and models was noted by some. Identifying Existing Networks Identifying and utilizing existing social networks in a community was described by multiple workshop participants as essential for communicating and engaging all members of the community. Research on how to use social networking tools to identify and reach out to all community stakeholders in order to strengthen network connections was identified as an important area of study. Social network analysis could be applied to understand how networks change with time or under stress, or how existing networks can collaborate and build new networks effective at building resilience. Such analyses could also prove useful to understand how large a network or partnership needs to be in order to achieve desired outcomes, or how networks might change scale when under stress. Time-Series Studies Assessing resilience levels of regions at different times could provide valuable information, according to some workshop participants. The resilience of any region or community constantly changes because communities constantly change. Determining the means to monitor and measure in what ways and under what circumstances a communityâs ability to respond to disaster changes could help communities be better prepared, according to some workshop participants. Regional assessments over time may provide important base information for assessing capacity for disaster response. Time-series research on disaster recovery could also be of benefit, according to multiple workshop participants. Studying what has happened 10 years, 15 years, and 20
POTENTIAL RESEARCH 59 years after, for example, Hurricanes Andrew and Katrina, were repeatedly mentioned as potentially useful. Quantifying the losses of all sectors of government and the community affected could provide data for recovery effectiveness methodology models. Some workshop participants described the usefulness of understanding what happens following a disaster in secondary citiesâthose indirectly impacted by a disaster. Understanding, for example, how Hurricane Katrina affected collaborative efforts and general resilience of cities such as Lafayette, Louisiana, Houston, Texas, or Memphis, Tennessee over time could be important. Though these cities were not physically damaged by the storm, their resilience was tested and resources were stretched thinly by the influx of evacuees in grave need of services. Collaborative efforts in secondary cities can be easier to facilitate because infrastructure is more likely to remain intact. Behavioral and Sociological Characteristics Behavior Under Stress Questions were raised by workshop participants regarding the behavior of community citizens as individuals and as members of collaborations under stress. Workshop participants indicated that research may help inform the development of models to predict behavior of people and organizations given specific scenarios or disasters. Research may also inform the modeling of emergent behaviors. Given a scenario or situation researchers could model how people and communities have reacted and will react, thereby gaining insights into the emergent behavior of people in a host of situations. Understanding such behavior could help collaborations mitigate, track, or respond positively to predicted behaviors, potentially increasing resiliency and rates of recovery. Mr. Reddish described how understanding motivations behind certain behaviors, such as the ignoring of evacuation orders, could inform how information could be disseminated more effectively. Ownership Claims Ellis Stanley wondered how to avoid claims of ownership of collaborative processes by individuals or entities. Other workshop participants agreed this was an issue, and many stated that decisions related to collaborative processes may best be within the collaboration. Whereas volunteers are praised for taking responsibility for resilience- building and response efforts, working through the collaborative infrastructure may make it more likely that actions are in the best interest of the community. Understanding this type of behavioral dynamic, according to many workshop participants, may provide insights on how to harness energies into productive collaborative approaches.
60 PRIVATE-PUBLIC SECTOR COLLABORATION FOR COMMUNITY DISASTER RESILIENCE Targeting Communication Based on Behavior Understanding how different community members and organizations behave under stress could allow the effective targeting of educational processes. Understanding social behaviors could also contribute to the understanding of the characteristics of socially effective communication, potentially maximizing efforts to reach and sustainably engage potential collaborators. Understanding technologies and communication techniques such as social networking tools could enhance communication, according to some workshop participants. Building Capacity Workshop participants identified an array of research areas that could fill gaps in knowledge regarding the building of community and individual capacities necessary for resilient communities. Questions raised by some participants included: ⢠What kinds of technical training, assistance, and outreach are needed to enable sustainable communities? ⢠Should the public sector or a brokering organization implement training? ⢠How are collaboration skill sets built at the community level? ⢠What kind of training builds leadership qualities in individuals? ⢠How can creativity and innovation be fostered? ⢠How do collaborative networks engage the younger generation, pre-Generation X, in order to benefit from its expertise and sustain collaborative efforts in the long term? Many workshop participants discussed how in order to realize a cultural shift in thinking about resilience, the concept of resilience could be incorporated into curricula at colleges, universities, and professional and law schools where the next generation of business leaders, public managers, and managers of nongovernmental organizations are being trained. Shirley Laska of the University of New Orleans described Hazard Mitigation Grant Program funding received by the state of Louisiana to inculcate resilience into different parts of their curriculum. Faculty membersâ salaries are supplemented to incorporate resilience pedagogy, such as best practices, into curriculum and classes. Evaluation of the effectiveness of this program is part of the grant. Louisiana is working with the American Planning Association to include disciplines, such as education, business, and civil engineering into the program. Some workshop participants described how it is essential that programs such as this are monitored and expanded if proven successful. Some participants noted that another model for increasing capacity is through
