The DARWIN project recently held its first workshop for the DARWIN Community of Practitioners (DCoP). The DCoP brings together practitioners in the fields of resilience, crisis management and emergency response, as well as Healthcare and Air Traffic Management. The ultimate aim of the DCoP is to ensure that the DARWIN Resilience Management Guidelines (DRMG) are relevant and practical to end-users.
DCoP members travelled from Sweden, Spain, Italy, Israel, the UK and the Netherlands to the workshop, which was hosted by DARWIN project partner KMC (Katastrofmedicinskt Centrum), based in Linköping, Sweden.
Medical and health professionals, emergency coordinators, air traffic managers, and researchers provided practical advice and inputs on how the DRMG can contribute to improving responses to expected and unexpected crises during natural and man-made disasters.
DARWIN project partners facilitated discussions on resilience management in crises, resilience concepts, resilience management guidelines toolkit and types of crises and relevant scenarios. The sessions were also based on practical examples of emergency situations, such as a boating accident in Sweden, and organ transportation in Italy.
DCoP members provided feedback and input from their own national and professional perspectives, while taking into account the need for the DRMG to apply to European resilience and emergency management.
There was consensus around the need to integrate the DRMG with existing guidelines and to avoid overlap, and also to take account of the different emergency response structures at EU level and at national levels across the EU.
KMC provided a tour of their training facilities, which allowed participants enter an Intensive Care Unit ambulance, and to emergency response with the ambulance operators.
The DARWIN project partners will now continue with the development of the DRMG, taking on board the comments, insights and advice of the DCoP members. The partners will stay in touch with the DCoP members and will continue to ensure that the DRMG are practical and relevant to the European emergency and crisis response community.
