Taking a long view - How community organisations and volunteers transform disaster recovery trajectories in Queensland

Year:
2025
Researcher:
Nikita Sharma, Ella Kuskoff and Cameron Parsell
n.sharma@uq.edu.au
University of Queensland
Entity:
NGO
Hazards:
Cyclone, Fire, Flood
Tags:
Collaboration and coordination, Community engagement, Continuous improvement, People, Enablers, Resilience

At a glance 

  • Community organisations are key partners in disaster recovery support, offering primary assistance that complements formal emergency services.
  • There are difficulties in assessing the impact this service delivery has on disaster-affected communities.
  • This research builds a deeper understanding of how a community organisation in Queensland (Qld) responds to the needs of disaster-affected people and supports their long-term recovery.
  • The key findings hold important lessons across different recovery contexts and reveal continued good practice, and new learnings will lead to improved and more comprehensive disaster assistance strategies and plans within the organisation and more widely.

  • Findings: 

    • Community organisation’s role: the CO provides flexible, multidisciplinary support focused on long-term recovery, especially housing. This approach is essential for social recovery after disasters.

    • Systems collaboration: effective disaster recovery relies on coordination across systems. The CO’s local and organisational connections help maintain support as services shift back to normal operations.

    • Recovery in practice: recovery needs evolve over time. Personalised support, including direct financial transfers, helps maintain dignity and safety. Trust-building and professionalism are key to overcoming stigma and ensuring equitable support.

Introduction 

Despite significant investment in disaster recovery by community organisations (COs), their impact on affected people is not well understood. This is due to difficulties in measuring outcomes, limited documentation, and reliance on institutional knowledge. As a result, COs face challenges such as:

  • Identifying, evaluating and recording what works well and what doesn’t
  • Demonstrating impact to funders
  • Training new staff and volunteers
  • Understanding differences in service quality

This highlights the need to better understand COs’ contributions to improve recovery programs.

COs in Qld play an important role in recovery planning and management. This research focuses on a CO with extensive disaster recovery experience. The CO’s volunteers, in close collaboration with their Disaster Assistance Committee (DAC), support affected people in the aftermath of a disaster. 

Methodology

The study looked at major disasters in Queensland between 2022–2024, including:

  • 2022 SEQ floods
  • 2023 Western Downs bushfires
  • 2023 Cyclone Jasper

Researchers used a qualitative approach to capture the informal, relationship-based, and locally embedded practices that characterise CO’s work. Interviews were conducted with:

  • 12 CO volunteers
  • 4 stakeholders who delivered recovery assistance
  • 11 disaster-affected individuals who received assistance from the CO.

The data was thematically analysed. A systems thinking lens was to recognise the interconnected factors that that affected disaster-affected people and to understand the complex, non-linear nature of recovery.

Findings 

Disaster recovery is a highly complex process. The CO’s recovery support program reveals how important it is to engage affected people to understand their:

  • recovery experiences
  • needs
  • capacity for resilience. 

Empathy and socioemotional support provided after the initial assessment boost hope and optimism.  This support is key to building relationships that ensure services uphold dignity and agency. 
Additionally, it strengthens the resilience of those affected by disasters by setting the stage for long-term engagement. It also lays the groundwork for more tangible recovery, including repairs and housing.  The data highlighted that, while the CO provides swift support following the needs assessment, recovery is often slow and frequently non-linear. 

The main findings from this research are divided into three broad themes:

  • Role of the community organisation - The CO plays a pivotal role in providing multidisciplinary recovery support and adopts a highly responsive, dynamic and needs-based approach. Their focus on long-term recovery enables them to support affected people to repair and rebuild their housing. This is a well-received and valuable approach, as housing reconstruction and material recovery are preconditions for social recovery post-disasters (Tierney & Oliver-Smith, 2012).
  • Work with and within broader systems - Within the broader system, collaboration and coordination are the hallmarks of disaster recovery planning and management. Although challenging to implement in practice, effective communication and feedback loops are important mechanisms for learning and improving service provision over time. The CO’s local connections (through volunteers and grassroot-level interactions) and organisational links are evident in the data, confirming the need to look at the broader context within which the CO operates. For organisations involved in long-term recovery, there are also important considerations in ensuring that those affected are not left without adequate support and essential services as organisations transition back to business-as-usual services.
  • Recovery in practice - People experience evolving and compounded needs post-disasters, underlining the importance of personalised, long-term recovery support. Direct transfers of money to those affected, contractors or tradespeople are not only responsive to a variety of recovery needs but also ensure that people’s safety, health and dignity are not compromised. Additionally, from an organisational perspective, it also enables operational flexibility. Such transfers or transfers with ‘near cash’ benefits must be timely, adequate and equitable. Importantly, shame and stigma can create barriers to help-seeking, emphasising the importance of maintaining high professional standards among volunteers to build trust and create safe, non-judgmental environments.

Takeaways 

The research identified good practice as well as areas for improvement: 

  • The CO’s disaster assistance support services instil a sense of safety, hope, and calm through their initial assessment processes and personal engagement. The use of active and empathetic listening was key to their success.  
  • It is important to manage and set expectations about service delivery and support early in the recovery process.
  • Cash transfers, or direct transfers, to contractors, builders, or tradespeople help preserve dignity and agency by giving people autonomy and empowerment to make choices that support their recovery.
  • Since vulnerability and disaster recovery are interrelated, recovery can take a long time. Affected people must be able to express their evolving recovery needs. Improved collaboration and coordination with government agencies and other stakeholders involved in disaster recovery ensures best resource allocation, avoids gaps in service coverage and enables rapid response in changing conditions.
  • Building a community of practice with other stakeholders that supports understanding, development, validation, and dissemination of best practices could help improve the effectiveness of disaster recovery.
  • Disasters have long-term impacts. Effective recovery restores lives and livelihoods and builds resilience to cope with future disasters. This can be facilitated by bundling different programs together.
  • To improve communication and strengthen recovery, COs could digitise referrals, formalise institutional knowledge and protocols, and develop flexible procedures that maintain oversight and preserve core organisational values.
  • While organisations aim to leverage scarce resources and expertise and synergise activities, opportunities for collaboration, innovation and improvement for COs cannot continue without monetary and non-monetary support from the government. 

Through empathetic, need-focused, long-term engagement, organisations involved in disaster recovery may also boost resilience. An individual’s explanation of how the CO’s support helped them post-disaster in 2022 encapsulates this resilience: 

“They gave me faith, faith in people, faith in community.”

In all, this study enriches the academic and practical discussion by investigating how CO volunteers support disaster-affected people in disaster recovery. It provides deeper insights into Queensland's disaster recovery system, CO’s role in supporting recovery, and what recovery looks like in practice.

Conclusion 

This research shows that the CO’s support for disaster recovery is anything but residual or secondary. CO volunteers actively assist people, who are often marginalised, to rebuild their lives, houses and connections after natural disasters. The empathetic, needs-based, and dynamic approach applied by COs demonstrates that even amid anxiety and anguish, there is hope and optimism. Continued good practice and new learnings will lead to improved and more comprehensive disaster assistance strategies and plans within the CO. 

Read the full paper here. 

References