Building resilient communities workshop report

The Building Resilient Communities Workshop, February 25-26, 2014 was hosted and organized by the Justice Institute of British Columbia (JIBC), with the support of the Emergency Management British Columbia (EMBC) and the Canadian Safety and Security Program (CSSP), Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) Centre for Security Science (CSS). Thirty-four participants from multiple levels of government, senior practitioners, policy makers, academia, community members and a variety of agencies disseminated knowledge and developed concrete strategies and priority actions areas for supporting ongoing and emerging initiatives in community and disaster resilience planning. Participants also heard reports on CRHNet Aboriginal Resiliency Report Update and provided a forum for a Value Based Focus Group for the Community Resilience Community of Practice. Identified strategies included development of an integrated national strategy and finding ongoing sustainability funding; increasing community engagement through information sharing, giving context specific examples of anticipated outcomes, and demonstrating return on investment; as well as the need to engage and support local champions and embedding disaster resilience within other processes. A key message was that communities should be encouraged to use ANY tool or process, rather than struggling to find the perfect. Any engagement with disaster resilience planning increases community resilience.