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Support your community with a Community Resilience Group

Find out how Community Resilience Groups bring neighbours together, access support and gain recognition.

Empowering communities

Community resilience in Dumfries and Galloway has developed steadily over the past decade. We began promoting Community Resilience Groups in 2010, after a period of severe weather demonstrated the importance of strong local support networks.

Interest continued to grow, but it was during the COVID-19 pandemic that these groups truly came into their own. Communities rallied together to help neighbours with everyday needs, such as collecting prescriptions and shopping for people who were particularly vulnerable.

This strengthened the region’s commitment to looking out for one another and demonstrated the value of community-led resilience.

Issues and emerging risks

Every community is different and will face its own risks. The examples below provide a general overview of current and emerging issues in Dumfries and Galloway:

  • climate change and the increasing risk of extreme weather, including storms and extreme heat
  • community isolation caused by blizzards, flooding or communication outages
  • cyberattacks that prevent individuals and organisations from accessing essential systems
  • pandemics and other rapidly spreading diseases that disrupt services and prevent organisations from operating

Although local residents may not have a designated formal role during an emergency, community resilience is vital. When circumstances prevent the emergency services from reaching an area quickly, the initial response may depend on people within the community.

Find out more about how we promote inclusive and proactive community resilience through awareness, guidance and resources in our Community Resilience Policy.

Building and maintaining resilience

We want to empower communities to build and maintain their own resilience. This means ensuring that communities have the knowledge and resources they need to prepare for, respond to and recover from emergencies.

For a Community Resilience Group to work effectively, responding agencies and members of the community must work together.

Find out what a Community Resilience Group does.

Group recognition

Groups that create and maintain a Community Resilience Plan can receive recognition through the Community Resilience Recognition Scheme.

Find out how you can nominate a group through the scheme.