Building resilience: The power of community first response

The launch of our new report with the Young Foundation brings a critical reminder that in this age of crisis and uncertainty, we must be prepared. Local Trust’s CEO, Matt Leach, outlines how local social capital can be a vital resource when disaster strikes – and how Big Local areas have been demonstrating community resilience. 

We are already well into an era defined by instability and crisis. The 2010s kicked off in the shadow of the global financial crash, followed by a decade of domestic austerity. The 2020s brought further, Brexit-related uncertainty, the COVID-19 pandemic, challenges to social cohesion, the first major war in Europe since the 1940s, and global geopolitical and economic instability approaching levels unseen for almost a century. Then there’s climate change ramping up with more extreme weather events like heatwaves, coldwaves, flooding and fires. 

At the same time, we see many of the institutions we have traditionally relied on to manage and mitigate risks on our behalf facing financial and capacity constraints, alongside wider challenges to their legitimacy. This is driven by a sense on the part of many that over numerous years our current social and economic settlement has failed to deliver on promises or meet people’s needs. 

How Big Local areas have demonstrated effective community first response 

Many Big Local neighbourhoods are located in places which have often found themselves vulnerable to these issues. But when I go and visit many of the incredible people who make the programme happen, it is clear they haven’t let any of it define them. Instead they have used challenges as a spur to bring local people together to find shared solutions and support one another through difficult times. Particularly when crisis struck. 

During pandemic-era lockdowns, many hubs and buildings like the community centre in W12 Together were quickly adapted as storage spaces and centres for food preparation and distribution. When things began re-opening, local hubs were a central anchor for more comprehensive responses to everything from financial hardship to promoting health and wellbeing. In Selby, for example, local volunteers and organisers used Big Local funds to open up a derelict shop to support neighbours with food insecurity and digital exclusion.  

Wherever possible, we should look to strengthen communities in ways that reduce their dependency on systems and institutions that may struggle to cope.”  

Preparing for the future in an age of turbulence 

Many of us became more and more aware of the power of community responses to crisis during the pandemic, underpinned by the voluntary groups, networks and community hubs working hard to deliver it. Indeed, in many places it was local community groups that were first to take action, mobilising networks and resources well before statutory bodies and institutions.  Whilst the first COVID-19 Inquiry report failed to acknowledge this sufficiently, Local Trust’s range of research carried out in partnership with the Third Sector Research Centre and the Oxford Consultants for Social Inclusion as the pandemic progressed identified very clearly how the existence of community organisations was linked to the scale and success of local responses.  

Local Trust’s experience of supporting Big Local areas to build foundational resilience and strength has enabled us to distil the building blocks of a strong community response to crisis. Today, we are very pleased to announce the publication of a new report, Community Not Catastrophe, in collaboration with the Young Foundation. The report provides greater detail on the role of communities and the wider voluntary sector in crisis management and preparedness in the UK. 

The report’s author, Helen Goulden, outlines the critical value of local civic institutions in organising and mobilising local people to support one another at times of need. Crucially, she also underscores the need to think more broadly about the ways in which they can be engaged with, now, in order to prepare for the wide range of future possibilities that might emerge from our age of turbulence.  

How communities can weather the storm

In the short term, we undoubtedly need to plan and prepare more diligently.  Not least in the places that are furthest from centres of possible help, coordination and support – many of which suffered most during the pandemic. But we also need to recognise the importance of building local social capital as a vital resource capable of being deployed in ways that can supplement – and where necessary, meet gaps – in official or state responses to crisis. Wherever possible, we should look to strengthen communities in ways that reduce their dependency on systems and institutions that may struggle to cope.  

This is not only true day-to-day, as Local Trust’s work with Demos on a Preventative State, and more recently on social capital, make clear. But it’s even more needed when disaster – of whatever sort – strikes and resilience becomes a critical factor in sustaining neighbourhoods and communities across the country. 

Read more on the importance of building community resilience in the report, Community Not Catastrophe, by Helen Goulden, supported by Local Trust and published by the Young Foundation.