Disaster Education, Communication and Engagement (ECE) – an introduction

 

Like the Three Musketeers (“All for one and one for All”), disaster ‘Education’, ‘Communication’ and ‘Engagement’ (ECE) work best as one. Although this may appear obvious to many in disaster management, in some emergency agencies around the world the three can be in different divisions of the organisation, and not necessarily working as one in a seamless fashion for public safety.

Let us explore the personalities of the ECE trio, and then look at why they work best as one.

Disaster education

Education is the process of facilitating learning. There are only a handful of research books on disaster education, although it is mainstream in many emergency agencies and humanitarian organisations. In one of these books, Professor John Preston states “there is surprisingly little writing in the field of disaster education/pedagogy”. He feels this is largely due to disaster education being a “new area of enquiry in the field of education”. Preston believes that disaster education, rather than only giving instruction, “engages individuals in learning about emergency situations whether in preparation, response or recovery from a disaster”.

In another book, the editors – Shaw, Shiwaku and Takeuchi – also acknowledge that “disaster education is an evolving subject. New ideas, methods, and tools will be generated over time”. The book divides disaster education into three modes:

1. Formal education – education provided in the system of schools, colleges, universities and other formal educational institutions. For example, sections of a curriculum that includes content on hazards, preparedness and safety.
2. Non-formal education – organised and sustained educational activities that are not part of the formal curricula of the education institutions, and can cater to persons of all ages. For example, presentations by emergency agencies to the public or schools (extra-curricular).
3. Informal education – from daily activities related to work, family life or leisure, where the learning is not structured, e.g. learning about emergencies from the media including social media.

The above classification helps dispel the view held by some that disaster education is solely learning in formal settings e.g. school education.

Disaster communication

Communication is the act of transferring information from one place to another. It can denote two different processes:

1. the transmission of information (a one-way process)
2. sharing information (a common or mutual process).

Both processes are included in current emergency communication strategies.

In disaster management, the transmission model (one-way process) is primarily used where there is information disseminated by emergency agencies for alerts and warnings. In contrast, the idea of sharing information implies a common or mutual process. The use of social media as an emergency communication tool inherently involves two-way information sharing.

Disaster communication has developed in two parts in relation to the ‘disaster cycle’:

1. Risk communication. Seeks to inform people about a potential future harm and the associated dangers so that they might take action to mitigate the risk. It relates to the ‘mitigation’ and ‘preparedness’ part of the disaster cycle.
2. Crisis communication. Focusses on communication during an event (‘response’ phase) and as part of ‘recovery’.

Another categorisation of disaster communication relates to the length of the communication period. ‘Acute’ communication occurs during emergencies where there is a need for rapid dissemination of lifeline information. On the other hand, ‘long term’ communication occurs over an extended period prior to and after emergency events or disasters e.g. disaster risk reduction, post-disaster reconstruction.

Disaster engagement

There is no commonly agreed definition of community engagement and the term is often used interchangeably with a number of other concepts such as consultation, participation, collaboration and empowerment, all of which are related to community engagement but do not capture all aspects of the concept.

A critical part of engagement is two-way dialogue that proactively seeks out community values, concerns and aspirations.

There are several approaches to community engagement. One approach that is universally supported is that based on the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) Spectrum. The IAP2 Spectrum depicts community engagement as a continuum, ranging from low-level engagement strategies such as consultation to high-level strategies such as empowerment.

One key point to note about this continuum is where the power lies at each of the five levels in the Spectrum. In the first three levels – ‘inform’, ‘consult’, ‘involve’ – the final decisions rest with the professionals e.g. emergency agencies, while in the fifth level power (‘empower’) it has been transferred completely to the consumers or citizens. Only at the fourth level (‘collaboration’) is there a genuine sharing of power.

The IAP2 Spectrum provides guidance on the types of activities that are appropriate for each level of engagement. The Spectrum has been incorporated into some disaster engagement guides such as Australia’s National Disaster Resilience Community Engagement Framework.

The triumvirate

From the above, the following five observations in favour of disaster ECE are made:

1. Each of the three have strong attributes which all need to be recognised and garnered by those involved in disaster management. For instance, education is geared to achieving learning outcomes, communication is about sharing accurate and tailored information, and engagement enables community dialogue and decision-making.
2. There are strong theoretical linkages between education, communications and engagement. For example, ‘social learning’, a domain of education, is similar in intent and implementation to ‘engagement’. The first two steps of engagement in the IAP2 Spectrum – ‘inform’ and ‘consult’ – are the same as one-way and two-way communication. Part of the cognitive learning domain in education involves the ability to critical analyse information from communication.
3. In reality, the lines of demarcation between the three are blurred in disaster management initiatives. For example, a community event (e.g. field day, agricultural show, meet the street, community drill) designed by an emergency agency for community preparedness may have elements of all three e.g. provision of preparedness information including pre-advertising (communication), dialogue relating to possible issues and barriers to preparedness (engagement) and learning designed to make safe decisions in an emergency (education). Most public safety plans prepared by emergency agencies have elements of all three, although they are usually tagged with the name of one of them.
4. For most of the disaster cycle, the ECE triumvirate should be in place and working seamlessly to their individual and cumulative strengths. However, if there is little warning time prior to an emergency event (e.g. earthquake, flash flood) then one-way communication in the form of an alert may be the only one of the three that is possible.
5. Ultimately, disaster ECE leads to disaster learning which helps enable individuals and communities manage risk, make safe decisions when an emergency occurs, and recover after the event.

Upcoming posts in this blog will explore and unpack aspects of the disaster ECE triumvirate.