Resilience — doing well despite of adversity

The presented paper will describe an evaluation model based on one severely flooded community in Germany. Thus, the model tries to identify potential access-points to improve preparedness, prevention and intervention.

The ‘OH-CHAMPSS’ model is an extension of the previous CHAMPSS (Communication, Housing, Awareness, Mobility/transportation, Psycho-social support, Self-care and Safety/Security) model (EnRICH Enhancing Resilience and Capacity for Health-Project, [1]). The aspects Organization and Human factors (OH) are added to account for the complex interplay between security measures and existing community dynamics. The methodology uses qualitative media and interview analyses such as GABEK WinRelan and quantitative analyses of mental health screening data like Personal Health Questionnaire (PHQ). The approach has been developed as part of the PsyCris project (2013) and considers a definition of individual resilience [2] as well as the [3] definition of disaster and community resilience.

With psycho-social support being a crucial part of crisis management, such dynamics need to be understood and managed in order to sustain security and increase resilience not only in the acute phase but also for the intermediate and long-term phases of disasters.