Community Recovery handbook

 In this edition of #22 for ’22 I look at what is sometimes referred to as the ‘bible’ of disaster recovery in Australia – the AIDR Community Recovery handbook.

If you work for an emergency management organisation or a government department with a disaster focus, chances are this slab of a book was thumped on your desk on your first day as part of your induction (or, you know, someone sent you the link because it’s not 1995 anymore).

But a lot of people who work in recovery (paid and voluntary) are from organisations where emergency management isn’t a core focus of their roles until something happens in their community or affects their clients. For these people, there is no particular reason to know that either the handbook or the Institute itself exists.

The Community Recovery handbook is in its third edition. The magnificent Anne Leadbeater expertly shepherded in the last revision with the support of a panel of people from Australian Red Cross, a range of community service organisations and peak bodies, universities and all levels of government.

The handbook focuses on recovery management in Australia and generally sits at an introductory / overview level of content. It’s an incredibly important resource because it represents the Australian approach to disaster recovery - all states, territories and the Australian government have endorsed it.

The handbook is broken up into four sections:

• Introduction to community recovery

• Policies and principles that support community recovery

• Planning for recovery

• Recovery environments

You can find the AIDR Community Recovery handbook here (or if you want to feel the satisfying thud of it slamming onto your desk you can go old school and order a hard copy here).