Quarterly series

Spotlight Series webinars

Name: Spotlight Series webinars
Start: 2025-06-25
End: 2025-06-25
Location: National

Showcasing emerging knowledge, research and issues in disaster risk reduction

A responsive series to help us navigate the changing landscape

The purpose of this series is to provide an informative, welcoming and inclusive forum for conversations about emerging issues in disaster risk reduction and disaster resilience. We hope these webinars will support practitioners to be informed, build knowledge and skills, and to identify sound evidence to support effective planning and practice.

This series also provides a platform for AIDR and NEMA to respond to feedback from stakeholders, particularly suggestions for topics and content participants would like to see.

Webinars will be one hour long, with a feature topic and time for discussion and questions at the end. Look out for new webinars as they are developed and added to the events calendar

Webinar 5 - Avian Influenza: Implications for community resilience

Tuesday 10 November 2026, 1.00pm-2.00pm (AEDT)

What could an avian influenza outbreak mean for communities, beyond its immediate impacts on birds and wildlife?

Avian influenza has the potential to affect much more than birds and wildlife. Its impacts can extend across livelihoods, culture and wellbeing, creating broader challenges that require planning and preparedness across a range of sectors.

This AIDR Spotlight webinar will explore avian influenza through a community resilience lens. Hear from experts about what avian influenza is, the current situation in Australia, and the broader implications organisations may need to consider, including the potential social and psychosocial impacts on communities.

The session will support local government, community and social service organisations, health networks, emergency management practitioners and others involved in community resilience to better understand the potential impacts and consider how they can prepare for and support communities.

Presenters:

Dr Beth Cookson
Australian Chief Veterinary Officer, Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Government of Australia

Liam Naco
Principle Project Officer, Community Resilience, Preventative Health SA

Andrew Brick
Manager - Regulatory Services, Mornington Peninsula Shire Council

Hosts:

John Richardson
Executive Director, Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience (AIDR)

Dr Mayeda Rashid
Manager Capability Development and Engagement, Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience (AIDR)

Spotlight Series webinar resources

Includes webinar notes, speaker information, recordings and additional resources

Previous webinars

Webinar 4 - Food security and disaster risk reduction

1pm-2pm AEDT, Wednesday 24 June 2026

Food security is a critical but often underexplored dimension of disaster risk reduction, shaped not only by supply chains but also by social, economic and community systems that influence people’s access to safe, nutritious food. This webinar will explore how disasters affect food security across these interconnected systems, from local community impacts through to national coordination.

The webinar will consider how risks emerge and compound, particularly for vulnerable communities, and how different actors work together to strengthen resilience before, during and after disasters.

We will hear from Dr Nick Rose and Mia Cox at Sustain: The Australian Food Network, who will share insights on community-led and systems-based approaches to building more resilient and equitable food systems. A representative from the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) will provide an overview of the National Coordination Mechanism (NCM) and its role in supporting coordinated national responses to disruptions that affect critical systems, including food.

This session is designed for practitioners and decision-makers across emergency management, government organisations, community sectors, as well as researchers, who are interested in integrating food security into disaster risk reduction planning and practice.

Presenters:

Mia Cox
Senior Projects Officer, Sustain: the Australian Food Network

Mia is the Senior Projects Officer at Sustain and has 12 years’ experience working in community development in both not-for-profit and local government settings. Mia brings skills in community and stakeholder engagemet, place-based community building, sector development, strategic planning and policy development. She has a Bachelor of Development Studies and Indonesian Language & Studies (UNSW).

Dr Nick Rose
Co-founder and Executive Director, Sustain: the Australian Food Network

Nick is a visionary leader dedicated to transforming food systems. As a food systems educator, a Churchill Fellow, editor of two food movement anthologies and established researcher, Nick brings a wealth of knowledge to Sustain. Recognised as one of Australia’s leading champions of sustainable food systems, Nick’s expertise has been a driving force behind Sustain’s impactful initiatives, positioning it at the forefront of food system innovation and sustainability.

