Anne Leadbeater

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Anne Leadbeater

OAM
Alma materRMIT University
Known forTrauma recovery after bushfires

Anne Leadbeater was awarded an Order of Australia OAM for services to the community following the 2019 bushfires, and is a fellow of the EMPA (Emergency Media and Public Affairs). [1]

Contents

She was acknowledged for her community leadership in recovering from fires, in the aftermath of Black Saturday [2] and she is a national expert on leading recovery for communities who have experienced trauma, particularly from bushfire and are seeking different ways to move forward. [3] [4] [5] [6] She works with communities who are recovering from fire, drought, flood and cyclone in various states in Australia including Queensland, Victoria, New South Wales, and South Australia. In 2014, she led an international team working with the Christchurch Earthquake Appeal for New Zealand Red Cross. [5] [7]

Black Saturday bushfires and recovery

On 2009 Saturday 7 February the Black Saturday bushfires occurred in Victoria, Australian, and 137 people were killed. [5]

In Leadbeater's community, at 4:20 pm fire came, and no warnings were issued. On that day, in her community 27 people died and 85 of the 130 houses were destroyed in a community with a population of 200 people. [8]

Her community was involved in the Strathewen Community Renewal Association (SCRA). The SCRA was awarded the national prize, in 2010, for the volunteer section of the Australian Safer Communities Awards.  The SCRA was awarded the prize for representing the best practice of ‘bottom-up’, community-led recovery. [9]

Career and community contributions

Leadbeater is currently director of "Disaster Recovery Group Leadbeater". [9] She was a community development leader within Murrindindi before and after the Black Saturday bushfires [10] and specialises in recovery from trauma and disaster. [5] [11] [12]

Leadbeater’s research has focussed on community rebuilding after fire, including how there was a desire for people to be resilient, yet due to the fire, all were equally disempowered. [13]

She has written a review on resilience following disaster, called the “Community Recovery Handbook for the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience”. [14]

Leadbeater quotes “Decisions made by outsiders should not be imposed or forced upon a community; they need to be able to come to their own decisions in their own time. Surely that principle is doubly true of a disaster-affected community.” [15] Leadbeater has described how healthy strategies from recovery from fire can include psychological recovery as well as building structures.

“Coupled with the well-intentioned desire to relieve peoples’ sadness by fixing stuff and building stuff, it’s not hard to get caught up in a ‘fast equals effective’ bricks and mortar view of recovery”. [16]

She has been involved in community connectedness and how frequency of moving affects disaster recovery, in a project with the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC. [17] [18]

Education

In 2007 Leadbeater enrolled in studied for the first time, at RMIT where she obtained a Master of Social Sciences. [11]

Awards and recognition

Related Research Articles

Leadbeaters possum species of mammal

Leadbeater's possum is a critically endangered possum largely restricted to small pockets of alpine ash, mountain ash, and snow gum forests in the Central Highlands of Victoria, Australia, north-east of Melbourne. It is primitive, relict, and non-gliding, and, as the only species in the petaurid genus Gymnobelideus, represents an ancestral form. Formerly, Leadbeater's possums were moderately common within the very small areas they inhabited; their requirement for year-round food supplies and tree-holes to take refuge in during the day restricts them to mixed-age wet sclerophyll forest with a dense mid-story of Acacia. The species was named in 1867 after John Leadbeater, the then taxidermist at the Museum Victoria. They also go by the common name of fairy possum. On 2 March 1971, the State of Victoria made the Leadbeater's possum its faunal emblem.

Ash Wednesday bushfires 1983 brushfires in Australia

The Ash Wednesday bushfires, known in South Australia as Ash Wednesday II, were a series of bushfires that occurred in south-eastern Australia on 16 February 1983, which was Ash Wednesday. Within twelve hours, more than 180 fires fanned by winds of up to 110 km/h (68 mph) caused widespread destruction across the states of Victoria and South Australia. Years of severe drought and extreme weather combined to create one of Australia's worst fire days in a century. The fires became the deadliest bushfire in Australian history until the Black Saturday bushfires in 2009.

2003 Canberra bushfires

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In Australia, the Australasian Inter-Service Incident Management System (AIIMS) is the nationally recognised system of incident management for the nation's fire and emergency service agencies. Organisational principles and structure are used to manage bushfires and other large emergencies utilising the all agencies approach. AIIMS was first developed in the 1980s as a derivative of the United States’ NIIMS, and is based on the principles of management by objectives, functional management and span of control. AIIMS is a trademark of AFAC and the material in the AIIMS manual and training materials is copyright of AFAC.

