Communities Prepared is a National Lottery funded Groundwork programme that provides people and communities with the knowledge and confidence to prepare for, respond to and recover from a range of emergencies, and in-turn foster long-term resilience. We combine multi-hazard volunteer training, including flooding, storms, wildfires, utility and snow, with community development workshops on topics such as crisis recovery and community emergency planning.

Our training is designed to be tailored to the specific needs, risks and priorities of local communities, and we’re proud that in October 2022 we launched the expanded members area of our website. This allows unlimited access for anyone to our extensive learning space and materials. By registering with us for free, any user (individual, professional or organisation) can access our self-led online learning modules and handbooks and register for the accompanying online webinar discussions in our calendar.

The Communities Prepared programme includes the project Building Resilience Together, a collaboration with British Red Cross, Aviva, and local communities to develop community-led solutions through establishing local community resilience hubs that are integrated into LRF planning and activity. We have also recently been awarded LRF Innovation funding to work with County Durham and Darlington Local Resilience Forum. This will bring on-the-ground relationships together with a variety of learning opportunities, support, resilience mapping, ways of communicating with volunteer responders before and during an emergency, and the fostering of collaborative working through the sharing of data.  

We’ll be at this year’s newly re-branded Flood and Water Management Expo to discuss our offer and hear about the priorities and concerns facing you, your communities and the communities you work with. We are thrilled to be part of the returning and expanding Community Flood Zone, an initiative we have championed and developed with the event organiser, bringing together other flood specialists with the explicit aim of centring the public in the discussion around flooding. We encourage you to come with your questions and thoughts to help shape the priorities of flood services with your experiences, ideas and capabilities. Your contribution to the conversation is vitally important and will enable us to continue this initiative beyond this year, so come and say hello and discuss how we can work together.

We hope to see you in September, and please stay tuned for further exciting announcements from the Community Flood Zone throughout the summer! If you have any questions in the meantime, contact us via email, through our website or via our social media channels.

Get Involved with Communities Prepared

Register with us via this link for unlimited access to our learning and resources. It is quick, free and helps us gauge how many people our training and support is reaching as we evaluate the programme. Your data will not be shared anywhere else, you will never be asked for your payment details, and you will only be signed up to our monthly newsletter as part of this process (you can unsubscribe at any time).

Follow us on social media:

Twitter: @CommunitiesPrep

Facebook: @CommunitiesPrepared

Instagram: @communitiesprepared

Linkedin: @CommunitiesPrepared

Image One: Richard Hood, Senior Project Officer for Communities Prepared, flood specialist and part of the planning committee for the Community Flood Zone, at last year’s Expo with Laura Tobin, a trusted and well-known voice on climate change.

Senior Project Officer Finn Woodhill and Cambridgeshire Volunteers at an in-person workshop in 2022.