Facilitation Processes in Disaster Recovery

Click for enlargement.

Model by Peter Durand, Alphachimp Studio, Inc.

[based on the Stages of an Enterprise Model by MG Taylor].

This content is from a seminar facilitated by Lenny Diamond, Maria Begona Rodas Carrillo and Deb Starzynski at the International Association of Facilitators Conference, Saturday May 26, 2002, in Fort Worth, Texas



1. Normal State

Basic Need:Stability and growth

Activity: Aspire

Life with its ups and downs, minor glitches and lessons learned.



2. Traumatic Event

Whether an individual or a community, the pattern of life is radically disrupted. This inspires various immediate reactions: denial, sadness, anger, despair, fear, guilt, blame, violence, depression, somatic symptoms, relational stress, spiritual distortions, etc. Every crisis demands a decision be made-- whether to address the trauma using functional strategies or dysfunctional strategies.



Almost immediately after the traumatic event, people start to make an assessment of the situation and accept (or not) the reality of it. A set of symptoms generally develop and are part of the initial reaction. These are all very normal and necessary within the context of the traumatic experience, although in other contexts they may be seen as pathological. They should never be considered as such as they are all important aspects of the process of grieving and, eventual recovery.

The initial reactions appear in a different way in every one of the human dimensions.



We live in a system; yet, we all have different personal and communal subsystems that react to crisis.



A set of symptoms develop which are part of this initial reaction. These symptomsoccur in the four different personal dimensions, often in a combination of two or more:

Physical Reactions

Mental Reactions

Social Reactions

Spiritual Reactions

It is important to facilitate growth in each dimension. These are normal reactions and don�t have anything to do with psychologicalillnesses and it is the best moment to intervene in the grief process.



Physical Reactions:

Somatic reactions

Alteration of sleep patterns

Alteration of eating habits

Changes in appearance

Mental or Emotional Reactions:

Nervousness

Animic extremes

Perceptual distortion

Inadequate use of money and objects

Loss of desire to live

Emotional excesses

Sadness: There is a deep and recurring sense of loss during a sometimes long period of time. To cry is normal, natural and even necessary in an intense period of sadness.



Anger. As illogical as it may be, it is also normal and natural to feel anger and even rage with:

Nature

Government and/or International Community

Family

Friends

Volunteers

Even with God!

Fear. Different kinds of fear appear and reappear:

Of another crisis

Of not being able to survive

Of financial loss

Of the consequences of these on others



Guilt or Self-Blame.Many feel guilty for something they did; others feel guilty for what they think they failed to do; some even blame themselves in some way for natural tragedies.



Social Reactions. Group and interpersonal relationships also feel the impact:

Scapegoating, ethnic tension and revenge

Mob rule, gang violence or chaos

Political repression and/or human rights violations

Relational Stress. A crisis affects all relationships, whether between family members or political groups. It is most often seen in individual behaviors of abberent aggressiveness or crippling passivity.



Spiritual Reactions. Influenced by the need to comprehend the shocking new reality (and both it's source and meaningthere may be an increase in magic thinking and mysticism; some may proclaim the crisis as a punishment for past sins. The pain may drive others away from there belief systems and faith, leading to spiritual rejection, distortion or fanaticism.



3. Reactive Stage

Basic Need: Survival

Activity: Accommodate

Physical, mental, social and spiritual survival. Grief, fear and numbness rule decision-making.



Dysfunctional strategies are pseudosolutions. Cycles of self-destructive behavior can result from a failure to recognize crisis as a normal, natural and necessary aspect of human life. Can spiral resulting in a secondary crisis.

Paul Watzlawick (1989) was the first to introduce the concept of "pseudo-solution:



"...a difficulty turned into a more serious problem by the use of a solution that is more dangerous than the initial difficulty that is trying to be resolved."



Pseudosolutions (Watslawick, 1984) are what we do, with the best of intentions, when we try to solve a problem with a strategy that ends up making it worse. These dysfunctional strategies are the �danger� in a crisis.

It�s like drinking salt water when your thirsty.

