How Prepared Are Your Community?
The seemingly unlikely would appear to be increasingly likely these days. We watch on our TVs natural disasters and severe weather events in other parts of the world, yet here in Dorset some of our communities have been laid bare by flooding, habitats ruined by wildfires and power outages that last for days. Remember storm Eunice and the Wareham Forest fire?
Parish and town councils are in a unique position to encourage their communities to support and help each other. Additionally help co-ordinate the development of emergency plans to protect those most vulnerable in your community.
If you have an active voluntary group of local residents they may just help pull this together and the role you play is by providing some funding and ensuring different community groups work together - joining up the dots, which you are often superb at doing.
UK Government’s Approach to Resilience
The professionalism and commitment of the people who contribute to the UK’s resilience is extraordinary and we have a well-established framework for civil protection in the UK. But the last few years have exposed the need to build on these strong foundations and strengthen our resilience in order to better prevent, mitigate, respond to and recover from the risks facing the nation… The framework is the first articulation of how the UK Government will deliver on a new strategic approach to resilience. It is based on three core principles:
A developed and shared understanding of the civil contingencies risks we face is fundamental;
Prevention rather than cure wherever possible: a greater emphasis on preparation and prevention; and
Resilience is a ‘whole of society’ endeavour, so we must be more transparent and empower everyone to make a contribution.
The Community Resilience Liaison Officer (CRLO)
The CRLO is available to advise your community on personal, community and societal resilience. She will be delighted to visit you in your communities to help you to understand the risks that you face at a local level, help you to prepare for and reduce the impact of those risks and potential emergencies both as an individual and also as a community. She will also provide ideas and help you to empower the whole of society to make their best contribution to your resilience.
It is incumbent upon all of society to prepare for, respond to and recover from all emergencies.
Resilience, however, does not hold the same level of importance to all members of society. Different people have different priorities in life and being resilient might not be at the top of those priorities. Those who have not suffered hardship through an emergency will perhaps not understand the need to be resilient. Those who come from harder to reach groups, such as homeless people, drug users, refugees, economic migrants and asylum seekers, disabled people, people with mental health problems, minority ethnic groups, young people and those who live in relative isolation, will neither understand the need to be prepared nor have the incentive to do so, some might also see being resilient as an additional cost that they might not be able to afford. It is incumbent therefore on those of us who are in a position to be more resilient, to provide help and guidance and to promote inclusivity to all members of society.
Why Prepare?
Preparation in any life scenario is considered to be a good idea; the better we prepare for something the better the outcome will generally be.
Throughout our day, we spend a significant amount of time preparing and making ourselves more resilient, even though, we perhaps don’t realise we are doing it. For example, we make a point of watching the weather forecast so that we can be appropriately dressed and hopefully, can avoid get wet. We may check the local traffic news prior to leaving home, so that we won’t be late or get stuck in roadworks.
Why do we do this?
It’s quite simple…Preparation, no matter how minor it may seem:
- Reduces the impact of risk
- Reduces fear and uncertainty
- Aids our response
- Eases our recovery – Helps us to build back stronger
- And just makes us feel a bit safer
Personal Resilience
Being personally resilient is the most important thing you can do. If you are not personally resilient, if you, your family, and your closest friends are not safe, then you will not be in a position to help others.
It would be advisable for you to have a grab bag ready should you need to evacuate your home at short notice. The grab bag should be stored somewhere that is easily accessible in an emergency and should contain all items that are important to you and your family. These items should only be those that are vital to your welfare and safety, sadly, you won’t have space to take everything.
This should include items that will keep you safe for up to 48 hours and should include the following:
- Warm clothing
- Basic toiletries, medication
- A notepad and pen
- Household documentation, insurance, personal identification
- Snacks, baby food, nappies, clothes, bottled water
- Pet food, collar and lead
- Cash (in a power outage bank cards and credit cards will not work, cash may be the only way that you will be able to purchase essential items).
