Recovery
What is Recovery?
Recovery – the support of emergency affected communities in the reconstruction and restoration of physical infrastructure, the environment and community, psychosocial and economic wellbeing (s. 3(d)
Emergency Management Act 2005 (EM Act)).
What is the Role of State Recovery?
State Recovery is part of the Resilience and Recovery Directorate within the Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES).
State Recovery leads Western Australia's responsibility for State-level disaster recovery. Two key strategic goals are:
- to enhance the level of recovery capability at the State and local level; and
- to provide coordinated recovery support to emergency affected communities.
The State Recovery Team supports a whole-of-government approach to recovery preparation and the operation of State-level recovery for short to medium term recovery coordination, when required.
- The
State Recovery Coordinator is the primary point of contact for level 3 incidents.
- The
Deputy State Recovery Coordinator is the primary contact for level 2 incidents.
Recovery Objectives
The objectives of recovery activities are to:
- assist recovery across four environments:
-
social environment;
-
built environment;
-
economic environment; and
-
natural environment;
- ensure that recovery activities are community-led;
- ensure that available government and non-government support to affected communities is targeted;
- assist communities to rebuild in a way that enhances social, economic and environmental values where possible, improve resilience of the relevant communities; and
- ensure that lessons learnt through the recovery process are captured and available to managers of future recovery processes (Tasmanian Bushfire Programs for Recovery, January 2013).
National Principles for Disaster Recovery
The State's recovery activities are guided by the
National Principles for Disaster Recovery. Successful recovery relies on the following six principles:
- Understand the
CONTEXT: understanding that each community has its own context of history, values and dynamics;
- Recognise
COMPLEXITY: successful recovery is responsive to the complex and dynamic nature of both emergencies and the community;
- Use
COMMUNITY-LED approaches: empowering the community to develop its own recovery initiatives and programs helps speed recovery;
-
CO-ORDINATE all activities: recovery requires a planned, coordinated and adaptive approach, between community and partner agencies;
-
COMMUNICATE effectively: successful recovery is built on effective communication between the affected community and other partners; and
- Recognise and build
CAPACITY: successful recovery recognises and builds on individual, community and organisational capacity and resilience.
