What is community resilience?
The Government generally defines community resilience as “a community's capacity to withstand, adapt to, and recover from adversity, including emergencies and crises. This involves individuals, communities, and organisations working together to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disruptions, while also leveraging available resources and expertise. Ultimately, community resilience aims to minimise the negative impacts of shocks and stresses on a community's well-being and functionality.’’
Preparing as a community for an emergency in Lancashire
An emergency can have serious consequences, and it is important you take steps to protect yourself and your family by being prepared for if the unexpected happens.
But as well as considering your own personal circumstances, it is more important than ever to strengthen the resilience of our local communities to ensure they are better prepared for any possible emergencies. Although extreme weather conditions, such as flooding and heavy snow, are the most common emergencies we face, there are a range of other emergencies that could occur within a community such as gas leaks, fires, mass power failure, and major traffic incidents and health pandemics, like Covid19.
Experience has shown that, sometimes due to the scale and nature of an incident, the normal response provided by the emergency services and the local authorities can be delayed. On these occasions anything the local community can do to support each other will help them deal with the emergency more effectively.
Each community is different and has different risks. For example, some areas are far more vulnerable to flooding than others while some rural areas may see their lives heavily disrupted by bad weather conditions.
How resilient is your community? Your ward, borough, village or street? Your sports club or other community group? And what can you do to help build this resilience?
By building on existing local relationships and networks, using local knowledge and preparing for risks, your community will be better able to cope during and after an emergency.
A resilient community will be:
Better prepared for an emergency
Know what to do, before outside help and emergency services can arrive
Work with emergency services and other agencies effectively, using local knowledge
Recover more quickly and effectively after an emergency
What is a Community Resilience Group (CRG)?
A CRG is defined by the Lancashire Resilience Forum as “an identifiable and contactable group of people living in a discrete geographic area, who together; plan and train, gather resources, and develop partnerships to be able to respond to emergencies affecting their community.’’
Where can I find more advice and information?
How would you help your community prepare for an emergency?
Emergencies such as flooding, fires and power cuts can affect us all. The Government has an official website which highlights simple and effective steps you can take to be more prepared.
