Perceptions of Psychosocial Training on Behavioural Responses in Emergency Operations Centres

Abstract

When a disaster strikes, the well-being of Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) personnel is often not the first priority for emergency managers working to help provide support to their local community and the incident command site. Through the development and testing of an iterative series of simulation exercises with EOC personnel, this study identified adverse psychosocial outcomes that may emerge within an EOC during an emergency. Having identified a number of practices which led to less than desired psychosocial outcomes, researchers developed a training and awareness video to identify the practices and demonstrate strategies to overcome negative impacts. A comparative analysis was undertaken to compare EOC actions pre- and post-exposure to the video. The results indicated a change in behaviour following the viewing of the video and supported training initiatives that stress the importance of strong leadership in an EOC, encouraging staff to take breaks, respecting diversity, and providing psychosocial support.

Build Back Safely: Evaluating the Occupational Health and Safety in Post-Disaster Reconstruction

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Managing Complex Crises through the Lens of Intuitive Expertise: A Naturalistic Decision-Making Perspective

“…There is no doubt that policies and corporate objectives are developed and governed at the strategic level, while standard operational procedures (SOPs) are, for example, determined and reviewed at the tactical level, but it is at the operational level that incidents actually get managed and potentially resolved (Burke 2018). Thus, whether or not an emergency plan was rigorously developed and tested would mean nothing if operational commanders are in the end unable to translate existing knowledge into workable action plans in time-pressured and high staked crisis situations (Sheehan 2020;Thompson et al 2017).…”

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