POTENTIAL RESEARCH 61 mentoring programs. Individuals from one community assist other communities in identifying, for example, missing elements for successful collaboration. Mentoring of communities by communities may drive momentum, and may provide examples that lead to replication of success. In this way, institutional knowledge can be shared from around the country. This was the desired outcome of the Project Impact program (see Box 2-2). Study of the effectiveness of mentoring programs, according to some workshop participants, may inform such programs on how to improve. FUTURE RESEARCH MECHANISMS The results of research are often poorly translated to practitioners. One way research could be more effectively translated to practitioners is by building research directly into the mission of private-public sector collaborations, according to some workshop participants. Doing so could increase community capacity for resilience and inform collaborative activities with information in real-time on how best to modify goals, objectives, and activities. However, as many at the workshop noted, researchers are generally not included in collaboration at the community level. Participants of a recent workshop on the use of social network analysis for building community disaster resilience suggested building regional collaboratives among local universities, agencies, and businesses (NRC, 2009). Local, state, and federal resources could be used to establish the collaboratives to encourage thorough baseline expertise on regional social networks and their capacities for building resilience. Regions could be consistent, for example, with the 10 regions into which FEMA currently divides the United States, and could serve as repositories for regional baseline data and resources for federal and local response agencies during disasters. Some regional collaborations as described above already exist in some form, and seem to be more effective if they are compilations or alliances of existing collaborations, according to Lynne Kidder of Business Executives for National Security. Some workshop participants referred to the Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments program of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as an example of a program that funds research collaborations between university researchers and the private and public sectors studying regional adaptation to climate change (Pulwarty et al., 2009). Scientists have called for the establishment of a new National Science Foundation observatory called RAVON, the Resiliency and Vulnerability Observing Network (Peacock et al., 2008). This could be a social science analog to the National Ecological Observing Network (NEON) which provides scientific information about continental- scale ecology obtained through integrated observations and experiments contributing to understanding and decision making regarding the changing environment.6 Some workshop participants expressed that a national observatory network such as RAVON could serve resilience science through the development of data collection protocols across different sociopolitical environments and different hazards, supporting the development of long-term longitudinal datasets, enhancing data-sharing capabilities among researchers and practitioners. 6 See www.neoninc.org/ (accessed December 2, 2009).
62 PRIVATE-PUBLIC SECTOR COLLABORATION FOR COMMUNITY DISASTER RESILIENCE RESEARCH FUNDING In discussing sources of funding for research on effective collaboration for community resilience, many workshop participants noted that much of the research described as necessary is applied in nature, and not of the type that can be funded by, for example, the National Science Foundation. A different type of funding stream could better support the kind of research described as beneficial. Additionally, government often spends money on the development of technology, hardware, and supplies, but better support of resilience-building efforts might be achieved if funds could support research on the behavioral and sociological factors that influence the effective use of the technologies. Regardless of the source, however, many workshop participants described how research funding was often too short-lived for the type of research described as beneficial. A NATIONAL AGENDA TO SUPPORT COLLABORATION Many workshop participants identified the need to create a culture throughout the nation that promotes collaborative community resilience-building efforts. To build community resilience, it is essential to move from a system focused on response to disasters, toward a framework that is informed and guided by the principles of resilience building. As Paul Jack of the Bay Area Preparedness Initiative of the Fritz Institute described it, DHS and all other agencies could benefit if they were to establish private- public sector collaboration for building communities as a true national priority so that such collaborations could organically grow throughout the country. A clearly stated national goal could create a focus on the importance of this issue that has been lacking to date. According to Brit Weber of Michigan State University, explicitly including private- public sector partnerships as part of a plan to build resilience has been an effective means of creating a focus necessary to build resilience at the state level. Many workshop participants agreed that this could be effective at the federal level as well. It was stated repeatedly throughout the workshop that shifting cultural expectations with respect to resilience could be accomplished if creating a culture of resilience were to become a national priority across all agencies.