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Black Saturday bushfires bushfires that occurred in February 2009 in Victoria, Australia

The Black Saturday bushfires were a series of bushfires that either ignited or were already burning across the Australian state of Victoria on and around Saturday, 7 February 2009, and were among Australia's all-time worst bushfire disasters. The fires occurred during extreme bushfire weather conditions and resulted in Australia's highest-ever loss of human life from a bushfire, with 173 fatalities. Many people were left homeless as a result.

A series of bushfires in Australia occurred over the summer of 1996–1997. The most prominent fires during the season were in the Dandenong Ranges and the Mornington Peninsula in the state of Victoria.

The National Emergency Medal is an award of the Australian honours system given for sustained service during a nationally significant emergency; or to other persons who rendered significant service in response to such emergencies. The medal was established by Queen Elizabeth II in October 2011. The medal is awarded for events specifically set out by regulation or may be awarded upon the recommendation of the National Emergency Medal Committee for significant service.

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The Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre, commonly abbreviated to Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC, draws together all of Australia and New Zealand's fire and emergency service authorities, land management agencies, as well as non-government organisations and leading experts across a range of scientific fields to explore the causes, consequences and mitigation of natural disasters.

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The 2015 Esperance bushfires were a series of catastrophic bushfires that burned from 15 to 26 November and affected the Goldfields-Esperance region in the Australian state of Western Australia. During the fires, the Shire of Esperance experienced two significant fires and a complex of fires; 128,000 hectares were burnt by the Cascades fire, 18,000 hectares were burnt by the Merivale fire, and 164,000 hectares were burnt by the Cape Arid complex of fires. On 17 November, during the major run of the Cascades fire, four civilian fatalities occurred in vehicles traveling on Griggs Road in Scaddan. As of 2016, the Cascades fire was equally the worst bushfire in Western Australia in terms of human fatalities along with the Willow Springs/Nannup fire of January 1958.

2018 Tathra bushfire

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References

  1. ↑ "EMPA Fellows". www.empa.org.au. Retrieved 2019-09-14.
  2. ↑ "Australian Business Round Table" (PDF).
  3. ↑ "AJEM Jul 2013 - Community leadership in disaster recovery: a case study | Australian Disaster Resilience Knowledge Hub". knowledge.aidr.org.au. Retrieved 2019-09-14.
  4. ↑ "Trauma experts release Black Saturday podcast". www.weeklytimesnow.com.au. 2019-01-30. Retrieved 2019-09-14.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Services, Department of Health & Human. "Trauma - Anne Leadbeater OAM & Dr Rob Gordon". www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au. Retrieved 2019-09-14.
  6. ↑ "Trauma specialist says Black Saturday survivors still grieving". www.abc.net.au. 2010-02-05. Retrieved 2019-09-14.
  7. ↑ Campbell, Ian. "BEGA VALLEY BUSHFIRE PODCAST – Disaster recovery takes time". About Regional. Retrieved 2019-09-14.
  8. ↑ "AustII" (PDF).
  9. 1 2 "AJEM Jul 2013 - Community leadership in disaster recovery: a case study | Australian Disaster Resilience Knowledge Hub". knowledge.aidr.org.au. Retrieved 2019-09-14.
  10. ↑ "Research Bank RMIT" (PDF).
  11. 1 2 "Tales from the Trenches with Anne Leadbeater". www.iap2.org.au. Retrieved 2019-09-14.
  12. ↑ "Putting order into the chaos of a natural disaster". www.heraldsun.com.au. 2015-10-12. Retrieved 2019-09-14.
  13. ↑ "Research Bank RMIT" (PDF).
  14. ↑ "AFAC powered by INTERSCHUTZ". AFAC. Retrieved 2019-09-14.
  15. ↑ "Barton. PDF" (PDF).
  16. ↑ "Aus Bus Round Table" (PDF).
  17. ↑ "Anne leadbeater | Bushfire & Natural Hazards CRC". www.bnhcrc.com.au. Retrieved 2019-09-14.
  18. ↑ "Federation - Community Leadership" (PDF).
  19. ↑ "Global fire focus on diversity, cultural burning and communities | Bushfire & Natural Hazards CRC". www.bnhcrc.com.au. Retrieved 2019-09-14.
  20. ↑ "Previous Finalists | Awards Australia". awardsaustralia.com. Retrieved 2019-09-14.
  21. ↑ "AJEM Apr 2013 - 2013 Australia Day Honours | Australian Disaster Resilience Knowledge Hub". knowledge.aidr.org.au. Retrieved 2019-09-14.
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