Posts Tagged: professional
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New research identifies UCCE disaster management needs
Californians have been dealing with wildfires, the pandemic, power shutdowns, excessive heat and drought, sometimes all at the same time. In every county, UC Cooperative Extension is there to assist community members.
To better serve their clientele, nearly three-quarters of UC Cooperative Extension employees say they need professional development related to disaster response, according to a new study led by Vikram Koundinya, UC Cooperative Extension evaluation specialist in the UC Davis Department of Human Ecology.
Koundinya and coauthors Cristina Chiarella, UC Davis doctoral graduate student researcher; Susan Kocher, UC Cooperative Extension advisor for the Central Sierra; and Faith Kearns, California Institute for Water Resources academic coordinator, surveyed UC ANR personnel to identify existing disaster management programs and future needs. Their research was published in the October 2020 edition of Journal of Extension.
“It's becoming so common that our folks are being put in the role of responding to disasters, while not having much training or background to do so,” Kocher said.
“And, it's really cross-disciplinary,” she added. “Right now, our nutrition folks are doing so much with assisting their communities with food access during COVID. Others, like Faith Kearns, have been working hard to address drought and help clientele weather drought impacts. There are the individual events like the LNU Lightning Complex fires [wildfires caused by lightning strikes in Lake, Napa, Sonoma, Solano and Yolo counties that burned from Aug. 17 to Oct. 2, 2020], but really, so many of us are currently doing disaster work across our disciplines and that role will only continue to expand with climate change-induced disasters. Once you frame it as ‘disaster work' you can start to see how our system needs to be much more prepared and to learn from and collaborate with each other and with disaster organizations.”
The survey showed that about one-third of the 224 respondents had been involved in preparing for, responding to, or helping communities recover from disasters. Respondents also noted a variety of needs related to disaster preparedness, response and recovery systems, procedures, materials and equipment, and educational materials.
“UC ANR personnel reported a need for professional development related to understanding how we fit into broader disaster response systems (73%) in California, what Extension resources are available for disaster response (63%), how the landscape of disaster risks in California communities is changing (62%), how communities can mitigate or manage disaster risks (62%), how to develop pre-established networks within the organization for responding to disasters (52%) and coordination with local and state entities (48%),” Koundinya said.
The authors note in the journal article, “Even though UCCE has been playing a critical role in disaster response for decades, because of the size and geographic spread of the UCCE system, disaster management approaches and materials have tended to develop piecemeal on a program-by-program and often county-by-county and disaster-by-disaster basis.”
The article, “Disasters Happen: Identifying disaster management needs of Cooperative Extension System personnel” can be viewed at https://joe.org/joe/2020october/a2.php.
“We recommend that the findings be used for designing professional development on the topics and needs identified by the respondents,” said Koundinya.
Enhancing our leadership and collaboration
Coming together, keeping together and working together during unprecedented times.
Although we live in challenging times, few organizations are managing those challenges as well as UC ANR. Throughout our community, at every level, staff and academics have innovated and found new ways to ensure that our local communities continue to be served by our programs, our research and our partnerships. You have all shown your ability to adapt and have demonstrated a high level of resilience in a continually changing and unprecedented environment these past months. Yet, even resilience requires renewal and revitalization.
Therefore, as we continue to adjust to ongoing change, I want to encourage all UC ANR people – supervisors and individual contributors alike – to tap more deeply into their collaborative and team building potential by completing the UC People Management Certificate Series within the next year.
ANR as a whole will benefit from our individual understanding of the basic tenets of employee engagement, team building, setting clear expectations, clear communication and collaboration. On an individual basis, you will gain a deeper understanding and tools to enhance your people skills, collaboration skills, prioritizing work, implicit bias awareness, being an effective team member, and preparing yourself for leadership roles.
There are 16 required and 4 elective modules which range from 15-25 minutes. Included in the required modules are topics such as “Giving and Receiving Feedback”, “Coaching for Performance and Development”, and “What is Implicit Bias?” In the elective course section, topics include “Building Collaborative Relationships,” “Move Forward with Change Planning” and “UC Responding to Conflict.” They are well worth your investment of time – both as professional development and personal growth.
Let's continue to champion the amazing work we all do by delving into people management.
Once you have completed the series, please contact learninganddevelopment@ucanr.edu for your digital certificate.
As always, many thanks for the great work you do!
Stay safe out there,
Glenda
UC IPM Resources for Landscape Professionals
[Originally published in the Winter 2019 issue of the Green Bulletin] What is UC IPM? UC IPM is a...