Who can you work with

One of the first things to think about is who can help you. In many areas there are already active community groups and businesses which help to respond to emergencies. Consider what already exists around you and whether an existing group could be built upon to include dealing with emergencies.

As well as your local authority, you may want to talk to your Community Council or local councillors, as well as local organisations like the Police, Fire and Rescue Service, Ambulance Service, and voluntary organisations active in your area such as mountain rescue teams, St Andrews First Aid, the Royal Voluntary Service or the British Red Cross.

It’s important to remember that you need to have support from your community for a plan to work. People need to be prepared to sign up and offer to help if an emergency happens. Raising awareness and encouraging people to see the value of ‘joining in’ are an important part of building the foundations for a plan.

To make your plan more effective, everyone in your community should have a chance to get involved. Different people bring different skills and opportunities. For example, some people may not be able to clear snow but could be willing to help look after people who have to leave their homes in an emergency. People from different ethnic communities may have language skills, and could help communicate with people in your community for whom English isn’t their first language.

You could have an open meeting where the community can discuss their ideas for the plan and find out who is interested in helping to create it. There may already be a regular meeting where you can do this – such as a Community Council meeting, Neighbourhood Watch or Residents’ Association. Think about groups within the community who might not find an open meeting easy to attend and look for other ways to get their views.

Remember that different methods might be needed to communicate with different people. For example, people with childcare responsibilities may not be able to attend evening meetings and some people may not use social media.

You may want to consider:

• talking about the idea at meetings of your community groups, and with other community groups in the area
• delivering leaflets to local households (to save effort, where possible, you can co-ordinate doing this at the same time as other leaflets are being distributed)
• putting leaflets in local shops, pubs or other services, and using community websites, newsletters, papers and social networking
• including information in letters sent home with school children
• making use of social contacts to spread the word

When you’ve got a group of people together who want to take part, you can form a Community Emergency Group. This will usually build on an existing community group such as a Community Council, Residents Association, Neighbourhood Watch or Rotary Club. But it could be a new group set up for this purpose. This group will lead your preparations and coordinate the action you take with the emergency responders in your area.