Communities Prepared is very sad to share that we’ll shortly be saying goodbye to one of our senior project officers, Richard Hood. Richard is moving on to serve as strategic lead for Resilience and Emergency Management and Business Continuity for Croydon Borough Council and hopes to make a significant impact to the community. Richard has been an important part of Communities Prepared for just under five years, leading on technical and operational aspects of resilience and working on a wide range of topics including developing training modules, delivering workshops and webinars and speaking at events. As a way to celebrate our time with him on Communities Prepared, we’ve prepared an interview with him on our website.
Do you have a standout memory working on Communities Prepared?
We did an in person flood session with two villages and we also had local authorities and organisations there. The public turned it into a bit of a town hall meeting and were challenging one particular organisation – several members of the community voiced that they had failed at many aspects. I took the initiative and asked if representatives from that organisation wanted a couple of minutes to gather their thoughts, and so I spoke first. At that point I stood up and said let’s talk about some of these points and clarify who has responsibility – yes, this organisation needs to answer for these, some of these points are relevant to a single organisation, but most of these points are applicable to all of these organisations. A few of these points were the individuals and communities’ issues, and I reminded them to take responsibility and ownership of these issues.
The residents said thank you, they said no one has ever explained this to us, why hasn’t anyone done this? Previously it had been explained to them, by the agencies themselves, but this was the first time they had understood. This confusion is made worse by the complexity from the different types of flooding falling under different responsibilities, which also differs in the four devolved nations of the UK. It became clear to me that Communities Prepared, with its ability to speak to the public in a way that is understandable, is also seen as that trusted and impartial entity, so they don’t expect us to have changed anything. That means they aren’t angry with us, we can be heard where other voices can’t be.
That was really instrumental for me. It allowed me to recognise how important our role is and how important our relationship with the communities and the authorities is too – it can be the trusting bridge. Communities Prepared plays a role in demystifying the complexities around these issues.
You’ve done a lot at Communities Prepared, what are some things you’re most proud of doing?
The Wildfire Module – recognising and becoming a leading voice in the space of wildfires, taking the learning of everything we have found with flood volunteering and seeing how that can be applied to wildfires. We’re right at the forefront of that, we’ve created the module from listening to the voices in the UK sector such as the England and Wales Wildfire Forum, Firewise UK and looking at what some of the commercial offers are such as the LANTRA training. We also looked abroad as well, what happens in Canada and America relating to wildfire preparation and how communities work together in reducing and managing wildfire risks. Finally, we’ve looked at responses in Australia and New Zealand that don’t have as much state response infrastructure as ourselves but rely strongly on community level response.
On top of that there is the Introduction of the Storms Module. An attendee who is retired Navy turned round and said “what you’ve fitted into a 2 hour session is really technical concepts but delivered in a really simplistic way”.
What has meant a lot to me during the delivery of the content is being able to have those one-to-one conversations with members of the public. I also value being able to get answers for them that they haven’t been able to achieve by speaking to anyone else. It’s clearing the fog of confusion.
The legacy I feel I am leaving is Communities Prepared in a far stronger place than it was before I joined. My leaving is a little bittersweet that there is still far more work to be done in building community resilience within the UK and expanding our content further, such as rebuilding of the flood module in light of what we’ve learned from communities and the sector as well as completing a series of mini modules on different types of flooding.
We’ve learned a lot from you here at Communities Prepared, but have you learned anything from the team?
What I’ve learned is far from the technical side. There are so many different aspects that need to be considered [in the context of resilience], it isn’t just about the technical side. What the team added for me was the soft aspects and the interpersonal relationships. During my time at Communities Prepared I came to understand the most important thing for resilience is networks and knowing other people. It’s knowing who to call, knowing who will be there for you. That is a subtle difference, but that understanding came from the people attending our workshops, the people who I spoke to in the sector and the team itself. You could almost park everything else as luxury, but unless you have that solid local network in place who you can easily access, such as knowing your neighbours, there is a real glass ceiling to what you can do in resilience.
How do you think resilience in the UK needs to evolve?
We need to recognise a lot more in the UK within our societal culture that we can’t expect somebody else to do everything on our behalf. If you look around the globe, places like Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, and the USA, these places that we might imagine have sufficient emergency resources and services, they don’t. There is an increasing occurrence of emergencies, an increasing duration, an increasing severity and an increasing interlinkage, and so the demand is increasing.
If we look at continental Europe we have more of a societal approach, everybody has a role to play – from the head of state to a child. Everyone has something to contribute. This is a recognition that our lives are interlinked. In the UK, we are an island of pockets of people and individuals. We might come together as an adhocracy, which is fine, but we need to be more prepared and able to come together in these bigger challenges that we are now facing. We could have a storm that results in power and water outages, we have complex and wicked problems that are bigger than us and can feel too difficult for us to solve so we hide from them. We need to come to recognise that we all have a place to contribute, making ourselves more aware as individuals, increasing our individual capacity, we all can do little things and these little things help. It might be moving your sentimental items upstairs. It might be investing in a water butt, or making your property more flood resilient. Or it might be simply knocking on your neighbour’s door and introducing yourself.
It’s also about the Government level recognising the importance of a whole of society approach and the importance and value of neighbours. Ultimately, the UK needs to have an open and frank national debate around resilience and the nature of how we are going to tackle that collectively.
Where do you think Communities Prepared fits in?
I think Communities Prepared is instrumental in this conversation that is going on. Communities Prepared sits in this position where it acts as a bridge between individuals and communities, businesses, and the Authorities, Emergency Services, and the Government. We sit in this position where we are a critical friend to all and a trusted source of information. We sit as a bridge, acting as a node for conversation to be passed between all parties. Communities Prepared acts as a babel fish, translating what the industry is saying to the public and vice versa.
Any final thoughts to share?
I’ve really enjoyed my time here at Communities Prepared – it’s always difficult to leave a role you like, but it feels like the right time for me to take on a new challenge. I’d like to thank all those who’ve been part of my Communities Prepared journey, whether as a colleague, community member, project partner or adviser – it’s been great to work with you all and please do keep in touch!
Thank you very much to Richard for your wise words. To keep up with Richard, be sure to check out his Linkedin. To keep up with Communities Prepared, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter and check out our Linkedin, Instagram, Facebook and Bluesky.
