About Ready Together
Ready Together helps communities across the UK prepare for emergencies together.
It’s a free toolkit from the National Emergencies Trust, offering simple, practical ways for communities to prepare before an emergency happens.
Your community may already be well prepared in some areas. Ready Together can help you recognise what is already working, connect it with other local activity and spot where there may be gaps.
You don’t need to be an emergency planning expert to use this resource. Start with the people, places, skills and resources your community already has, and build from there.
Even one conversation or a new connection can be a useful first step.
Why we have created Ready Together
People often help each other when something goes wrong.
Neighbours check on neighbours, local groups share information and volunteers offer their time, skills and resources.
But it is easier to work together in a crisis if people already know each other, understand what help is available and have thought about what they might do.
Ready Together helps turn that willingness to help into action before an emergency happens. It can help your community understand its strengths, build useful connections and think ahead about what might be needed.
No one person or group needs to do all of this. Different organisations, groups and people will have different strengths and different parts to play. Ready Together is designed to help bring those contributions together.
The aim is not to prepare for every possible emergency, but to help your community build the connections and practical foundations that can help, whatever happens.
What do we mean by community?
A community can be many things.
It could be:
- a neighbourhood or group of neighbours
- a community or voluntary organisation
- a sports club
- a faith group
- a youth group
- a school or college community
- a group linked by a shared interest or experience
- an online community
Your community does not need to be based in one place. What matters is that people have something that connects them.
Ready Together also works best when different parts of a community get involved. A sports club might have a useful building, for example, while a faith group may be good at reaching people, and a local charity or voluntary group that supports older or isolated people may know who could need extra support.
What can Ready Together help you do?
The toolkit covers eight areas of community preparedness. These include:
Communications
How to share trusted information with your community
Events
How to bring people together
Money and Finances
How emergencies can affect income, how to access financial support, and how to understand insurance
Places and Spaces
How to find safe, accessible places your community can use.
People and Skills
How to find practical skills, knowledge and volunteers in your local area.
Essential Supplies
How to make sure you have essential food, medicine and supplies
Supporting People with Additional Needs
How to support people who may need additional help
Working with your community
How to involve other local organisations and create a joined-up community plan.
These areas are not a checklist for one group to complete. Different groups can pick up the areas that best match what they already do, know or have to offer.
For example, a community centre might look at Places and Spaces, a local charity might look at Supporting People with Additional Needs, while a residents’ group could pick up Communications. Other areas might already be well covered in your community and need little or no further action.
Each area gives you practical guidance and activities, but there’s no need to work through everything or follow a set order. Start with the areas that feel most useful, involve other groups where they are better placed to help, and use as much or as little of Ready Together as you need.
Building on what is already in place
Some communities already have strong emergency plans and active local networks. Others may be starting with much less. Ready Together is designed to be useful wherever your community is starting from.
Councils, emergency planners, charities, voluntary groups and other local organisations may already be doing useful work that your community could connect with. Other local groups may have spaces, equipment, volunteers, knowledge or ways of reaching people that could help too.
Getting prepared now can bring some immediate benefits, too, such as bringing people and organisations together, building trust and creating stronger relationships across your community.
Working alongside emergency responders
Community action does not replace the emergency services, councils or other official responders. Instead, in an emergency, communities and official responders have different but complementary roles.
Ready Together helps communities build on what they can offer – trusted relationships, useful skills and resources, and an understanding of the people and places around them that can support the wider response.
Connecting with local organisations and emergency planners can help everyone work together when an emergency happens.
Before you start
It can be useful to know what kinds of emergencies could affect your community.
Your Community Risk Register (CRR) is one place to find information about the main risks in your area. This information is used by local organisations responsible for emergency planning to understand risks and prepare for them.
Knowing about these risks can help your community think about what they might mean locally and where being better prepared could help.
Who is behind Ready Together?
Ready Together is led by the National Emergencies Trust, an independent UK charity that supports people affected by national emergencies.
We work with survivors, emergency responders, charities, government, businesses and communities. We use what we learn from emergencies to help improve how the UK prepares for and responds to future disasters.
Ready Together brings that experience into community preparedness. It is built on research led by Nottingham Trent University and has also been shaped by community insight and practical experience from people and organisations across the UK.
This means the toolkit is based on evidence, but at its heart is designed to be useful for real communities.
Ready to get started?
There is no single right way to prepare. You could start with one area, or share the toolkit with other groups and decide together who is best placed to look at what.
Ready Together is not about one group doing everything. It is about making the most of what already exists across your community and helping those different parts work together. You might be surprised by how much your community already has to build on.
Start Preparing