Rachel Montgomery
Director, National Coordination Mechanism Operations, National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA)

Rachel is a stakeholder engagement specialist with more than 20 years’ experience in the Australian and UK public services. Rachel has led the National Coordination Mechanism (NCM) Operations team in NEMA since 2022, delivering national crisis coordination on behalf of the Australian Government. Rachel’s team supports crisis response from within the National Emergency Management Agency as part of Crisis Coordination Teams, as well as supporting other government agencies and organisations to coordinate, communicate and collaborate before, during and after crisis events.

Rachel’s work is founded on a combination of secretariat support, data management and stakeholder engagement activity that together ensures the NCM can manage the consequences of any hazard. She and her team also work to develop capability across government to enable other organisations to coordinate responses to complex national crises.

Host:

Katelyn Samson
Deputy Director, Resilience and Risk Reduction, Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience (AIDR)

Webinar recording and slides:

Webinar resources:

For more links, see the Webinar Chat Summary

Webinar 3 - Long term disaster impacts on education outcomes

1pm-2pm AEDT, Wednesday 1 April 2026

Disasters can disrupt learning long after the immediate impacts have passed, with lasting consequences for individuals, communities and society.

This webinar explores how disasters and climate extremes affect education outcomes, and why this is an important but often overlooked consideration in disaster risk reduction, resilience and recovery.

Speakers from the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth (ARACY), the University of Melbourne and RMIT University will draw on evidence from bushfires, COVID‑19 and extreme heat to highlight the longer‑term and systemic impacts of disasters on learning.

The webinar will support practitioners to broaden how disaster impacts are understood and consider education outcomes as part of long‑term resilience and recovery planning.

Presenters:

Konstantina Vasilakopoulou
Vice Chancellor's Research Fellow, RMIT

Konstantina is an architect with a Masters in Light and Lighting and a PhD in Chemical and Environmental Engineering. She has worked as an architect and sustainability expert for more than 15 years, and as a research‑focused academic at the National Kapodistrian University of Athens and at the School of the Built Environment, Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture, UNSW Sydney, where she led the Home Modification Information Clearinghouse and the Liveability Lab. She is currently a Vice‑Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow at RMIT University.

Konstantina is passionate about sustainability and healthy environments and brings extensive industry knowledge on the impacts of the built environment on wellbeing, sustainable design, and architecture, with a strong focus on the inclusivity of vulnerable populations.

Professor Lisa Gibbs
Director of the Disaster, Climate and Adversity Unit in Melbourne School of Population and Global Health at the University of Melbourne

Lisa's research focuses on disaster recovery and resilience, including the experiences of children and school communities. She works in partnership with communities, educators, government agencies and disaster recovery workers to co-develop evidence-based resources that guide disaster recovery policies and service delivery in Australia and internationally.

Alisha Chand
Principal Partnership Manager - Disaster Resilience and Country, Queensland Kids Partnership

Alisha is based in Townsville and has a long history of leading partnership initiatives across health and social sectors. She brings deep, practice‑informed experience in co‑design, strategic project leadership, and place‑based learning.

With broad experience working alongside Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, and having lived and worked in rural, remote, and regional areas, Alisha’s collaborative approach is centred on listening to local insights to guide approaches that amplify impact for people and place.

Most recently, Alisha led the Commissioning Improvements Initiative at the Northern Queensland Public Health Network (PHN), and co‑developed human‑centred design curriculum for undergraduate allied health students at James Cook University.

Dr Sharleen Keleher
Early Childhood Education & Care Infant Mental Health Statewide Coordinator, Qld Centre for Perinatal and Infant Mental Health (QCPIMH), Children's Health Queensland

Sharleen leads the Birdie's Tree Early Learning Program, a disaster resilience and recovery initiative for early childhood education and care services. Sharleen holds a PhD in Education, with a focus on professional learning in early childhood disaster resilience, and brings extensive expertise in trauma-informed, strengths-based workforce development at the intersection of infant mental health, early childhood education, and disaster recovery. The Birdie's Tree program received the Resilient Australia National Award in 2020.

Sharleen's work spans research translation, cross-sector partnership, and national policy engagement, including membership on the National Infant and Child Disaster Advisory Committee and the Disaster Resilience Education Strategy Group.

