Multicultural perspectives in disaster management programs and evaluations
Kate and Lou from team Karrikin, which focusses on projects in disaster management, public health and the environment, attended a Harmony Week webinar on multicultural perspectives on disaster resilience in March. Hosted by Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience (AIDR), the webinar featured a range of speakers from the University of Adelaide, the Ethnic Communities Council of Victoria, and the Red Cross. Speakers shared lessons from their work with multicultural communities in disaster communication, co-design and community engagement in disaster preparedness.
The session explored the structural and contextual factors that can get in the way of effective disaster communication and preparedness efforts and how these can be overcome. Strategies centred around building trust and engagement with multicultural communities before disasters, and co-designing messages and preparedness programs that are relevant, while also ensuring the core information gets out.
Lou is still relatively new to the world of evaluation, so Kate asked Lou what she would do in an evaluation of a community preparedness program, based on the takeaways from the webinar. It’s always great when there are fresh eyes brought to topics in evaluation!
Having attended this webinar, what sorts of questions would you explore in your evaluation of a community preparedness program to make sure you captured multicultural interests?
I would explore:
- How multicultural perspectives were considered in the design and delivery of the program?
- Which cultural groups participated in program activities, and which did not?
- Whether materials or sessions were adapted to meet the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities?
- Whether translators, interpreters or community leaders were involved in the delivery?
- What feedback or suggestions CALD participants have for improving the program?
- How effective the feedback loop with the community was? Were they involved in monitoring the program and providing recommendations for improvements?
What would you now focus on in your evaluation of a community preparedness program?
I would find out the population demographics to understand the various cohorts that make up the particular community being evaluated, to learn who the population is. This helps us better understand the cultural and linguistic backgrounds community members have.
Next, I would use administrative data to understand what activities were delivered, where, and who attended these. This can help identify gaps where program activities were less effective at engaging particular cohorts.
Ideally, I’d want to speak to at least one member of each of the communities who attended the preparedness program, with a larger sample from members from the most highly represented groups. This would help me understand what success for the program might look like from their perspectives.
If there’s a communication element of the program, I’d be looking to understand how that was received and whether it was culturally relevant. The Ethnic Communities’ Council presentation shared community feedback that tone and local specificity in messaging are critical, and I agree that messages are far more engaging when tailored to the audience’s environment and culture.
What would you build into an evaluation approach/methods?
From listening to the speakers and reflecting on my experience supporting a disaster response evaluation, I’ve learned that building trust in the community is fundamental to capturing meaningful community engagement and authentic feedback. This insight would shape every step of my approach.
To ensure community members feel comfortable and respected, I would work with translators or interpreters as needed, so that everyone can participate and express themselves naturally and comfortably. I also believe in transparency: sharing the interview guides or questions with participants ahead of interviews can help interviewees prepare, reflect and perhaps even talk to others in their community to get their thoughts on the questions. This could make the process less intimidating and provides participants with the opportunity to ask for clarification if any questions are unclear.
Capturing diverse voices to understand the whole story and perspectives is also critical. Interviews and smaller focus groups are powerful qualitative data collection methods for gathering people’s perspectives, thoughts and motivations about a particular topic. By including people from different cultural backgrounds, I would aim to identify and include differences in needs and experiences with the program.
After analysing the data, I would return to the community to share the findings and recommendations, ideally through a sensemaking session or workshop. This ‘sense-check’ ensures that the interpretations from the evaluation are accurate and reflect what was shared during interviews. This way, community members can check we’ve understood what they’ve told us, as well as provide additional local context and highlight issues that may not have come up during interviews.
This two-way dialogue can facilitate building trust, ensuring the evaluation is genuinely responsive to the community’s voice.
This was a great session and catalyst for reflection
Attending the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience Harmony Week webinar was a great reminder that building trust and genuinely engaging multicultural communities is fundamental to effective disaster preparedness programs, and to their evaluations! It provided a great opportunity to reflect as team members on how to construct better evaluations for the disaster management sector that capture the insights from the many cultural and linguistic groups that make up Australia’s communities.
