Preparing for emergencies
Last Updated: 9 July, 2008
This section provides information on how voluntary and community groups can get involved in emergency preparedness and response work.
At the national level, the voluntary sector has developed a co-ordinated approach to planning its contribution to preparing for emergencies.
A Voluntary Sector Civil Protection Working Party and Forum have been organised by the Civil Contingencies Secretariat and the British Red Cross. The aim of the Working Party and Forum is to identify and maximise the voluntary sector contribution to UK civil protection arrangements. There are currently 20 voluntary organisations with a national or UK-wide civil protection role that are members of the Forum. The forum provides links between the voluntary sector, central government and statutory authorities.
The National Voluntary Aid Societies' Emergency Committee (NVASEC) [External website] exists to co-ordinate the auxiliary role of the three Voluntary Aid Societies: the the British Red Cross [External website] , St John Ambulance [External website] and St Andrew's First Aid [External website]. NVASEC ensures that the Voluntary Aid Societies develop coherent policies which fit with the overarching framework established by central government. It also allows the Voluntary Aid Societies to engage in an efficient way with the representative bodies of local responder organisations.
At the regional level, a representative of the voluntary sector forms part of the core membership of Regional Resilience Forums [External website]. The representative forms a bridge between the Voluntary Sector Civil Protection Working Party, NVASEC and the local level.
You can find your nearest Regional Resilience Forum [External website] on the UK Resilience website.
The response to emergencies, in the UK, is primarily delivered at the local level. Frontline responders come together in Local Resilience Forums, to facilitate multi agency planning arrangements which meet the needs of their local community. These are established on the basis of existing police areas. The engagement of the voluntary sector in emergency preparedness will largely take place through arrangements with local statutory agencies within these local resilience areas.
You can find your nearest Local Resilience Forum here.
In some circumstances, emergencies can overstretch the resources of the emergency services, local authorities and other local responders. The voluntary sector has an important role to play in supporting the statutory services in response to some emergencies.
The statutory agencies will be aware of the kinds of services the voluntary sector can offer, and will involve them in local planning arrangements when appropriate e.g. search and rescue or humanitarian support may be built into the response arrangements. In addition, the statutory agencies may use voluntary organisations to backfill some services that would be undermined by the diversion of resources to deal with the direct consequences of a major incident.
The voluntary sector can provide support in a number of generic areas; welfare; social and psychological aftercare; medical support; search and rescue; transport and communications e.g. providing interpreters.