CRITICAL REVIEW JOURNAL

by
Galuh Pasha Balqis Ramadhanty
08211840000034
Social System and Demography – EMI Class

Title: Implementing ‘community development’ in a post-disaster situation

Writers: Ruth Webber and Kate Jones
Year: 2012

Source: Springer

On 7 February 2009, there was an extremely severe bushfires in Victoria, Australia.

After the fire, both government and non-government organizations implemented recovery
programmes. While the government programmes were about rebuilding the physical
infrastructure, the non-government organizations were about the emotional and
psychological well-being of individuals and communities. Among the non-government
agencies were Centacare Gippsland, Centacare Melbourne, and Centacare Sandhurst.
Each was attached to a Catholic diocese or archdiocese. The main services were family
and relationship services, counselling, marriage and relationship education, employee
assistance programmes, and alcohol and drug family services. One of the major
underlying principles of these three Centacares bushfire recovery response was ‘to
develop a sustainable community development response that leaves the affected
communities in better shape after the bushfire recovery than they were in prior to the
fires’.
A needs analysis was conducted to determine what the Bushfire Recovery Service
could offer. There were workers that they specially recruited to represent three
disciplines: counselling, community development, and art. So, not all workers were
concentrate on community development. Different with Red Cross that have guidelines
and protocols, the Centacares did not have post-disaster protocols or established teams
to undertake community development. By not having a clear and common view of what
constituted community development, the workers interpret their roles as they saw fit, so
the workers had difficulty clearly articulating the link between concepts and what they
were actually doing.
The bushfire teams and the analysis revealed that workers adopted four roles:
provider, facilitator, ally, and advocate. The provider role played in the early stages of
the recovery period by supplying practical assistance and also distributing new and
secondhand goods. But this kind of ‘help’ was not always well received. Survivors wanted
either vouchers or cash to purchase white goods, and they resented being given
secondhand goods and clothes, some of which were in poor condition. Also, many
survivors were avoiding contact with ‘helpers’ from outside their community. First is
because they had not encountered social workers before, nor asked for assistance.
Second, some survivors felt guilty because they thought that there were people who were
worse off were who should be attended to first. And third, some were busy trying to re-
establish their farms. In this context, it was decided that a different approach was
warranted and ‘farm gate’ was established. This involved workers visiting survivors at
their properties and providing practical support, in addition to listening to and responding
people’s stories about the fires. The decline of ‘farm gate’ was partly due to people already
having bushfire case managers after two years. In addition, survivors wanted to put their
grief behind them. On facilitator role, the main focus are bringing people together, aiding
the organizational process, and acting as objective observers. The Centacares took a lead
in organizing fun activities. But in the early 2011, the community no longer welcomed
having predominantly outsiders organize outings. The community indicated that they no
longer needed Centacare workers to organize for them, they wanted to regain control.
The other programmes are providing qualified trades people to carry out work that ranged
from fencing and tree felling to carpentry and rebuilding tasks and also providing firewood
for the families in the winter. These programmes become initiatives to employed local
people to work on its projects, including cleaning up property, repairing buildings, and
offering advice and referrals to other services. The extent to which workers acted as
facilitators depended on how lacked community cohesion prior to the fires, appeared to
need more input from members of the team. Ally role adopted because the Centacares
recognized that residents need to be actively involved in re-building their community. In
this phase, it was difficult to decide whether to classify some as a facilitator role or an
ally role because they changed over time or did not fit neatly into either category. Mainly
this happened to the workers who employed as artists. Arts projects undertaken in fire-
affected communities helped the healing process. But there were always arguments
between community members about which projects should be supported, also arguments
when a community committee had endorsed a project, members wanted to see action
immediately. Centacare agencies more able to get projects approved relatively quickly
because their funding was not tied to government programmes. But, not every project
received the community support because the initiatives were commenced without full
consultation with the target group. As time goes by, the workers began working
relationships with local and state government representatives. This provided an
environment that was conductive to raising issues that were of concern to communities
and enabled workers to advocate on their behalf. So at this time, they were adopting
advocate role. It was challenging because of the competing interest of various community
sectors disputes between competing groups. In this project, the workers assisted the
community to set up meetings with key players, assisted in the writing of submissions,
and advocated with the various players on their behalf. To increase the likehood that
future projects would get off the ground, the Centacares applied for short-term funding
from state and local government to get local projects established.
Workers encountered many challenges, which may explain the high turnover of
staff in the initial phases. They reported experiencing vicarious trauma as they listened
the survivors’ stories and saw the level of destruction. Those who work in a disaster area
require specialized training and effective supervision, because the work requirements
were often unpredictable and varied from day-to-day and between communities. And,
workers were required to solve complex problems which they had not previously
confronted.
While it is acknowledged that some projects will not continue because the funding
has ceased, The Centacares have formed relationships that have led to cooperative
ventures with the community and that provide a platform from which apply for grants for
other projects in the future. This is a positive outcome for the agencies to develop
guidelines that will enable them to respond to future disasters.
This journal is interesting because the topics are about how the social workers
work in a disaster area. The methods that the workers were using are mentioned clearly
and easy to understand. It also mentioned where the programmes’ fund is coming from.
And the thing I like the most about this journal is, it also written some insights that made
the readers easier to interpret. With a good explanation about what happen in the
community, the readers can visualize it effortlessly.
Nevertheless, there are still some points that needs to be addressed. The first one
is about the survivors’ population data such as gender, age, and jobs, were not
mentioned. This thing made the readers can’t interpret why is it hard for Centacares to
approach the survivors in the initial phases because they don’t know the survivors’
background. The factors of failure is important because it can be a consideration for
future disasters, considering each individual and family required a different mix of
assistance and each community had different needs.
It is not clear in the journal about the agreement that was reached from the
meetings between community members and state and local government that the
Centacares has facilitated. If it is not written, the readers will not know how far the
Centacares can help the survivors, how big the Centacares can persuade the community,
and how important the advocate roles is. Because the ideal is to leave the place better
than we found it, and if it just regular meetings without some substantial outcomes, then
the advocate roles was a misstep.
It was rarely mentioned what the Australia government role in this project. In this
journal, it was said that the government were only concerning in rebuilding the physical
infrastructure. This is doubtful because it is impossible for a government to not having
this kind of community development programmes.
My recommendations for the authors are to add the survivors’ population data to
know is the Centacares’ methods was the best approach that can be applied to the
community. The second one is to state clearly the agreement from the meetings between
community members and state and local government, so the readers can see the impact
from the meetings. Also the third one, it is still questionable why the government is not
fully involved in this programmes.