Session Description: 

The field trip will provide attending delegates with an opportunity to view the project and gain insight from the guides on the processes behind the project delivery. 

Project lifecycle will be discussed through the lense of newly completed and operating stage from the perspective of various stakeholders (FRV - Technical and operations), Metro Trains Project Office- project delivery, and Metro Trains Melbourne - Operations and Emergency management. 

Fire Brigade intervention will be a focus from FRV guides in attendance. 

The field trip would focus on a select component of the infrastructure being a portal building and the Town Hall station. Some limited back of house access would be provided under supervision of Metro rail.

*This workshop includes catered morning tea and lunch. 

Hosted by:

Session Description: 

This interactive workshop will focus on bridging research and practice in disaster recovery. It will include multiple presentations, problem-solving through a recovery scenario, and identification of ways we can incorporate the last 50 years of research on recovery into practice. Together, these activities will increase understandings of the problems we may encounter when working in disaster recovery and ways of addressing them. There will be a particular focus on the ‘thorny’ problems in disaster recovery that are not straightforward to solve.

The session will be led by Dr Kate Brady, alongside guest contributors invited by AIDR for their deep expertise in recovery and community impacts. The workshop will include a mix of presentations, interactive exercises, breakout groups, and whole of group discussions.

There will be scheduled breaks for morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea. These times will be catered and will provide opportunities for delegates to network and collaborate.

Delegates who attend this session will:

• Gain an in depth understanding of key principles of disaster recovery
• Understand interconnected disaster impacts that are relevant to working in recovery
• Increase capacity to understand and work with others in multi-stakeholder recovery environments
• Have the opportunity to network with delegates with similar interest in disaster recovery and collaboration to build resilience and reduce disaster risk
• Understand ways of addressing ‘thorny’ issues in disaster recovery in cascading and compounding disasters
• Build cross sector networks through structured collaboration and informal networking breaks.

hosted by:

Session Description:

Disaster risk is often seen as the result of individual events, but in reality, it is shaped by interconnected systems, drivers and decisions over time. This full-day workshop invites participants to unpack how disaster risk is created, and what can be done to reduce it in practice.

Rather than a traditional “teaching” session, this workshop is designed as a shared learning experience. Participants will bring their own knowledge, professional experience, lived experience and perspectives into the room. Building on discussions and reflections from across the conference, the workshop will create an opportunity to collectively unpack disaster risk, explore different ways of understanding it, and learn from one another. 

Facilitated by the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience (AIDR), with guest contributor Professor JC Gaillard (Ahorangi o te Matawhenua, Professor of Geography, Waipapa Taumata Rau / The University of Auckland), the workshop will explore core disaster risk reduction (DRR) concepts and introduce practical tools that can be applied across different contexts. Participants will work together to examine how hazards, exposure, vulnerability and capacity combine to shape risk, and how disasters emerge over time rather than in isolation.

The session will draw on Australian and international frameworks, including the National Disaster Risk Reduction Framework, and Action Plan, and explore how these can support practice. Participants will also use tools such as the Pressure and Release (PAR) model to unpack how risk is driven by underlying systems such as planning, governance, inequality and broader social and environmental factors.

Participants will leave with practical tools and approaches they have worked through during the workshop, insights gained from the experiences of others, and increased confidence to apply DRR thinking within their work, organisations and communities

hosted by:

Session Description:

Emergency service personnel dedicate their lives to protecting communities, often working in high-pressure environments characterised by trauma exposure, operational fatigue, critical decision-making and increasing psychosocial risks. As the challenges facing our sector continue to evolve, so too must our approaches to supporting the mental health and wellbeing of our people.

The ESF Mental Health Showcase brings together leaders, wellbeing practitioners, peers, chaplains, researchers and decision-makers from across Australia's emergency services sector to explore emerging evidence, innovative programs and practical solutions that are improving mental health outcomes for first responders, volunteers and their families.

This national event will feature thought-provoking presentations, leading practice case studies addressing some of the most pressing issues facing the sector today, including psychosocial safety, suicide prevention, neuroinclusion, family wellbeing, deployment support, return to work outcomes, and family violence.

Participants will gain valuable insights into evidence-informed approaches, hear from leading experts and sector peers, and engage in meaningful discussions about the future of mental health and wellbeing in emergency services.

Whether you are responsible for workforce wellbeing, health and safety, people and culture, operational leadership or service delivery, the ESF Mental Health Showcase provides a unique opportunity to learn, connect and collaborate with colleagues from across the country.

Join us as we explore new ideas, share lessons learned and work together to create safer, healthier and more sustainable emergency service workforces.

Session Description: 

In this workshop we introduce the AFAC National Operational Guidelines on Decision Making and explore how individuals and agencies can use them to improve operational decision making; create more consistent doctrine and training resources; and support a common language to describe, discuss and review decision making practices. The workshop introduces a new model of expert decision making for incident and emergency management (the IEM-DM model) based on more than 70 years of peer-reviewed empirical research. The IEM-DM model, developed through an NHRA funded research project, explains the process of decision making based on the science of how the brain works. Workshop participants will have the opportunity to participate in decision making training based on this model. The IEM-DM model also provides an overarching framework to understand other models of decision making that are in use in incident and emergency management. We will discuss models of decision making used by participants and consider them in the context of the broader framework provided by the IEM-DM model. Finally, we will consider agencies operational doctrine on decision making and explore how this can be complemented by the ‘plug and play’ Figures and Statements supplied in the guidelines.

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Session Description: 

The Emergency Management Spatial Information Network Australia(EMSINA) have an annual workplan task to set standards, enhance and build awareness of spatial data and its applications in emergency management. 

 Some of the themes we can explore in the PDP are,  

• How can we leverage AI and machine learning for real time insights; 

• How can spatial technologies be integrated across different levels of emergency response and recovery; 

• How can we adapt best practice technologies across Australia and New Zealand; 

• How best to use technology to improve information flow at all levels of response and recovery?  

Spatial Information technologies comprise a range of disciplines which come together to provide valuable input across the Emergency Management sector. More commonly referred to as ‘mapping’, but definitely not just about making maps. Spatial Sciences are at the heart of dispatching, resource allocation, warnings, pre-incident planning, incident statistical reporting, fire & flood modelling, remote sensing, plume modelling, impact assessment, smart devices, artificial intelligence and field mapping - all key decision support areas in emergency management.  

Through presentations, lightning talks and facilitated discussions, EMSINA will present examples of the use of Geospatial intelligence from our Emergency Service Organisations and Government agencies from across Australia along with some of the major vendors of location technologies.  We will hear about the latest applications and tools that drive data driven decision making, trends and most importantly we will focus on what the future holds in the ever-increasing appetite for Geospatial intelligence in modern digital solutions. This program is coordinated by the Emergency Management Spatial Information Network Australia (EMSINA). 

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