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There has been a long-running debate as to which is more important in the job market, education or experience. Traditionally, people have looked at these as exclusive traits of one another; however, more progressive thought sees these as complimentary attributes in perspective and existing employees that can be achieved at the same time through proactive activities such as micro-credentialing. This chapter will explore how formal and informal micro-credentialing processes can be put forward in both education and training environments.

The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA, 2022) shows an increase in severity and frequency of natural disasters in the past years with more organisations being faced with surviving these events than ever before. The recent COVID pandemic has shown how every organisation across the globe can be affected by a disaster and the cascading effects that follow. Techniques such as micro-credentialing is a tool that can be utilised by all organisations to ensure a safer outcome from these events as well as being positioned for better continuity of critical operations through the event helping to increase the survivability and profitability of the affected organisation.

The use of micro-credentialing components successfully could be discussed using any field or discipline. To be applicable to all readers, this chapter primarily focusses on the emergency services/management discipline as an example programme of how micro-credentialing can be efficiently utilised to produce a more successful workforce. Emergency management (EM) truly is an interdisciplinary field that utilises many other fields to protect people, organisations, and communities from emergencies and disasters. More importantly, though, there are components of EM that every field should embrace for safety as well as to ensure continuity of operations through any event, thereby making the components in this chapter applicable to all readers regardless of discipline or organisation.

Nepal is exposed to multi-hazard risk and is highly prone to disasters such as earthquake, flood, landslide, and drought. The climate, topography, nature-based livelihood, and weak economy and institutional capability to deal with such disasters put the country at frontline of the highly vulnerable countries in the world. Majority of the population of Nepal live in rural areas which are characterized by poorly developed infrastructures. Several disasters in such areas induce temporarily or permanently displacements of the people. Vulnerable communities, households, and individuals lack the capacity to withstand shocks, while more resilient communities are able to reduce the associated risks. Migration during disasters is itself an adaptive response which is both the opportunity and challenge for developing a resilient community. This chapter presents the trends and patterns of disaster-induced displacements in Nepal and explores how disaster-induced displacements could be an opportunity to build back better to enhance the resilience of the vulnerable communities. This chapter also highlights the existing institutions and disaster management framework of the national policies and strategies at the federal, provincial, and local levels in the light of disaster-induced displacement, and recommend actions that need to be taken to manage the risk of disaster-induced displacements and enhance resilient livelihoods in Nepal.

Cultural heritage and memory are essential mechanisms for the formation of individual and group identity, contributing to a sense of belonging in society. More specifically, built heritage (the buildings, structures and monuments associated with our cultural history) reflect our individual and collective decisions about what is important to preserve and remember into the future, further shaping our identities as citizens of Waterford. Thus, our relationship with heritage is just as much about looking forward into our social imagination for the future of Waterford city as it is about reflecting on our past.

Sites of Conscience are a specific type of built heritage which signify a society's belief that by remembering difficult pasts we can interrogate our current lived realities and create meaningful change in the future (International Coalition for Sites of Consciousness, 2022). Sites of Conscience are akin to what French historian Pierre Nora (1989) referred to as ‘les lieux de mémoire’, or places of memory. These physical spaces can connect past traumas and struggles to our present lives. As places of memory which ask us to acknowledge the past, Sites of Conscience can prevent the erasure of historical traumas and stand as an act of restorative justice, providing safe spaces for citizens to engage with difficult memories.

One such site of conscience in Waterford is the complex of buildings located at the College Street Campus of the South East Technological University. The site comprises the former convent of the Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd of Angers (commonly known as the Good Shepherd Sisters); the St Mary's Good Shepherd (Magdalene) Laundry; and St Dominick's Industrial School. The site was occupied in 1884 and the Laundry operated until its closure in 1982 (Department of Justice, 2013). This chapter will consider the former Magdalene Laundry and Industrial School's cultural and heritage significance to Waterford as a site of conscience, which encourages the citizens of Waterford not only to connect our past to our present, but to connect these memories to current actions to create a more just society into the future.

