Effective crisis prevention and management are at the heart of
european and non european citizens’ wellbeing, and are an objective
that deserves priority, in the field of safety. These two issues
are also among the biggest challenges that european society and
economy will have to face in the future.
Today actions and initiatives regarding prevention and crisis management
are mainly oriented towards these two fields::
• Natural disasters (including here the excessive population growth
and the consequences of air pollution and increasing consumption)
• Unconventional threats (terrorism, criminal organizations, etc.).
Threats or crisis related to the first field are strongly connected
to the human impact on the environment, which has been transformed
in a nonconforming way, and to industrial processes that don’t respect
the environment. These threats or crisis deeply affect economy,
trade and communication in the affected areas.
It has been clear since 9/11 that new unconventional threats don’t
have stable geographic boundaries and strike quite frequently.
Analisys, however, still haven’t really focused on the incidence
of this kind of emergencies in civil protection, humanitarian and
non-profit organizations, and in society in general. Issues such
as the volontary teams preparedness, the decision making necessary
in critical situations, the relationship between public services
and local institutions on one hand, and local institutions and voluntary
associations on the other, still haven’t been fully taken into analisys
in all their complexity.
Over the last years Sinergie has used in this field methods and
procedures typical of private companies and of the management world.
The cooperation between operators, research institutions and organisational
and technological solution developers lead to three main work areas,
prepared and sustained within the European Commission frame.
The three areas refer to the following projects:
•
PRE-EMERGENCIES (2006/2007) - The pre-emergencies project is
aimed at developing an emergency response model able to enhance
integration among the various entities involved in planning and
managing the response to an emergency. More specifically, the project
focused on enhancing communication and information exchange among
the different teams, and on behavioral and organizational patterns
observed when responding to an emergency.
• RED (2007/2008) - Reinforce
Rescuers' Resilience by Empowering a well-being Dimension. Coping
with an emergency can be very hard for operators involved, and difficulties
can continue even when the event is over. The projects focuses on
reinforcing the wellbeing of operators and professionals in psychology,
and on the creation of specific education programs in the psychosocial
sector. The project is also working on the creation of an international
network of psychosocial intervention.
• NMFRDisaster (2008/2009)
- Identifying the Needs of Medical First Responders in Disaster.
The project aims at identifying the needs of emergency medical personnel
during disasters. Research focuses on the following issues:
1) Use of blood and blood products in disasters; 2) Training methodology
and technology currently used; 3) Psychological preparedness of
operators who have to respond to and confront themselves with an
event; 4) Ethical and legal issues influencing the medical response
to disasters; 5) Personal protective equipment used in case of unconventional
scenarios.
In creating and developing these projects we have built strong
partnerships, able to put forward the best experiences and competencies
existing in each field. We have, therefore, proven to be successful
at a european level for our method and approach and for the results
we have obtained.
Some of our partners in this field are: Croce Rossa Italiana, France
Red Cross, Danish Red Cross, Cruz Roja Espanola, SAMUR Proteccion
Civil, Magen David Adom, Regione Valle d’Aosta, Câmara Municipal
de Lisboa, Anas, Tunnel del Frejus, GEIE Mont Blanc Tunnel, ANAS,
Stichting Impact, AmbulanceZorg Nederland, Politecnico di Milano,
Università di Torino e Pavia, several Italian Civil Protection
Regional Directions.
