Purpose
The purpose of this activity is to develop your community’s recovery vision and goals.
Why?
Recovery efforts provide your community with an opportunity to establish a renewed vision for its future and can be the impetus for future community resilience. Long-term recovery is complex and heavily influenced by unpredictable factors, including community dynamics, individual needs, political pressures, new hazard information, legal and regulatory provisions, and even changes in the natural environment. The creation of a vision and goals establishes the necessary framework to ensure decisions and actions can occur organically without resulting in haphazard outcomes. Without a common target, conflicts and cross-purposes are much more likely to occur.
When?
At the first official meeting of the new long-term community recovery organization, and as needed throughout the course of recovery. (Days 31-60)
Tips
- A vision is meaningless without buy-in from all or most community groups so this effort includes significant community engagement at every juncture. This requires dedication on the part of recovery leaders, coordinators, and citizens alike. See an example from Palo, IA Long-Term Community Recovery Strategy, Pages 13-18 (Visioning Process).
- The vision does not need to be perfect, because it can be revised during the course of recovery as new information becomes available and engagement is increased. A vision is a living, dynamic process.
- Some people will want the community to go back to being exactly as it was before the disaster, while others will see the event as a chance to transform and incorporate technologies and practices or to address shifting economic and social dynamics. The recovery vision should be framed to pursue both stances, allowing community members to feel their wants and their needs have been heard and considered.
- Vulnerable groups often find it difficult to have their voice heard in the visioning process and in identifying goals and objectives. Recovery, however, cannot be considered successful if some groups are left behind. Consensus-building efforts need to ensure an inclusive process to address the needs of the disadvantaged and vulnerable. (See Step 5)
- Your community’s goals and the objectives through which they are achieved may be adjusted across the course of recovery as projects are completed and new information comes to light.
How does my community do this?
- Create a community engagement plan to guide the visioning process. Community buy-in is crucial to ensuring the recovery of your community. Your planning efforts should reflect the values and priorities of the broader community and they should help guide the visioning process as a whole. This should be achieved using a thorough, equitable, inclusive, and transparent engagement process that moves beyond informing to empowering. (See Step 5) Community recovery leaders and organizations can solicit input through a variety of methods including workshops, in-person meetings, focus groups, online surveys, and other methods of engagement. For more information see APA Briefing Paper 12: Visioning.
- Facilitate equitable, effective, and transparent community meetings. It is important that this process be equitable and inclusive of all community stakeholders including frontline community members (see definition of this term). See the Step 4 for best practices.
- Draft a community recovery vision and goals for the community recovery plan. Communities may begin with a vision already in place through general or strategic planning processes. Recovery visioning is an opportunity to reassess that long-term outlook in light of changes that have occurred in your community and unexpected opportunities that exist as a result of the disaster. (See Step 5 for guidance on implementing an inclusive and equitable visioning process.)
- Identify common and overarching recovery goals for the different recovery sectors according to which recovery objectives, namely projects, can be developed.
- Review and edit the vision, goals, and objectives. During the planning process and implementation, make sure the vision, goals, and objectives remain relevant.
Community Call Out: Lyons, CO
The Town of Lyons experienced significant damages during the 2013 floods when stream flows within the town limits crested above all previous records. The town, which operates on an annual budget of approximately $1 million, sustained almost $50 million in damages to public facilities (not including insured losses), much of which occurred in town parkland. The planning community used the existing master plan and other planning efforts as a guide for the community participatory process. The outcome was the Lyons Recovery Action Plan which created the vision of recovery as one of “recovering stronger, more sustainably, and more resilient than before.”