"Resilient Recovery: toward improving the circumstances of socially vulnerable populations"
This presentation will consider the concept of resilience as experienced by socially vulnerable populations including low-income households, single parents, children and the elderly, women and girls, people with disabilities, families in developing nations, and racial and ethnic groups. Various strategies that have been attempted to improve the resilience of socially vulnerable populations will be presented. Relocation of affected populations will serve as a primary focus of the talk, particularly why socially vulnerable populations tend to resist alternate, safer sites. Ideas for empowering those at risk to participate during the recovery process will be presented as a means to increase resilience.
At the heart of the presentation will be the idea that “locals know best” what works for them and their community, a principle that recovery organizations must take into consideration when moving into a disaster-affected community.
Brenda Phillips, Ph.D., is the Associate Dean and Professor of Sociology at Ohio University in Chillicothe, in the United States. She is an author of Disaster Recovery, Introduction to Emergency Management, Qualitative Disaster Research and Mennonite Disaster Service: Building a Therapeutic Community after the Gulf Coast Storms. She co-edited Social Vulnerability to Disasters and Women and Disasters. Her research can be found in the International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, Disaster Prevention, Disasters, Humanity and Society, the Journal of Emergency Management, Natural Hazards Review, and Environmental Hazards.
Dr. Phillips has been invited to teach, consult, or lecture in New Zealand, Australia, Germany, India, the United Kingdom, Costa Rica, Mexico, Canada, Venezuela, El Salvador, and the People’s Republic of China.
Dr. Phillips has earned the Blanchard Award for excellence in emergency management education and the Myers Award for work on the effects of disasters on women.