Child-centred disaster risk reduction: can disaster resilience programs reduce risk and increase the resilience of children and households?

There has been an increasing research and policy focus internationally on the role of child-centred disaster risk reduction and resilience (CC-DRR), including disaster risk reduction and resilience education programs for children and youth. This paper summarises developments and emphasises current progress and challenges. While research has increased in the past 15 years, there are significant research gaps, including those regarding the effectiveness of programs and their relatively patchy implementation. How to solve these problems has been the focus of a world-first national program of research funded by the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC. Building on international and national research to date, this paper focuses on the question of ‘how can we create, evaluate, implement and scale up CC-DRR programs that work over time, including during disasters and into adulthood, to reduce risk and increase resilience for children, youth, schools, households and communities?’ This includes a guiding model for research and use, and a set of researchinformed tools either developed or being developed to facilitate further progress.