Discuss about the Relief Service Centralized Logistics Distribution.
The rural communities have always been the subject to change and face the natural disaster for decades. The disasters might occur in both rural and urban communities. However, the impact of the disaster on the rural communities is considerable greater than the rural communities due to several reasons. The number of disasters faced by the rural communities is also greater than the urban ones. Besides, the frequencies and intensity have been exacerbated in the recent times due to global warming and the communities are now facing more number with longer periods of bushfire, flood and draught. The prediction of these disasters is more complicated than every due to the uncertainty of the climate change. Modern developing technology is constantly failing in predicting the sudden change in the climate. This make the recovery policy necessary to rapidly cope up and overcome the impact of the disasters. The government and non-government team of social workers had always been into action for the post disaster recovery. However, the competency of these practices has always been in the subject of questioning. The constantly changing policies taken by the government fails to address the issue from a complete perspective. It is because of the limitations of the serviced implement in the post disaster recovery and somewhat for the rural people. The rural men tends to hold back to their assets in order to protect them, mean while, the female tends to flee from the area with the children. This gap tends to have more impact on the community in the decision-making and the people seems to get trap in the middle of the escape due to their late decision-making. The human services provided to these affected population seems to have a number of strengths and weaknesses. Those have been identified in this discussion along with the challenges faced by the social worker in the real world situation.
Australia has been facing major bushfire incidents for more than a decade now. A number of major bushfires have devastating effect the Australian population over years. The hot and dry climatic condition of the continent had been causing these natural disasters and causing massive damage to the population every year. The prone areas attacked by this particular disaster are Queensland, Victoria, New South Wales and the adjacent areas and every year it burns thousands of hectors of forest and residential lands. The major incident of 2009 in Victoria that got international attention is named ‘Black Saturday’ as it took lives of nearly 173 Victorians (Alston, 2009). Another major incident of NSW and Queensland took place in 2013 springtime that burnt thousand of hectors of forest grounds (Rfs.nsw.gov.au, 2017). It was a result of several dispersed fire in the forest of NSW and Queensland. It has been a major issue faced by the Australian government for a number of decades and the government has declared the areas as fire prone area that holds different policy than the rest of the country regarding bushfire matters. The government has initiated several ways to control these uncontrollable firs through water bombing from aircrafts and ground fire departments. However, the loss of the population is always greater before the fire is controlled. Support is required for the directly affected population due to their loss of properties, assets, neighbourhood, friends and families. These disasters has both the physical and mental impact on the individuals who evidenced this naked cruelty of the nature. Hence, they require support in the process of recovery. The government and the private organizations of the social works are actively providing them the human support in several ways. Red Cross and its followers are the front line in this campaign of human support. However, the support models both physical and virtual have some strength and weakness in providing the human support services to the affected populations. They have to face several challenges in the process on various grounds. Both the models implemented have a number of limitations and the situation like this requires particular set of models from both the types of service models in properly addressing the issue in hand. Some of the suited models proposed for the implementation (the Guardian., 2017).
Pidgeon, Ford and Klaassen (2014) identified Human Service as a broad field with a single objective of meeting the human needs with interdisciplinary knowledge base. The focus of the human service is to prevent and remediate the problems of the communities and maintain commitment to improve the overall living standard of the community people. Human service professionals also deal with the disaster management and provide services for recovery of the affected communities. Broadly, the service are of two types that are face-to-face service models and virtual service models of human service. Both the types has several expertise and the necessary ones are implemented in according to the situation. These models have some strengths and weaknesses that are discussed below.
Face-to-face service is the physical service carried out by the service team and provided to the needed community. Monette, Sullivan and DeJong (2013) expressed that the service team can compose with workers with different expertise who physically visits the communities and provides the necessary supported identified. These expertises can considerably vary and include a wide range of expertise ranging from social science personnel to medical, emergency, psychologists and many more. In case of the disasters, both the emergency experts and post disaster teams come into action for the recovery of the community. Nicholls (2012) clarifies the need of both emergency and post disaster service deliverance for recovering form the situation.
The emergency fire team comes into action for controlling and stopping the fire to prevent it causing more damage to the community. The NSW Rural Fire Service team formed by the Australian government to prevent the bushfire and reduce its intensity. The employees working in the team hold skills from their specially training to prevent the particular types of forest fires in immediate priority (Nicholls, 2012). The special water bombers are also trained by the government to fight the fire from above and pour gallons of water from the sky to reduce the heat. The post disaster team needs to resettle the community and look after their well-being and recovery from the impact. Many of the community members might be physically injured that needs attention of the medical service providers. They also ensure the other medical conditions of the community members from the exposure they received from the extreme heat and the polluted air. The rescue team comes to recover the trapped individuals from the danger. This service team also needs to resettle the community for the period of recovery. The food and water is supplied to the community by the team. Psychologists play vital role in addressing the mental trauma and shock received from the exposure to the disasters (Nicholls, 2012). The community members have lost their properties, assets, loved ones, neighbours and other fellow community members that requires attention of the psychologist in the process of recovery (Gleser, Green & Winget, 2013). Wade et al., (2014) concludes the counselling as an essential part of disaster recovery. The economic support to rebuild their houses and ensure their livelihood also needs attention where the government and the NGOs like Red Cross plays vital role.
There are particular strengths in the face-to-face service delivery and any other type cannot replace that.