4. Receptive Stage

Basic Need: Security

Activity: Assimilate

Acceptance of the new reality through awareness and reflection, pave the way for adaptation to conditions. An improved attitude reveals a "light at the end of the tunnel." Analysis and observation provide the basic elements for crafting a strategy for recovery.



5. Proactive Stage

Basic Need: Autonomy

Activity: Activate

The use of functional strategies lead to personal and group psycho-social recuperation and reconstruction. Ownership of growth and improvement through active participation, flexibility and accountability yield greater and greater achievements.



In this stage, the silent enemy to recovery usually manifests in the form of post-traumatic stress syndrome. Though an illusion of "normalcy" may return, unresolved emotions from the traumatic event undermine steps towards true transcendence. Self-destructive behavior such as depression, isolation and violence are common.



6. Interactive Stage

Basic Need: Transcendence

Activity: Associate

Strengthen social bonds and intimacy through affiliation and alliances. A social system based on sharing and cooperation. A healthy balance between personal advocacy and group solidarity.



More Resources

More materials from this seminar available from www.iaf-world.org/ManDis.htm

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Cresent Societies

www.ifrc.org

The Fritz Institute strengthens the infrastructures of humanitarian relief organizations by mobilizing logistics and technology expertise and resources from the corporate and academic communities.

www.fritzinstitute.org

Minutes after the tsunami hit, my uncle, an American engineer who works and travels in Southeast Asia, received a text message from a friend vacationing in Phuket, Thailand:

"Water is everywhere. Bodies floating everywhere you look. Next wave due in 10 minutes. Trying to get to higher ground. If we don't make and you never see me again, remember...I love ya man."

The raw footage at Reuters shows how unable the victims were to understand the scope; Thai police video of bikini-clad tourists literally sauntering to outpace what seemed to be an aberently swift tide.



The scale of this tragedy is the closest to what we imagine in our worst science fiction. No warning. No dark cloud. Nowhere to run. No way to wrap our heads around the sheer longitude of destruction wrought by such a vast, seeping sea.



Sumatra��once an name I equated with spices and sultry Indonesian intrigue��is an island of despair.



Irony follows tragedy as Sri Lanka, along with other nations with long-standing civil wars, faces the aftermath and complications of the disaster, including landmines.

�Mines were floated by the floods and washed out of known mine fields, so now we don't know where they are, and the warning signs on mined areas have been swept away or destroyed,� UNICEF's Ted Chaiban said from the agency's office in Colombo in a statement released at UN headquarters in New York. ~ via The Australian

To help get a sense of the geological scale of the tsunami, DigitalGlobe has posted multiple satellite images��including before and after photos��of several affected coastal regions.



For those dumbfounded on-lookers [like me and the US Government] in contributing our resources towards the largest relief effort in world history, there are several methods to make donations. It is important to remember, as the Center for International Disaster Information phrases it in it's Frequently Asked Questions, CASH DONATIONS ARE BEST.

Your generosity is deeply appreciated, but from years of experience with hundreds of disasters we have learned that cash contributions are by far the most useful response. Financial contributions allow professional relief organizations to purchase exactly what disaster victims need most urgently and to pay for the transportation necessary to distribute those supplies.



By purchasing exactly what is needed, relief agencies can avoid the oversupply of what is not needed and the purchase of those urgently needed commodities which might be in short supply. Unlike in-kind donations, cash donations entail no transportation cost. In addition, cash donations allow relief supplies to be purchased at locations as near to the disaster site as possible.



This approach has the triple advantage of stimulating local economies (providing employment, generating cash flow), ensuring that supplies arrive as quickly as possible and reducing transport and storage costs. Cash contributions also allow for the purchase of food, clothing, and other items that are culturally appropriate. Cash contributions to established legitimate relief agencies are always considerably more beneficial than the donation of commodities.

LINKS

Center for International Disaster Information

http://www.cidi.org/incident/tsunami/



The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami

The SEA-EAT blog for short. News and information about resources, aid, donations and volunteer efforts.

http://tsunamihelp.blogspot.com/



And much more at www.worldchanging.com.

Designing for Demining

MIT is offering one of the more intriguing design courses, Humanitarian Demining, course listing SP.776 .