Host:

John Richardson
Executive Director, Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience (AIDR)

Webinar recording:

Webinar resources:

Webinar 2 - Do governments trust communities? How to build and maintain trust in the age of grievance and disinformation

1pm-2pm AEDT, Tuesday 28 October 2025

This presentation explores the evolving dynamics of trust between governments and communities, drawing on two key reports from the Centre for Resilient and Inclusive Societies. The 2024 report Do Governments Trust Communities reveals that trust is not a static attribute but a relational flow—shaped by behaviours such as openness, accountability, and reciprocity. It highlights the under-examined question of whether governments trust communities, and how this affects co-design and policy legitimacy.

Building on these insights, the 2025 Removing Barriers to Trust Building report proposes four actionable strategies: simplifying access to government systems, investing in community capability, training officials in trust-building, and establishing a Trust Lab to embed innovation. Together, these findings underscore the urgent need for governments to move beyond transactional engagement and foster sustained, respectful partnerships—especially in an era marked by grievance narratives and disinformation.

The presentation will offer practical guidance for policymakers and practitioners seeking to rebuild trust through inclusive processes and resilient relationships. It invites reflection on how trust can be mobilised as a form of social capital to counter fragmentation and strengthen democratic cohesion.

Guest Speaker:

Mark Duckworth PSM FIPAA (Vic)
Co-Director of the Centre for Resilient and Inclusive Societies (CRIS), Senior Research Fellow at the Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, and Senior Political Advisor to the Faculty of Health at Deakin University.

Mark's current research focus is on building resilience to social harms, disaster resilience, co-design and strategies for trust-building between government and communities.

Before joining Deakin University in 2019 he had more than 30 years’ experience in the Victorian and New South Wales public sectors leading significant policy and legislative reform initiatives on intergovernmental relations, multicultural affairs, veterans’ affairs, public administration, countering violent extremism, counter terrorism, emergency management and community resilience.

Mark is currently a Member of the Victorian Government Expert Advisory Committee on Countering Violent Extremism. He was a Member of the 2025 Victorian Government’s Multicultural Review which drafted the recently released Report “Rebuilding Trust for a Multicultural Victoria”.

Mark has held many senior executive roles in government including as Executive Director of Governance, Security, and Intergovernmental Relations and as Chief Resilience Officer in the Victorian Department of Premier and Cabinet. He was Chair of Victoria’s State Crisis and Resilience Council’s Risk and Resilience subcommittee (2013-19); Chair, Victorian Government Expert Reference Group for the Research Institute on Social Cohesion (2015-18); and a Member of Victoria’s Social Cohesion and Community Resilience Taskforce (2016-2018).

He previously worked at the NSW Cabinet Office, the Sydney University Law School and the Victorian Law Reform Commission. In 2022 he was appointed as a Victorian Fellow of the Institute of Public Administration Australia (IPAA).

Hosts:

John Richardson
Executive Director, Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience (AIDR)

Mayeda Rashid
Manager Capability Development and Engagement,
Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience (AIDR)

Webinar recording:

Webinar resources:

Webinar 1 - Disinformation in disasters

1pm-2pm, Wednesday 25 June 2025

This webinar will focus on the rapidly evolving area of disinformation response as it relates to disasters

Disinformation has rapidly become a defining challenge of this era. Increasingly, disasters are being used as lighting rods for disinformation, with significant implications for immediate response efforts, individual safety, and collective recovery. This webinar will present practical learnings from the 2024 Disinformation in the City Response Playbook, applied to the context of disasters.

Guest Speaker:

Ika Trijsburg
Director Urban Analytics, ANU Institute for Infrastructure in Society

Ika Trijsburg draws on diverse sector expertise to address complex challenges to democracy. She leads the Disinformation in the City project across five Australian universities, and was lead author of the world first Disinformation in the City Response Playbook in 2024.

Ika is Director of Urban Analytics at the ANU Institute for Infrastructure in Society in the Crawford School for Public Policy and Head of Democracy and Diplomacy at Municipal Association of Victoria. She also holds positions with the German Marshall Fund of the United States and the Initiative for Peacebuilding at the University of Melbourne. She has provided policy guidance to key actors globally including cities, national governments, G7 RRM, Council of Europe and UN-HABITAT.

Host:

John Richardson
Executive Director, Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience

Webinar recording:

Webinar resources:

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