Lesson 3 – Resilience is everyone’s business

This lesson looks at making connections with resilience partners and building your local connections.

Everyone has a part to play in Scotland’s response to emergency situations. Local community groups and voluntary sector organisations will often have closer relationships with, and a good understanding of, the priorities and needs of community members. As such, it is important that the insight they have about their community – the risks, resources, and the roles that they are able to play – is part of wider resilience planning.

Here are some ways you can connect with resilience partners and play a part.

Community groups

Connect with your Local Authority and your local Third Sector Interface. They are key contributors to Local Resilience Partnerships.

Find contact details for your Local Authority.

Find contact details for your local Third Sector Interface on gov.scot.

Each Local Authority may have different arrangements to connect with communities on emergency issues. For example it could be a local area or ward manager, a communities team or a central emergency resilience team.

Voluntary sector organisations

Connect with your local Third Sector Interface and Local Authority's emergency planning team. They are key contributors to Local Resilience Partnerships.

Find contact details for your Local Authority.

Find contact details for your local Third Sector Interface on gov.scot.

If your organisation is regional or national, there are national arrangements in place to bring together a broad range of voluntary and community sector organisations alongside Scottish Government policy and statutory resilience partners. Contact the Ready Scotland team to find out more.

Social enterprises and local businesses

Supporting your community through challenging times isn’t just the right thing to do — it is also a better way of doing business that helps you to build stronger social connections with the community you serve.

Build your connections with your local community through the Community Council, local councillors and local authorities, to find out how they are supporting businesses in the community.

Find out more about how your business can support your local community.

Building local partnerships

You have now seen how responders work together and the important role that voluntary and community groups can play. But what about building your own partnerships at a local level?

If you are part of a community group, local business or voluntary organisation, it is important that you reach out and connect with other groups who do similar work or support the same communities. There is a huge amount of benefit in collaborative working, including:

• bringing more volunteers together
• responding quickly to those most in need and providing help to a larger amount of people
• avoiding duplication of effort
• finding creative solutions to local problems

Consider your community. How many community and voluntary groups can you think of that might be able to work together and pool resources when there is a serious challenge?

Here are some examples of community groups that might operate in your area:

• Community Council
• Neighbourhood Watch
• Local sports club
• Parents association
• Social Club
• Residents association
• Walking group
• Environmental group
• Faith group

Creating an emergency plan together can help to identify any groups and organisations who could be working together to prepare for, respond to, and recover from emergencies in your area. Even if you are unaware of them at the moment, it may be worthwhile reaching out where effective partnerships can be formed.

In our course 'The role of community groups in emergencies' you can find out more about how community groups can support local people during emergencies, how a community can make a resilience plan, and how the community group can build strong connections with local resilience partners.