Humanitarian Demining is the process of detecting, removing and disposing of landmines. Millions of landmines are buried in more than 80 countries resulting in 20,000 civilian victims every year. The course is described as follows:

Landmines left over from conflicts maim or kill tens of thousands of civilians every year in over seventy countries. In this hands-on class, students learn about humanitarian demining and then design and build a device to aid the demining community. There is a field trip to an army base to expose the students to authentic demining training. Guest speakers who are active in the field enhance the study of de-mining. In previous years, students have worked on probes, clippers, metal detectors, shields, flails and grapples. According to one deminer, the MIT Demining Class is the only student-based group to have successfully invented and launched a tool into widespread use in the field.

For more information contact Ben Linder, blinder@mit.edu.



This could be one of the more sober design issues I could imagine. The effects of land mines echo throughout communities around the globe. And those mines, often costing less than $10 to deploy, kill and maim for decades afterwards.



One recent innovator in the field is a Japanese man who was shocked by victims of landmines during a visit to Cambodia ten years ago. He developed an effective machine to remove landmines. Mr. Amemiya's company converted mechanical digger by adapting Hitachi Construction's hydraulic excavator. He put a drum bristling with blades in place of the bucket on the hydraulic arm and strengthening the cab against blasts.



The most difficult part was creating steel `teeth' that could resist the 1,000-degree heat from a mine explosion. It took his team four to five years to make the strong cutters.



Biological Demining Tools (from worldchanging.com):

A couple of solutions that draw on the effective methods inherit in nature, including rats(!?)and land mine detecting flowers.



Reuters reports that the Danish company Aresa Biodetection has developed genetically-modified flowers which change color when their roots come in contact with Nitrogen Dioxide in the soil. Explosives used in mines produce NO2 as the chemicals gradually decay.





DC Comics published this comic book in cooperation with the US Department of Defense and UNICEF to raise awareness of the threat facing children in Bosnia.

LANDMINE LINKS

E-MINE: The Electronic Mine Information Network

http://www.mineaction.org/



The International Mine Action Standards (IMAS) are now the standards in force for all UN mine action operations.

http://www.mineactionstandards.org/



International Campaign to Ban Landmines

http://www.icbl.org/



The Nairobi Summit on a Mine-Free World - or first Review Conference of the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty - took place from 29 November to 3 December 2004 in Nairobi, Kenya.

http://www.icbl.org/treaty/meetings/nairobisummit

Bonfires with ID Fuel

ID Fuel (www.idfuel.com) is one great site where product ideation meets communal on-line design. This summer they initiated their designers' challenge, known as a Bonfire, around the notion of improving the airline travel experience, themed as Hassle Free Travel.





ABOVE: The winning entry from Nathan Lynch & Lea Miller, Florida, USA



The juried winners were truly inspired, and included:

Smart Luggage Tag, a Bluetooth luggage tag that communicates with your cell phone.

Garment classification system, which addresses the anxiety felt waiting in sluggish lines by arming every citizen with a way to determine beforehand whether or not they are going to cause the dreaded beep.

RFID Item and Child Management, RFID devices that, if separated more than twelve feet from the base receiver, sound an alarm to notify the user.

Fun Personal Rocker for entertainment while standing in security lines,

Security Checkpoint Re-design that places metal and explosive detection pads discreetly so as to minimize physical and visual distress to passengers going through security.

Airline Art Museum that turn terminals into independant art galleries which sponsor works from the community, and raise funds through sale of the art.

Searchable Wrapping Paper a new kind of elastic, velcro-closeable, re-usable wrapping for gifts that could be applied after you want through security.



The current Bonfire aims to address and innovate new-tech closures, from buttons and Mason Jars, to zippers and zip-closure bags for Clip-n-Seal It! Entries due January 15.



Thanks to the founders and editors at ID Fuel, Dominic, Elliott, Beth, Craig and Willy!

R U a Pro-Am, 2?

If you aren't one already, then you know one. Or, you've most likely been cornered by one at a party. We're talking the Pro-Am. No, Pro-Am is not a soon-to-be-bankrupt low fare airline.