Some of the major weaknesses of face-to-face service deliverance identified by Sheu (2014) are as follows:
Virtual models of service delivery has multiple level of advantages for both the service provider and receiver. It can be meeting, counselling, information flow or many other. A study conducted by Mitomo et al., in 2013 after the Japanese earthquake highlights that the ICT and mass media can play significant role in post disaster recovery of the people. People can rely on the information circulated by these over the internet, keep them self up to date about the ongoing situation of their areas, and get assurance of the well-being of their friends and loved ones. Sung’s (2011) work reflects similar outcome using the mobile phone technology app. The smartphones are now a daily life commodity and almost everyone uses one. These new apps can not only update the affected people about the situation, but also has the capability to take the necessary actions required to keep their family safe during and after a catastrophic disaster takes place. The use of virtual model has much broader application on disaster recovery than just being a medium of information flow. Psychologists took the advantage of the new technology to reach out the affected population via internet. The new generation psychotherapy is now being conducted over video call like skype or similar applications. Fishkin et al. (2011) paper ‘Psychodynamic Treatment, Training, and Supervision Using Internet-Based Technology’ proves the usefulness of newly emerging technology and the ways it can successfully address the issues faced by the disaster-affected people. Another study carried out by Kaplan et al. on 2011 reflects the statements of the psychologists regarding the use of technology in their practice. According to their statement, it makes it much easier for them and the patients to establish intense interaction in the beginning sessions as the patients produce less anxiety with self-disclosure over internet. It helps the counsellor to handle the sensitive clients in a more efficient way as the technology helps in minimising the shyness and increase the emotional safety of the patients. Alston (2009) sees these as opportunities in the human service in the post disaster recovery phase. Virtual model of human service can help them in above-mentioned ways. The strengths and weaknesses of the virtual human service are listed below:
Strengths
Weaknesses
Both the approaches has limitation and strengths and a combination of both can has potential to increase the efficiency of the service being provide to the affected population. A proper planning of both types of services can potentially reduce the cost and other limitation in the process.
Several challenges occurs during the procedure of service providence for the human service worker as discussed earlier. The ethnic gap between the service provider and receiver makes it harder for the service provider to take necessary actions required in the situation for both face-to-face and virtual models. This is the greatest challenges that occurs several time in the post disaster recovery and the affected community rejects the offerings made by the service provider, as they find no comfort in their consolation. Language is another barrier that the service providers might face and it creates a greater gap between the two parties.
Development of particular skills can only mitigate the problem in hand. Particular human service provider should operate in particular area and learn additional skills to operate efficiently. The practitioner should learn the local language where the service is being provide. It is essential for them to make a flawless communication with the affected population so that the affected can reflect their grief that will help the service provider better understand the situation. Moreover, the service provider needs to understand the cultural diversity and have a thorough knowledge of the community culture. It will help them to get into the community and mix with them so that the people feel their belongingness. It can definitely show greater result in service delivery.
Some of the strengths and weaknesses identified for both the cases reflects the limitations of the service. The virtual service reflects its strength in cost efficiency whereas; the face-to-face model has its strength in addressing the issues like food and water supply to the affected community that the other type fails. Hence, it is possible to conclude from the above discussion that both the model has its efficiency in particular field and implementation of both the model in its particular efficiency can successfully increase the efficiency of the service being provide to the community. However, some challenges will remain that needs attention to increase the efficiency to its optimum level. The cultural and language gap between the service provider and receiver stands as a barrier in both the models that needs attention. A proper planning of implementation to address the post disaster recovery can speed up the process and help the affected get back to their natural lives sooner.
References
Alston, M. (2009). Innovative human services practice: Australia’s changing landscape. Macmillan Education AU.
Fishkin, R., Fishkin, L., Leli, U., Katz, B., & Snyder, E. (2011). Psychodynamic treatment, training, and supervision using internet-based technologies. Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry, 39(1), 155-168.
Gleser, G. C., Green, B. L., & Winget, C. (2013). Prolonged psychosocial effects of disaster: A study of Buffalo Creek. Elsevier.
Kaplan, D. M., Wade, M. E., Conteh, J. A., & Martz, E. T. (2011). Legal and ethical issues surrounding the use of social media in counseling. Counseling and Human Development, 43(8), 1.
Mitomo, H., Otsuka, T., Jeon, S. Y., & Cheng, J. W. (2013). The role of ICT and mass media in post-disaster restoration and recovery progress: A case of the Great East Japan Earthquake.
Monette, D. R., Sullivan, T. J., & DeJong, C. R. (2013). Applied social research: A tool for the human services. Cengage Learning.
Nicholls, S. (2012). The resilient community and communication practice. Australian Journal of Emergency Management, The, 27(1), 46.
Pidgeon, A. M., Ford, L., & Klaassen, F. (2014). Evaluating the effectiveness of enhancing resilience in human service professionals using a retreat-based Mindfulness with Metta Training Program: a randomised control trial. Psychology, health & medicine, 19(3), 355-364.
Rfs.nsw.gov.au. (2017). Major Fire Updates – NSW Rural Fire Service Retrieved 13 October 2017, from https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/fire-information/major-fire-updates
Sheu, J. B. (2014). Post-disaster relief–service centralized logistics distribution with survivor resilience maximization. Transportation research part B: methodological, 68, 288-314.
Springer, J. D., & Casey-Lockyer, M. (2014). Translating Practice into Policy: Disaster Nursing and Research in the American Red Cross.
Sung, S. J. (2011). How can we use mobile apps for disaster communications in Taiwan: Problems and possible practice.
the Guardian. (2017). Bushfires hit NSW and Queensland as spring heat threatens record Retrieved 13 October 2017, from https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/sep/27/bushfires-hit-nsw-and-queensland-as-spring-heat-threatens-record
Wade, D., Crompton, D., Howard, A., Stevens, N., Metcalf, O., Brymer, M., … & Forbes, D. (2014). Skills for Psychological Recovery: Evaluation of a post-disaster mental health training program. Disaster Health, 2(3-4), 138-145.
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