Hazard Mitigation Training for Vulnerable Communities: A K.A.P.S. (Knowledge, Attitude, Preparedness, Skills) Approach

This book is designed to educate vulnerable communities, emergency practitioners, and disaster researchers to increase the social and physical capacity of communities to mitigate and adapt to disaster impacts. With climate change escalating the intensity and range of disasters, we have entered an unprecedented time. The tools in this book allow researchers, practitioners, and community leaders to adopt new training techniques that are more engaging and effective, using a bottom-up framework to integrate knowledge, attitude, preparedness, and skills (K.A.P.S).

This book is uniquely designed to support instructors, researchers, practitioners, and community leaders in their effort to promote preparedness across marginalized communities. The book contains a full range of templates, worksheets, survey questions, background information, and guidance for carrying out training; the material has been field-validated to meet research standards.

The K.A.P.S. Framework outlined throughout the book is designed to serve as an adaptable model that national and international audiences can utilize to better prepare their communities for disasters due to hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes. As climate change continues to ravage communities, the K.A.P.S. training program will prove to be an important tool for community trainers and academics across a range of hazards and disasters.

Joy Semien is an Interdisciplinary Multi-hazard Research Scientist and Community Capacity Builder. She holds a Bachelor of Science from Dillard University (2015) in Biology and a Master of Science from Texas Southern University (2017) in Urban Planning and Environmental Policy, where she published the K.A.P.S. framework to train High-Risk Communities. Joy works at the Hazard Reduction Recovery Center at Texas A&M University. At the center she seeks to turn research into action in an effort to increase marginalized multi-hazard communities’ ability to prepare, respond, and recover from disasters. Her research interest focuses on developing methods to uniquely bridge systemic gaps across disciplines while exploring the intersectionality’s of hazards, race, and social justice.

Earthea Nance is committed to working with vulnerable communities at disproportionate risk of hurricanes, oil spills, floods, pollution, and inadequate water and sanitation. She conducted community-based research after Hurricane Katrina, during the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, and in communities without access to water and sanitation in Brazil and Mozambique. After Hurricane Harvey, she brought community and equity perspectives into regional disaster policy during her service on the Greater Houston Flood Mitigation Consortium and on the Harris County Community Flood Resilience Task Force. Earthea currently directs the Community Environmental Leadership Program, which provides certified environmental science training to community leaders. Earthea earned her Ph.D. degree from Stanford University, and MS and BS degrees from the University of California-Davis. She has been a registered professional civil engineer for 25 years, and a certified floodplain manager for 12 years. Dr. Nance currently teaches at Texas Southern University.