The built heritage of this complex acts as a powerful memory aide of a shared local history, allowing citizens to connect this past to related contemporary human rights issues. In this way, the former Laundry and Industrial School can stimulate discussions on gendered violence today, or to interrogate modern forms of institutionalisation such as Direct Provision. The chapter will further consider how these connections are even more important when our need to remember and recognise past atrocities are met with social, political, economic or cultural pressure to forget. Sometimes the desire for erasure is understandable; we want to commit events to the past and move on. However, such erasure can further disempower survivors of these institutions; prevent current and future generations from learning critical lessons; and dismantle future opportunities for healing and reconciliation. In this context, Sites of Conscience offer an opportunity to connect a difficult past to visions of a more socially just city of the future.

This chapter analyzes the link between the digital divide, infrastructure regulation, and disaster planning and relief through a case study of the flood in San Jose, California triggered by the Anderson dam’s overtopping in February 2017 and an examination of communication failures during the 2018 wildfire in Paradise, California. This chapter theorizes that regulatory decisions construct social and disaster vulnerability. Rooted in the Whole Community approach to disaster planning and relief espoused by the United Nations and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, this chapter calls for leadership to end the digital divide. It highlights the imperative of understanding community information needs and argues for linking strategies to close the digital divide with infrastructure and emergency planning. As the Internet’s integration into society increases, the digital divide diminishes access to societal resources including disaster aid, and exacerbates wildfire, flood, pandemic, and other risks. To mitigate climate change, climate-induced disaster, protect access to social services and the economy, and safeguard democracy, it argues for digital inclusion strategies as a centerpiece of community-centered infrastructure regulation and disaster relief.

Using visual materials to understand a social object requires the researcher to know that object's purpose, and this is true whether the object is an artifact, a restricted event, a small social world, or something as massive as the modern city. I argue that the purpose of the city as a settlement is driven by the need to safely sleep in peace at night while satisfying other basic biophysical needs during the day as conveniently as possible. An examination of these needs identifies 10 functional prerequisites for human settlement, entangling its inhabitants in involuntary community with entities and events other than themselves, whether they like it or not. In addition, the rise of the modern city exacerbates the challenge of living in a reluctant community and pressures its inhabitants to come to terms with the consequences for how these relationships affect daily life. I highlight nine challenges posed as questions that have been particularly salient in American urban history since the mid-nineteenth century. How these challenges have been addressed indicates not only what it takes to make a modern city a settlement suitable for satisfying human needs, but also just how deeply invested its residents are in making the city work. Finally, the 10 functional prerequisites and nine moral challenges not only provide a framework for researching the city, but also suggest a coherent outline for imagining a “shooting script” or guide for conducting visual research.

In response to a critical need for uniform school crisis preparedness and response efforts across districts, the National Association of School Psychologists developed PREPaRE, a model and training curriculum aimed to equip school-based professionals to engage in comprehensive school crisis prevention and intervention practices. The PREPaRE acronym stands for: Prevent/Prepare for psychological trauma; Reaffirm physical health, security, and safety; Evaluate psychological trauma; Provide interventions (and) Respond to psychological needs; and Examine the effectiveness of prevention and intervention efforts. The model spans four crisis preparedness phases: Prevention, Mitigation, Response, and Recovery. This chapter provides a detailed overview of the development and structure of the PREPaRE model's core components and the organizational framework of the Incident Command System. It delineates elements of the basic school crisis response plan, assessment of mental health risk following a crisis event, and the provision of crisis interventions within a multitiered system of support framework. Additionally, it summarizes ongoing effectiveness and implementation research used to evaluate and improve the model based on immediate training outcomes assessed through pre and postmeasures and training transfer to applied school contexts. Implications for research and public policy regarding school safety and crisis prevention and intervention, as well as the future of PREPaRE curriculum development, are discussed.