Child-centred disaster risk reduction in Australia: progress, gaps and opportunities

The primary objective of child-centred disaster risk reduction (CC-DRR) is to strengthen children's skills so that they understand the risk of disasters in their communities and are able to play a role in reducing the risks and impacts of potential disasters. Historically, the approaches embodied by CC-DRR have remained on the margins of Australian disaster risk reduction (DRR) policy, research and practice. More recently CC-DRR has been recognised as a valuable component of disaster risk reduction frameworks at the local, regional and national levels and this is reflected in new initiatives in a variety of domains, including disaster resilience education, school emergency management, and community-based programming. This paper provides a progress report on some of these of these initiatives and identifies several gaps and opportunities that are still waiting to addressed.