Project: Responding Together: How We Lead Through Crisis and Complexity
Principal Investigator: Dr. Tanya Henderson, Director CRIS
Research Team: Dawn Ursuliak (Program Manager, CRIS), Bettina Williams (Program Director, Emergency Management Division), and Dr. Ronald Bowles (Research Chair, CRIS)
Project Dates: 2026-2027
Project Funding: $25,000
Project Summary: This SSHRC Connection Grant supports a two-day forum in Vancouver, BC, bringing together crisis response leaders and researchers studying leadership, decision-making, and organizational behaviour under pressure. The forum examines how human factors—sense-making, communication, trust, and coordination—shape emergency response to wildfires, floods, extreme heat, public order events, and cyber disruptions.
The event will gather approximately 40 leaders from emergency management, police, fire and EMS, Indigenous governance, critical infrastructure, and community organizations, alongside 10 researchers and students. Day 1 focuses on self-leadership under stress and ambiguity; Day 2 explores team coordination, trust, and cross-agency collaboration. Sessions combine research evidence, practitioner panels, and exercises to develop practical tools such as briefing routines, role-clarity templates, and bias-interrupt prompts.
Partners: BC Emergency Health Services; City of Abbotsford Fire Rescue Service; Indigenous Emergency Management Services; West Kelowna Fire Rescue.
Outcomes and Benefits: Participants are expected to leave the forum with improved first-hour framing, clearer roles during handovers, and faster formation of multi-agency teams during emergencies. Briefings developed through the event will support broader participation, reduce avoidable errors, and shift debriefs toward protocol improvement. Two undergraduate research assistants will gain mentored experience in evidence synthesis, facilitation, trauma-informed documentation, and plain-language communication. Indigenous engagement will follow trusted relationships and cultural protocols, with Elders opening and closing proceedings and Indigenous leaders participating on the steering circle. Rural and remote communities will benefit from plain-language materials and a follow-up webinar extending evidence-informed practices beyond the forum.
Funding and Support: This project is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) through the Connection Grants program.
Project Status: Active
Deliverables: TBA
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