Professional development program - Workshop 2: Disaster recovery for all

As part of the Australian Disaster Resilience Conference 2026 Professional Development Program AIDR is offering this workshop for delegates seeking a deeper exploration of disaster recovery. We welcome all interested delegates, with anticipated interest from all levels of government, community organisations, agencies and researchers.

About this workshop

This interactive workshop will focus on bridging research and practice in disaster recovery. It will include multiple presentations, problem-solving through a recovery scenario, and identification of ways we can incorporate the last 50 years of research on recovery into practice. Together, these activities will increase understandings of the problems we may encounter when working in disaster recovery and ways of addressing them. There will be a particular focus on the ‘thorny’ problems in disaster recovery that are not straightforward to solve.

The session will be led by Dr Kate Brady, alongside guest contributors invited by AIDR for their deep expertise in recovery and community impacts. The workshop will include a mix of presentations, interactive exercises, breakout groups, and whole‑of‑group discussions.

Delegates who attend this session will:

• gain an in depth understanding of key principles of disaster recovery
• understand interconnected disaster impacts that are relevant to working in recovery
• increase capacity to understand and work with others in multi-stakeholder recovery environments
• have the opportunity to network with delegates with similar interest in disaster recovery and collaboration to build resilience and reduce disaster risk
• understand ways of addressing ‘thorny’ issues in disaster recovery in cascading and compounding disasters
• build cross sector networks through structured collaboration and informal networking breaks.