Loading…
2026 CRHNet Symposium 
← Back to schedule
Reimagining Recovery: Transforming Community Assets into Resilience
Thursday May 14, 2026 11:00am - 11:25am MDT
PIC 232
Disaster recovery often shortchanges communities by prioritizing quick fixes over lasting resilience, leaving local voices unheard and local capacities untapped. Communities need an approach that strengthens resilience from within. This storytelling session draws on recovery experience from the B.C. atmospheric floods and other events to show how resilience grows when communities lead their own recovery. Grounded in more than a decade of work with Samaritan’s Purse, the session demonstrates how shifting from a reactive, deficit-based mindset to a proactive Asset-Based Community Development approach transforms recovery from frustration to empowerment, connection, and long-term capacity building.
Participants will learn how community-driven initiatives such as faith-based financial aid coalitions, mental health and wellness events, and multi-sector resiliency task forces demonstrate the power of local leadership when supported by the right tools, relationships, and frameworks. The session introduces the Resiliency Roadmap, which focuses on accompanying, empowering, and connecting as a model for fostering trust, strengthening social capital, and increasing community ownership. It also highlights Asset Mapping, a strengths-based approach that identifies and visualizes local resources and capacities to support positive change and resiliency in communities.
Aligned with the conference theme of Community-Led Resilience, this session emphasizes that resilience is not about returning to what was but about building forward. Communities become stronger when personal resilience is supported within existing networks, collaboration is intentional, and local organizations engage in emergency management conversations before disasters strike.
The session demonstrates how a whole-community approach can reduce long-term risk, enhance preparedness, and support more equitable recovery systems. It encourages emergency managers, community organizations, and policymakers to recognize and invest in the capacities already present within communities, using recovery as a catalyst to strengthen local networks and coordinated planning.
Now is the moment to shift from reactive recovery to community-led resilience. This session offers a clear path forward, empowering practitioners to activate local strengths, elevate community voices, and build recovery systems that are more connected, better prepared, and resilient for the long term.
Speakers
avatar for Kandy White

Kandy White

Community Recovery Specialist-Western Canada, Samaritan’s Purse Canada
Kandy White is a Community Recovery Specialist with Samaritan’s Purse Canada and has spent the past four years supporting disaster-impacted communities through every phase of recovery. She walks alongside individuals and families, helping them navigate resources, advocate for their... Read More →
Thursday May 14, 2026 11:00am - 11:25am MDT
PIC 232 NAIT Productivity and Innovation Centre
  Presentation

Sign up or log in to save this to your schedule, view media, leave feedback and see who's attending!

Tweet Share

Get help with the event

Contact event planner Event login
View support guides Find upcoming events
Create an event you'd love to attend!
Explore why organizers choose Sched • Success stories
Event App • Event scheduling • Event registration • Event ticketing • Sched forms • Call for papers • Badges • Conferences
© 2026. SCHED LLC - All rights reserved - Helping events since 2008
Meeting Planning Software • Privacy • Terms
Share Modal

Share this link via

Or copy link