Instead, the term connotes a person who is in actuality an amateur, but in technical execution performs at a professional level, the Professional-Amateur.



The Pro-Am knows all the stats. They care about the details. And, they want you to care too. The subject could be anything: grass roots politics, WW II airplanes, relational databases, horses, race cars, conspiracy theories.



What is consistent is the Pro-Am's all-consuming, spittle-in-the-corner-of-the-mouth, infinitely burning passion for their subject and their intense attention to detail.



It is the kind of dedication one finds in the high school AV club.





ABOVE:Jason Schwartzman plays the quinessential Pro-Am in Touchstone's Rushmore - 1998



Yes, think back to high school. Think back to history class and to the gentlemen farmers of the 18th century who founded the United States: Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, and that lot.



These fellows were the original Pro-Ams of the day. They operated farms and businesses, while dedicating personal time and resources to engineer new tools of commercial productivity, to rejigger monetary and economic systems, to unravel philosophical and religious conundrums. And, I am certain, they frustrated their spouses by running off to conferences to haggle and debate the arcane and the innovative. ("But Martha, honey, me and the boys are busy founding a new nation!")



On top of that, they didn't even have laptops, wireless DSL or blogging software.



Of course, back in the day, it helped to free up some time in owning slaves and servants to address the more quotidian aspects of staying dressed and fed. This carved out a bit of time to dabble in constitutional law or lobby the French for guns and protection from King George.



So.



Were the Founding Brothers amateurs or professionals? Of course that was the good ole anything goes Age of Enlightenment period of Western Civ, when everybody got to do everything.



What happened once the steam engine, the spreadsheet, the timeclock and Harvard Business School came on the scene?



Charles Leadbetter, former journalist for the Financial Times, describes the century proceeding our current one as such:

"The twentieth century was shaped by the rise of professionals in most walks of life. From education, science and medicine, to banking, business and sports, formerly amateur activities became more organised, and knowledge and procedures were codified and regulated. As professionalism grew, often with hierarchical organisations and formal systems for accrediting knowledge, so amateurs came to be seen as second-rate. Amateurism came to be to a term of derision. Professionalism was a mark of seriousness and high standards."

As the professional classification swiftly subsumed most fields, a rift widened between profit and passion, between legitimacy and love of craft. The worst thing to happen to the Arts in the 20th century is graduate school. Seriousness and standards? Putting the "professional" tag next to the "artist" label leads to stiff necks, padded resumes, ennui and thinking the world owes you a living!



Now, every amateur, caffeine-addled writer, hacker, designer, artist, activist or social entrepreneur knows that the real juice is not in the pedigree of the hound, but in the thrill of the hunt.



And, it's the amateurs who are hunters of the most passionate variety.



It's why suits and goatees don't mix. Like NASA vs. NASCAR. Witness (amateur) geeks like me staying up way past bedtime trying to figure out this blogging phenomenon and Real Simple Syndication, when we should be doing something useful like sleeping or thinking about ways to convince the Powers That Be to forgive Third World debt.



Expanding on his "Amateur Revolution" essay in the October issue of Fast Company, Leadbetter and researcher Paul Miller have published The Pro-Am Revolution, a PDF book that you can download online for free or a hardcopy you can purchase outright.



Excerpt:

"[I]n the last two decades a new breed of amateur has emerged: the Pro-Am, amateurs who work to professional standards. These are not the gentlemanly amateurs of old � George Orwell�s blimpocracy, the men in blazers who sustained amateur cricket and athletics clubs. The Pro-Ams are knowledgeable, educated, committed and networked, by new technology. The twentieth century was shaped by large hierarchical organisations with professionals at the top. Pro-Ams are creating new, distributed organisational models that will be innovative, adaptive and low-cost."

I mean, honestly, wouldn't you like to have your own entry in Wikipedia top that of Benjamin Franklin's own Pro-Am resume? He is described as "a journalist, publisher, author, philanthropist, abolitionist, public servant, scientist, librarian, diplomat, and inventor."



Plus, the man knew how to party. (Check out the album Ben Franklin in Paris)



[Pro-Am via The Fast Company Weblog]