MEMBERS of Victoria\u2019s regional peak body for community health are advocating to build greater disaster preparedness initiatives with support from the State Government.<\/p>\n
The chief executives behind the Alliance of Rural and Regional Community Health, which bands together 11 regional community health services, are looking to establish resilience and recovery programs and disaster recovery core teams.<\/p>\n
The group\u2019s representatives are aiming for the programs to be funded for all member community health services, that cover more than 80 per cent of Victoria.<\/p>\n
ARRCH executive member and Grampians Community Health CEO Greg Little has previously worked in disaster recovery for local government.<\/p>\n
He said the services already in place with community health organisations makes them ideal to deliver disaster relief.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe provide wrap-around services based on the social determinants, whether that is for homelessness, alcohol and other drugs, family violence support, counselling, aged care or physical and mental health,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese services already exist in community health so we wouldn\u2019t be creating something new when a natural disaster occurs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can achieve better responses and better outcomes for people\u2019s health if disaster recovery sits within community health.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you just have money to react to emergencies instead of building capacity and resilience, you won\u2019t get the best outcomes.\u201d<\/p>\n
ARRCH services Gippsland Lakes Complete Health, Gateway Health, and Northern District Community Health are trialling programs for the initiative, with the latter collaborating with Melbourne University.<\/p>\n
Local governments and other departments as well as Community Health First have also been enlisted to help advocate for funding.<\/p>\n
Mr Little said giving community health services dedicated resources towards disaster relief will make for stronger, more resilient responses.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen our preventative health teams start working in the emergency management space, we\u2019re building resilience in people and connection to existing local services,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver the past 20 years, every time there has been a natural disaster, community health has been called on to ramp up, but then nothing happens for a while, councils focus on their day-to-day work and other agencies leave the area but that yo-yoing doesn\u2019t give the community any value and doesn\u2019t create resilience.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MEMBERS of Victoria\u2019s regional peak body for community health are advocating to build greater disaster preparedness initiatives with support from the State Government. The chief executives behind the Alliance of Rural and Regional Community Health, which bands together 11 regional community health services, are looking to establish resilience and recovery programs and disaster recovery core […]<\/p>\n