John Gilbert won the EMPA Research Award this week
Ensuring that research is embedded into practice at CFA isn’t straightforward, but CFA Program Manager Research and Evaluation John Gilbert has been working with Dr Ken Strahan to do just that.
John and Ken carried out research, funded through Safer Together, to help us understand the most effective ways to apply the self-evacuation archetype lens to our community engagement approaches. Read more about this research.
This week John and Ken won the EMPA Research Award at the Emergency Media and Public Affairs Conference held in Sydney. The award recognises research that advances emergency communication by improving community preparedness and/or resilience and increasing the effectiveness of communication during an emergency response.
“The archetypes are a really good example of how CFA is using research to enhance our community safety approaches,” John said.
“Ken’s research highlights the importance of adapting our approaches to better meet the needs of individuals in communities. Developing practical tools and training to enable this is central to our work.
“The archetypes video has become a vital component of how we build awareness and understanding at CFA about the research. It's opening doors to work with teams both at headquarters and in the regions, helping us embed the research,” John added.
“The response has been fantastic. We're receiving interest now from interstate and internationally. We recently presented the research at the sixth Human Dimensions of Wildland Fire Conference.
“It’s gratifying to receive this recognition and it highlights the high quality and innovative work being done at CFA. It’s essential that evidence-based research is used to underpin our programs and services.”
| Submitted by |
Martin Anderson |