A community-focused approach to flood recovery

Various CRC meetings are being held across multiple communities over the coming months.

Greater Shepparton City Council is the lead agency in municipal-level recovery under the State Emergency Management Plan and is funded by the state and federal governments.

CRCs were established in 2023, to keep local people and voices of expertise at the forefront of recovery planning and delivery following the October 2022 floods.

Carla Dixon is one of the people at the forefront of these efforts as council’s manager for flood recovery.

Mrs Dixon said their priority was to be community-led, which was first identified when council undertook asset mapping across each community.

Assets are defined as groups, organisations and individuals in a community that can assist with recovery or assistance during and after a disaster within each municipality.

That’s where Council’s Flood Recovery team can do what Mrs Dixon describes as “the heavy lifting”.

“We’re there to empower the community, no need to apply for grant funding — we’re trying to take away that administrative burden on them; we just need to listen and learn from the community and respond to their needs,” she said.

“We essentially facilitate communication between the community, government agencies and other flood recovery-funded organisations involved in the recovery process.

“If there’s a program or activity we can run, with the permission of the community, to help them, we can do that.”

After initial rounds of meetings and feedback submissions, the committee formed this information into a recovery action plan.

This continues to be added to as further CRC meetings take place, which Mrs Dixon said people were welcome to attend any time.

“CRC meetings are open to anyone and everyone, any time,” she said.

“People can come along and listen, learn, put an idea on the table to be discussed and debated with the community.”

These plans are available for viewing on the Greater Shepparton City Council website.

If people aren’t able to attend the CRC meetings, they can still participate in feedback in this program by calling council on 5832 9700 and asking to speak to Mrs Dixon or another member of the Flood Recovery team.

They can also visit the Resilience in Recovery Facebook page or subscribe to its monthly e-newsletter through the council’s website.

Mrs Dixon also said that if people didn’t feel comfortable attending a meeting, they could request to sit down with someone from the Flood Recovery team to talk about their experiences.

CRCs run community projects but aren’t there to support individual case management.

If you need individual, business or household assistance, call the Flood Recovery hotline on 1800 560 760.