Empowering communities to stay calm in a crisis

Over the summer we learned the government is preparing a national public awareness campaign to help the population prepare for emergencies like extreme weather and cyber attacks.

Local councils will have a formalised role in fostering “community resilience” in their area, and senior members of council teams have been sent a letter to prepare them for this. Most councillors see supporting their community as their main reason for getting into local government, and would of course have helped residents however they are able to in an emergency.

Although there is already support with funding options such as the three-year Crisis and Resilience Fund for lower incomes, or the Community Resilience Fund funded by the GLA for London Councils, this is another responsibility being put on already stretched council resources and finances.

The national communications campaign will hopefully be a helpful way to bring communities on board. Aiming to give people agency to build resilience from the base up; rather than just relying on councils to build it from the top down.

This isn’t an entirely new initiative, Local Resilience Forums were introduced in 2004. Made up of emergency services, local authorities, health organisations, transport bodies and other stakeholders, they were designed to make sure individual communities are prepared for potential incidents. Five of the Forums are part of a Local Resilience Forum Trailblazer Programme government trial where they are awarded pots of funds which local groups can apply for, to support with creating practical plans for before, during and after emergencies.

The major test of community resilience was of course Covid-19. It taught us both that more formal preparation for the crisis would have been helpful, especially for more vulnerable residents, and more importantly that communities are willing to step up. We all heard heart-warming stories about neighbours sharing supplies, delivering medications and giving support when people’s usual networks were unreachable.

While each household is being encouraged to be self-sufficient, by using the phrase community we already start to think about how this means people will work together.

When the Cratus Communities team first began, one of our main purposes was to make sure residents moving into new build developments formed their own community with their new neighbours. We look forward to seeing what measures and suggestions are put forward by the national campaign, and how local councils will keep integrating resilience into their strategies.

Community bonds are more important than ever, and while hopefully no major crises are on the horizon, it’s nice to take comfort in the fact our communities could be the key to their own strength.