Dorset Prepared Grab Bag Postcard
Dorset Prepared Home Emergency Action Plan
The Home Emergency Action Plan
This provides some advice and guidance should you need to remain in your home for an extended period of time. It provides information on how to stay informed should there be a power outage, what to do if you need to temporarily leave your home to get information or check on friends and neighbours, who to contact if you need help and some top tips on looking after the elderly and the young.
Societal Resilience
Every member of society should be given the opportunity to help in the development of their own and their communities’ resilience. Everyone has something to offer; the more people that you include in the development of your resilience plan, the stronger it will be.
Should the worst happen, and your risk develops into an emergency, the Community Emergency Response Plan (CERP) is your written down plan of who will do what, when, why and how of managing an emergency in your community .
The CRLO will work on your plan with you, to help you identify:
- The risk and its impact
- What you can do to mitigate that risk
- Who in your community has useful skills and training
- The equipment you have available should you need it
- How to identify and help the most vulnerable
- How to look after and utilise your volunteers
You may already have a CERP, or you may be in the process of developing one. Once you are ready and if you wish to do so, the CRLO, alongside the Emergency Management and Resilience Team will help you to test your plan, this will help to ensure that it will be fit for your needs should it need to be activated. This event will last 2 to 3 hours during which time, the plan will be exercised and tested against an agreed scenario realistic to your community risk assessment. Following this event, should you need to do so, you will be able to add in anything details that might have been missed, clarify detail, or make any changes that might help you to progress the plan.
Identifying and looking after vulnerable people
Identifying vulnerable people is extremely difficult to do. Vulnerability can change extremely quickly and an individual who isn’t usually considered to be vulnerable, can become vulnerable very quickly in an emergency situation. People who are vulnerable will not want to admit to any sort of vulnerability and it is very difficult to ask someone if they are vulnerable, without causing offence; great care must therefore, be taken when offering help to someone who you consider to be vulnerable, particularly if they do not identify themselves to be vulnerable.
The following groups of people might be considered vulnerable, but this is of course, not always the case:
- The very old
- The very young
- Those with disabilities
- Those with diagnosed illnesses
- Those with mental health issues
- Those on specific medication or those under medical treatment at home
- Those at risk of abuse or neglect
- Those suffering poverty
People have very ingenious ways of hiding their vulnerability; individuals can appear to be well, but might be suffering significant issues that will, in an emergency situation, make them extremely vulnerable. There are ways of finding out who might be hiding a vulnerability, without approaching them directly:
- The local doctor/health practitioner/chemist/nurse
- The local religious leaders
- The local shop owner
- The local landlord/lady
- Local schoolteachers
- Local youth leaders
- While these people might not tell you who is vulnerable, they will be in a position to tell the emergency services and approach the individuals themselves to offer help.
A few tips:
Try to identify who you might not have seen for a few days and check up on them
Try not to let people isolate themselves
Knock on doors get people to make you a cup of tea, making tea for you will mean they will be making tea for themselves
Take a packet of biscuits when you visit
Ask them if there is anything they need, if there is anything you can do for them
Suggest they visit the local community centre, library, warm space with you if these are available
Community Emergency Response Template
CRLO Talks and Presentations
Personal, community and societal resilience are relatively new concepts that might be unfamiliar to many people.
The CRLO will be delighted to visit you in your community or engage in an online meeting to talk to individuals, groups, town and parish councils about:
- Personal Resilience
- Community Resilience
- Winter and Summer Preparedness
- Local Risk Analysis and CERP development
The CRLO also has great contacts with other agencies and can include more specialist subjects to presentations such as flood management and flood planning through the Environment Agency and the management of wildfire risk and wildfire planning through Firewise. The CRLO also has an excellent contact within Rotary, who are keen to visit and assess individual households against flood risk and the provision of flood packs.
If there is something specific to your community that impacts your resilience, that you would like to gain advice on or you would like to discuss, please don’t hesitate to make contact with her and she endeavour to find a specialist who can meet your requirements.
Invite the CRLO to your Community Event – The CRLO will be delighted to attend any of your community events across the year; these can be indoor or outdoor events. Please contact her to discuss your thoughts and requirements.
