Innovate Media conceived, pitched and led end-to-end delivery of a community co-designed initiative called Resilient Seniors: Ready Together. It’s a disaster health preparedness program for older Australians living independently across Central Queensland, built on behavioural change communication rather than a standard information campaign.
The project combined community co-design, lived experience storytelling and video production to help older residents take practical steps towards disaster preparedness and equip health professionals to support those conversations.
Innovate Media developed the project concept in response to the Resilient CARE grant priorities and secured funding through a successful grant application. We then led delivery, coordinating specialist co-design contractors – Humanise This and Sage PR – health stakeholders, community organisations and older Queenslanders to develop practical disaster preparedness resources. Our clinical writing partner, HeathStaffEd, developed the clinical content, informed by the co-design findings. The project was delivered in partnership with Country to Coast Queensland (CCQ) through the Resilient CARE program.
Still image from Community Voices Video #4 – What if you had to leave home quickly?
Resilient Seniors: Ready Together shows what happens when community co-design and behavioural change communication work together. We didn’t start with a script. We started by listening. We surveyed, interviewed and ran workshops with 101 stakeholders and 131 participants across five Central Queensland local government regions. That engagement surfaced the real barriers to disaster preparedness: eroding social connection, a lack of confidence in unfamiliar scenarios, shifting notions of independence, and a culture of stoicism that can mask genuine vulnerability. It also revealed that health professionals wanted to help but didn’t feel equipped to start the conversation.
We translated those findings into ten videos, five accredited clinical modules and a suite of facilitator resources, brought together in a digital toolkit. These were all built to prompt reflection and one small, achievable action, not passive viewing. Community members who had lived through floods, cyclones and flash flooding told their own stories and shared their own planning practices, grounding the content in local experience and practical advice. The result is a toolkit shaped by community insight and developed with specialist and clinical input, designed to support reflection and practical action beyond the videos.
Resilient Seniors: Ready Together – Digital Toolkit website at project handover stage
Still image from Julie’s Story
Yeppoon, Livingstone Shire, QLD
Older Australians in the Bundaberg, Fraser Coast, Gladstone, Livingstone and Rockhampton regions face heightened natural disaster risk. Health vulnerability, social isolation and low levels of practical preparedness compound that risk. Many underestimate their own exposure. Others assume emergency services will step in without any personal planning. Local health providers reported a similar gap: they lacked accessible, senior-friendly resources to support these conversations in community and primary care settings.
Practical preparedness information needed to be supported by trusted voices, relatable stories and opportunities for discussion. The co-design findings pointed to an approach that allowed older Queenslanders to share their own experience and identify achievable steps towards preparedness.
Knowing the risks isn’t the same as acting on them. Our co-design research confirmed this again and again: seniors could often list what they should do, but hadn’t physically put a plan in place. That gap between intention and action is exactly what behavioural change communication is designed to close.
Rather than pushing information at people, we needed to shift attitudes, build confidence and prompt one small, achievable step at a time. That meant grounding every video, guide and clinical module in real stories, peer influence and strengths-based language to support confidence, reflection and practical action.
In collaboration with our Co-Design partners, Innovate Media coordinated a structured community co-design phase over three months. The project engaged 101 stakeholders and 131 participants across the five target local government areas. The process included:
All up, the community co-design phase involved more than 140 hours of direct stakeholder engagement. The findings informed the messaging, tone, visual content and distribution strategy for the resources that followed. For example, the finding that community connection supports preparedness informed the “Who checks on you and who do you check on?” Community Voices video and its accompanying discussion prompts.
Community co-design workshop in Yeppoon
Bundaberg community co-design workshop participants
Still image from Community Voices #5 – Who checks on you and who do you check on?
The co-design process surfaced five core themes. Together, they shaped the consumer-facing toolkit:
Our clinical writing partners used these co-design insights to develop the CPD accredited clinical eLearning content. GPs and health professionals now have practical, non-judgemental conversation starters and a simple framework for embedding preparedness into routine care.
We translated these insights into action. Working alongside our project partners and numerous community organisations and individuals, Innovate Media delivered:
Still image from Community Voices Video #4 – What if you had to leave home quickly?
Real Central Queenslanders, Des, Ross, Sandy, Julie, and Chris & Stan, shared their own stories of floods, cyclones and flash flooding on camera. Each had lived through the real thing, learned hard lessons along the way, and wanted to pass that knowledge on to their peers. Their stories cover the practical changes they’ve since made to their own planning, from grab bags and document audits to knowing exactly who to call when the power goes out. The information gives viewers a grounded, credible sense of what preparedness actually looks like in practice.
Video: Julie’s Story
Video: Chris & Stan’s Story
Alongside the five Lived Experience Stories are five shorter ‘Community Voices’ videos, filmed vox-pop style in community locations across the five regions. Rather than following one person’s story, each Community Voices video gathers quick, honest answers from multiple different local seniors, all responding to a single theme, such as how their planning has changed as they’ve aged. Every Community Voices video maps directly to one of five ‘Reflect, Think, Act’ prompts, giving facilitators a fast, peer-led way to spark discussion in a 10 to 15 minute session. Together, the ten videos are designed to help viewers reflect on their circumstances and identify a small, achievable action.
Video: Community Voices #4 – What if you had to leave home quickly?
Video: Community Voices #5 – Who checks on you and who do you check on?
We also produced a 36-page Facilitator Guide, so community leaders can run their own peer-led sessions using trauma-informed and strengths-based facilitation techniques. Every video pairs with its own printed prompts: ‘Let’s Talk About It’ thought starters for the Lived Experience Stories, and ‘Reflect, Think, Act’ questions for the Community Voices segments. These prompts push viewers to weigh up their own level of preparedness and talk it through with friends and family, rather than just watch the videos passively. That’s a deliberate behavioural change communication choice, turning each video into a discussion and a thinking exercise, not just content to absorb and forget.
Facilitator Guide PDF download
We designed the website around its end users: older Queenslanders and the people who support them. Navigation is simple and the text is clear and easy to read. Each of the five local government areas has its own page, covering the disaster risks most relevant to that region, such as flooding, cyclones, bushfires and extreme heat. Visitors can find the local disaster resources, videos and corresponding conversation guides all in one place.
Resilient Seniors: Ready Together – Digital Toolkit website at project handover stage
Still image from Des’s Story
Older Queenslanders aren’t a single audience, and we didn’t treat them as one. Respect and accessibility shaped the toolkit at every stage:
The five accredited eLearning modules are now live for GPs and health professionals via CCQ’s clinical learning platform. The modules provide practical guidance and conversation starters to help practitioners discuss disaster preparedness with older patients. The public-facing digital toolkit is now available through CCQ’s priority area resources at resilientseniors.com.au. The project provides a community-informed approach that could be adapted for similar preparedness initiatives in other regions.
With the toolkit now publicly available, its value sits as much in the approach as in the resources themselves: listening to communities, bringing together relevant expertise and using lived experience to make preparedness practical and relatable.
This initiative was supported by Country to Coast Queensland (CCQ) through the Australian Government’s PHN Program, and is part of the Resilient CARE program.
Still image from Community Voices #5 – Who checks on you and who do you check on?
CCQ has valued the opportunity to work with Innovate Media on the Resilient Seniors project. Their collaborative and creative approach has helped bring our vision to life, translating important healthy ageing messages into engaging and accessible content for older people and the broader community.
– Julie Dymock
Director Healthy Ageing and End of Life Care
CCQ Country to Coast PHN, QLD
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