Geriatric Mental Health Disaster and Emergency Preparedness

Chapter 7 Making the Community Plan 129
skills in addition to improving social cohesion, trust, and communication
within a community.
In the first stage of the model, community preparedness efforts provide
emergency preparedness knowledge to community members and organizations;
through discussion and drills in the preparedness planning process,
knowledge translates into applicable skills. In addition to tangible skills,
the process of planning enhances the community ’s social capital and social
support networks. The coordination of efforts among various stakeholders
and engagement with the community creates organizational linkages, extends
social support networks, and strengthens existing network ties at
many levels in the community. With the explicit participation of the local
government, increased synergy between state and society leads to shared
goal setting, improved trust, and social cohesion in a community. The community
networking prompted by community preparedness planning leads
to the actual and perceived availability of support resources in a community,
thereby increasing positive psychological functioning. Through the
development of knowledge, skills, social capital, and social support, community
preparedness efforts lead to community resilience; by planning for
an emergency situation, a community develops and harnesses the adaptive
networked capacities (Norris, et al., 2008) needed for response. In the last
stage of the model, community resilience improves the positive adaptive
functioning and psychological well-being of a community at all times, and
especially in times of crisis.
MAKING A COMMUNITY PLAN
Federal disaster response plans support short-term recovery following a
disaster (FEMA, 2008a), requiring that longer term needs and recovery
be assessed and met by the community itself. The development of shared
goals, articulated roles, and preparedness resources at the local level is imperative
for positive community functioning following a disaster. At their
core, community preparedness efforts are a public health intervention; by
building and strengthening ties among those from whom disaster response
and recovery will be expected, community resilience and capacity will improve,
leading to better community health.
The following recommendations outline several ways in which community
preparedness can be established through partnership with the