Awareness and Understanding

Before you start to prepare for your resilience response you will need to be familiar with what community resilience is and why it is important for people/communities to be prepared and involved collectively (see Section 1 of this resource)

You will need to be aware of who does what locally in emergencies and what the roles of different people are - particularly the role of emergency services, emergency responders, and public authorities such as your local Council. 

Training and Learning about resilience

It is important that anyone getting involved in community resilience activity learns about what resilience is, what is involved in resilience responses and how they can get involved as part of a collective response.

The Learn section of Ready Scotland is a useful starting point for anyone wanting to find out more about Resilience. The module on the Role of Community Groups in Emergencies is particularly useful.  

It is helpful to check out if your local Council provides training e.g. Dumfries & Galloway Council includes resilience as part of their induction training for Community Councillors

Information

A major part of community resilience is the provision or dissemination of information which is easy to understand and follow as well as having clear communication methods and channels with others who are involved in emergency responses e.g. the emergency services, the local Council, emergency responders, etc.

You will need to consider:

  • Do you need to provide information, or are there others doing this you can help with? Your local Council and/or other services will have information on community resilience that they will distribute. A key role for local community groups is to help disseminate this in accessible and appropriate ways.

  • Who are you providing or routing information to? - individuals, families, groups, etc. This will have a bearing on how the information is presented. You will need to consider how accessible the information is to people with different needs.

  • How do we ensure that people take the information seriously without being unduly alarmed? Again, this will have a bearing on how the information is presented – sometimes a face-to-face chat is more reassuring than a leaflet posted through the letterbox.

  • How do we ensure the information that is going out is consistent? It is important that there aren’t mixed messages going out about what to do in an emergency.

Here is an example from Dumfries and Galloway giving an example of information which has been issued to households there.

Dumfries and Galloway Household Leaflet

Communication

Regular communication about community resilience can help ensure that people are prepared in the event of an emergency in their community. How this is done will depend on the structure you have set up and how information has been provided or disseminated amongst your local community. It may include:

  • Regular newsletters (hard copy or online) or regular updates in existing community newsletters, local newspapers, etc. - Kyle of Sutherland Community Resilience Plan

  • Posters or leaflets with key information – these could be posted out, distributed door-to-door, given out at local groups/clubs or through local schools, health services, etc.

  • Use of other local media such as community radio stations

  • Use of local webpages – both group pages and public authority websites

  • Use of social media – e.g. via community facebook or what’s app groups and/or social media accounts of the main service agencies such as the local Council, Health Board, Police or Fire and Rescue.

  • Inputs to local group meetings or events.

  • An annual community event which highlights community resilience activities across all local organisations – public authorities, emergency services, third sector organisations and community groups.

  • Other interesting methods – such as Falkirk Council’s Resilient Dogs Calendar! Falkirk Resilient Dogs Community calendar

 Whatever means of communication you use it is important to remember:

  • More than one method is always useful – no one size fits all and different people will prefer different forms of communication

  • Communication should be regular – how regular will depend on your community and local circumstances but it is important that it shouldn’t just happen during an emergency (see Section 4)

  • Communication should be consistent 

  • Communication should always be 2-way – it is important to be able to impart information or get key messages across, but it is equally important to listen to what people have to say and take that on board when you are planning or implementing resilience responses

Resources to help you

Getting involved in community resilience activity doesn’t need a lot of money or resources but there is help available from various sources if you want to get organised and provide some practical support. Examples of these include:

Funding

Your local Third Sector Interface (TSI) may have a dedicated officer able to support you to look for funding.

There are various places you can apply to for funding. Examples of these include: The National Lottery(Awards for All and other programmes), Foundation Scotland (a wide range of funding opportunities) as well as some small pots of money that may be available through local organisations.

Equipment and Premises

Information on local assets may be held by a local community organisation, a development trust or by the TSI. It varies across the country. Our local community council would be a good starting point to investigate.

The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) hold a community asset register – SFRS Community Asset Register

Next: Section 3