Building Community Resilience Together

H4All has teamed up with the Hillingdon Federation of Community Associations (HFCA) and Hillingdon Council’s Emergency Response Team to deliver a series of Community Resilience Workshops, funded by the Greater London Authority (GLA).

These workshops are all about helping communities prepare for emergencies. We’ve explored how statutory services respond during a crisis, how community centres could act as rest centres and how charities and local groups can support their service users when the unexpected happens.

When emergencies strike, statutory services are often stretched and focused on managing the crisis at scale. That means they can’t always be on the ground supporting vulnerable residents, people who may be worried, misinformed, or struggling for basic resources. This is where community organisations play a vital role. Our workstream looks at how we can step in to provide reassurance, accurate information and practical help when it’s needed most.

A few simple steps can make a big difference:

• Encourage service users to prepare a grab bag and extra water supplies.

• Plan how you could support service users in an emergency, for example, helping them register for the Priority Services Register with their utility companies if they’re vulnerable. This ensures they get priority access to power, water, or gas if supplies are disrupted.

  
  

The good news? Our funding has been extended! In 2026, H4All and HFCA will be able to offer one-to-one support for organisations to create emergency preparedness plans and explore how their premises could operate as community hubs during a crisis.

If you’d like to find out more or get involved, email us at community@h4all.org.uk.

Together, we can make Hillingdon stronger and more resilient.