The goal of the Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy is to:
“…achieve increased resilience in communities and individuals impacted by natural and manmade disasters. Such leadership is guided by the ethics of the Triple Bottom Line: Equity, Environment, and Economy.”
The Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy emerged from the breakdown in leadership during the 2004 Katrina super storm disaster.
The program is a branch of Tulane University’s School of Social Work.
The program is funded through the University of Tulane, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery, and the Royal Norwegian Government.
There are four different levels to the Disaster Resilience Leadership certification. Level 1 is Strengthening Existing Leadership Capacity. Level 2 is Building Organizational Efficacy. Level 3 is Creating Future DRL Leaders. Level 4 is Global DRL Network. It is a 6 day workshop.
Community leaders and professionals across various countries and communities to prepare them to lead their communities during disaster management.
The program provides successful participants a certification. A Master’s degree in Disaster Resilience Leadership is available through a 36 credit hour course.
“Based upon research that the DRLA leadership has conducted with reputational leaders in the field, including leaders from within other premier academic institutions, international organizations, prestigious NGOs, the United Nations, the donor community, think tanks and the Red Cross movement, it is widely agreed that a systematic and interdisciplinary approach to leadership is widely needed in the community and insufficiently addressed in most academic programs. As Tulane University itself has exhibited such resilience and strength of leadership in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, it represents and ideal setting to support such an approach to disaster resilience leadership education and allows students to experience the living laboratory of recovery and resilience that is the city of New Orleans.” -- Louisiana Voluntary Organizations Active in Disasters.
This study utilized a random sample of rape victim advocates to determine whether the current community systems and services work for these victims. As is mentioned in the introduction, the services for rape victims are typically separated in terms of legal, medical, mental health; studies tend to focus on these entities individually when evaluating their procedures, thus greatly narrowing the scope of the procedure. This study, therefore, aims to create a comprehensive view of the system as a whole and whether services provided to victims work in this larger context.
The study does utilize a fairly new perspective to gather information. This study as a whole appears to work both as a review article and present information gathered through the subjects interviewed. The first portion of the article presents the various factors being considered in the provided services (for example, why some rape cases are thrown out at a community level, and what characteristics of sexual assault influence social system response). The second portion utilizes interviews with a national, random sample of victim advocates. The selection process ended with 177 eligible agencies for questioning, and 168 participated in the interview process. As mentioned in the introduction of the report and in a previous answer, this large scale study is contrary to usual methodologies. Victim services are typically examined within a small context (i.e. how many alleged rape cases brought to a detective are pursued or how many alleged rape victims who present for counseling receive this help and what is their progress). This study took all of the levels of service (legal, medical, and mental health) and viewed their effectiveness as a network.