You can access the paper as a PDF here, and here it is below:
What is community resilience?: a proposed definition and set of
principles for community resilience.
March 2018
Introduction
The
objective of this short paper is to propose a succinct definition and a more
comprehensive set of principles for community resilience. The objective of
these principles is to support better community resilience in practice. Principles
allow a succinct definition to be elaborated and they start to imply particular
ways of doing things. These principles draw on official materials and other
literature on resilience and community resilience. They also draw on my own Urban Heat research on community resilience,
and the broader literatures on community action and good governance. The
objective, therefore, is to – in some respects – promote new ways of thinking
that can maximise the potential of community resilience in practice.
Proposed definition
Resilience
is the capacity of an individual, community or society to plan and prepare for,
adapt to, respond to and recover from adverse events and conditions. Community
resilience refers to local resilience-related collaboration between local
actors, including: statutory responders, the voluntary and community sector
(VCS), local businesses and individuals (residents and workers).
Ten proposed principles for community
resilience
1.
Community
resilience is like resilience in many respects. For instance: it implies action
on planning, preparation, response and recovery; it is valuable in the context
of both adverse events (such as a flood or a terrorist attack) and adverse social
conditions (such as knife crime or deprivation); and, the term can variously
refer to a condition, a set of capabilities, a process and a way of doing
things.
2.
Community
resilience is a helpful term because it emphasises the role of non-statutory (or
‘community’) actors in resilience. However, this should not be taken to mean
that community resilience and resilience are different things or separate
practices. Rather, it means that the community should be integral to
resilience. This implies that a longer term objective might be to reframe
institutional understandings and practices relating to resilience itself so
that they automatically include the community and the practices of community
resilience.
3.
In addition to
statutory bodies, community resilience means the involvement of local voluntary
and community sector (VCS) organisations (such as faith groups, groups that
work with vulnerable people and environmental groups), local private sector
organisations (such as retailers and other businesses), and local residents and
workers.
4.
While much rural
community resilience already works through parish councils and with so-called
voluntary responders (such as 4x4 clubs), community resilience engagement needs
to be broadened to this wider group of actors to maximise its potential.
5.
Community
resilience relies upon ongoing collaborative, inclusive and participatory
approaches to action on planning, preparation, response and recovery. There is
space for a range of approaches to this, but these approaches work best when
they are workshop based, and are implemented in ways that give ample time and
space for the community representatives’ background knowledge to be developed,
and then for their own local knowledge and ideas to develop and grow, and be
shared with statutory bodies. My own research provides one model of how this
can be achieved.
6.
The purpose of
these forms of action with this range of actors is to ensure that planning and
action: draws on both local and grass roots knowledge and ideas (especially
relating to vulnerable people), and the knowledge and ideas of statutory
responders; responds to a wide range of local interests and concerns; and
employs the broadest range of capability and capacity that is possible.
7.
My own research
shows that, when it is done properly, working in this way with this broad group
of actors has the potential to produce powerful ideas, mutual learning and
mutual empowerment. To be clear, this is not about statutory bodies empowering
the community, community resilience is about everyone empowering everyone else
by working together.
8.
Local statutory
bodies have a responsibility to co-ordinate and actively support these efforts;
community resilience cannot be delegated from statutory organisations to ‘the
community’. At the same time, they also have a responsibility to do this in a
way that is meaningfully participatory, collaborative and inclusive. This can
be very challenging for local statutory bodies and it may mean that third party
specialist facilitators (including academics with appropriate experience) are
best-pleased to conduct this work on behalf of local statutory responders.
9.
Community resilience
is reliant on the statutory and community sectors thriving, and on the good
personal relationships and stable cross-sector institutional structures that
facilitate effective collaboration. These in turn are reliant on adequate
support and funding from regional and national government. Community resilience
and resilience are compromised when these things are not in place.
10.
It is important
to remember that all communities have a potential for division, conflict and
exclusion (as well as the potential for great capability and capacity). Community
resilience actions always involve social, temporal and spatial
trade-offs between ‘winners’ and ‘losers’.
It is important that statutory bodies reflect on this and are open about how
and why decisions are made.
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