Making the most
community resilience
On Tuesday 30-01-18, I did a talk called ‘Making the most of
community resilience’, at a meeting of the Communities Prepared National Group
(CPNG), which is run by the Civil Contingencies Secretariat in the Cabinet
Office. CPNG meets a couple of times a year, and its purpose is to support the
development and local implementation of community
resilience policy across England by sharing good practice, advising government
and identifying opportunities for collaboration. CPNG meetings are attended by representatives
of government departments, the devolved administrations and lots of Local
Resilience Forums around the country (largely people working on resilience and
emergency planning in local authorities).
My talk drew on my work on the
Urban Heat project, which was funded by Joseph Rowntree Foundation, as well as
more recent thinking. The talk focused on working with the voluntary and
community sector (VCS), on planning in particular. Above all, the purpose of my
talk was to emphasise the huge untapped potential that resides in the VCS in
terms of in-depth grassroots knowledge, as well as capacity and capability. I
also focused on the value of seeing collaboration with the VCS as a
collaboration of equals, and characterised by mutual learning and empowerment.
It is clear that statutory bodies often find it challenging to work with the
VCS, so I also highlighted a few issues that I feel are important in terms of
process, for instance, making sure that differences in agency, types of
expertise and ways of working are accounted for.
Links and contacts:
More about Urban Heat and
community resilience here.
More about the government’s
approach to community resilience here.
Contact me about community
resilience: kevinwburchell@gmail.com
Contact the Cabinet Office about
community resilience: community.resilience@cabinet-office.x.gsi.gov.uk
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