Tulane researchers receive National Academies grant to design community-driven strategic action plan
Tulane School of Social Work’s Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy has been awarded a $100,000 grant from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Gulf Research Program (GRP). This grant comes as part of GRP’s Adaptive Capacities for Transformation Initiative (ACT), which seeks to build Gulf communities’ capacity for resilience before, during, and after disaster. Through the ACT initiative, GRP allows communities to dictate where future funds from the BP oil spill settlement should be spent. By engaging New Orleans-based nonprofits, academic institutions, and governmental organizations in a rigorous group concept mapping survey, GRP has developed an evidence-based and community-informed map of needs in the Great New Orleans region.
The planning grant will fund DRLA’s Consortium for Emergent Disaster Resilience (CEDR) to convene community partners, who will conduct additional needs assessments in their respective communities, which CEDR with then synthesize, further deepening and contextualizing our understanding of the initial gaps the GRP has identified. Through this initiative, CEDR will foster community-driven resilience by funding local organizations, centering impacted voices in policy, building trust and partnerships, training residents and workforce for recovery, and supporting mental health in the face of repeated disasters.
“CEDR’s primary goal with this project is to continue fostering relationships with our community partners and jointly explore collaborative cross-sector solutions to some of the most vexing problems of our time,” said CEDR Program Coordinator Timothy Davidson, PhD, MSW, MS.
CEDR will partner with seven local nonprofit organizations – Grace at the Green Light, Dr. Nyoki Cosey-Brown Counseling, Ubuntu Village NOLA, lowernine.org, Louisiana Just Recovery Network, Bayou Community Foundation, and Common Ground Relief – to assess the needs of community members across the Greater New Orleans region and collectively develop a strategic plan to address those needs. The initiative, called Planning Local Actions for Networked Solutions in Greater New Orleans (PLANS GNO), will identify training and research opportunities, ultimately building a more resilient future for New Orleans.
"Community relationships are the foundation of meaningful knowledge creation. When trust, respect, and shared purpose guide our work, we can co-create solutions that reflect lived realities, strengthen resilience, and generate lasting impact.” said CEDR’s Executive Director, Regardt Ferreira, PhD.
Working alongside the people most impacted by disaster, CEDR will draft a strategic action plan that builds connections across community members, industry leaders, nonprofit organizations, academics, and policymakers. After the planning period, CEDR will have an opportunity to develop part or all of their plan into a proposal for additional funding from the GRP.
The project reported in this press release was supported by the Gulf Research Program of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine under award number A-1901197169. The content of this press release is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the Gulf Research Program or the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
