Dores and Essich Community

Community Resilience Briefing 06/11/23

by

Dear Community Group/Community Council/Colleagues,

Welcome to The Highland Council’s fortnightly briefing containing information about support, resources, and events for local communities.

As of the 17th of November, we will be moving to a new mailing list which will be made up of emails that have opted in to receive the briefing. You can opt by using this very short survey – https://forms.office.com/e/rSS3hXbGTa

Contents

Funding. 1

Community Training & Events. 2

Welfare & Poverty Reduction. 2

Mental Health & Wellbeing. 3

Community Safety and Resilience. 3

Funding 

  • SCVO  is a key source of funding information for the third sector.

Community Training & Events

Nominations are open to anyone who has a significant connection to the third sector in Highland or has relevant skills or knowledge for the area of interest. The role will include attending Community Planning Partnership, gathering information and feedback, and providing feedback and input on community planning. See the above link for full details and responsibilities.

The Scottish Civic Trust My Place Awards celebrate projects and people that work to improve places and communities in Scotland. They are funded by the Scottish Government.

The My Place Awards have two categories:

Community-led Projects: recognises recent community-led built environment projects, including new buildings, historic buildings or monuments that have been reused or refurbished, designed public realm schemes such as street-works or parks, and designed landscapes such as gardens or public green spaces.

Community Champions: celebrates individuals in communities across Scotland who have made a significant contribution to their local area through achieving positive change in the built environment, whether through built heritage, public spaces, or access to these by communities.

Winners of the Awards are celebrated at a ceremony attended by major stakeholders in the built environment and heritage sectors, as well as representatives from local and national government.

The My Place Awards are a great opportunity to showcase a project’s success to the community, stakeholders, and funders by receiving much-deserved exposure and media attention, as well as thank community members for their hard work and dedication to their local place.

How to enter?

Entries to the My Place Awards 2024 can be made via the My Place Scotland website. The deadline for entries is 14 January 2024.

For more information, email Erin Burke, Scottish Civic Trust Communications and Events Officer, at [email protected].

Welfare & Poverty Reduction

  • Cost of living support – Highland Council webpages on support and information to help with the cost of living.
  • Help during the cost-of-living crisis – Scottish Government advice and information.
  • Energy Advice – Inverness Badenoch and Strathspey Citizens Advice Bureau offer free, impartial energy advice to householders. They provide advice to help reduce household energy use, save money, and understand energy bills and support householders to manage energy debt. This can be done in person, over the phone or by video call. They can be contacted on 01463 219742 or email [email protected]

Mental Health & Wellbeing

  • NHS Highland Mental Wellbeing – a collection of resources and signposts to help people of all ages to look after their own mental wellbeing. Register for the event by following the link.
  • Cost of living crisis and your mental health
    Many people are feeling the strain as the cost of living continues to increase.  This resource provides information on how you can maintain your mental wellbeing at this time, alongside information on how to manage your money as bills rise.

Community Safety and Resilience

  • Ready Scotland – The below is a list of resources shared by Ready Scotland that work well in printed form as well as a couple of presentation injects at the end of the list:
    • The Home Emergency Plan (ready.scot) (2 page PDF) is really useful to give out at events. You can print it off double sided and give out at your event, but also signpost to online after the event and attendees can print more or share with others in their communities.
    • There’s a full Guide to emergency planning for community groups | Ready Scotland. You may not want to print the whole thing, but perhaps a few copies for event attendees to flick through would be useful. It‘s all available in word format on the website so that community groups can just lift all the templates and use them to create their own plan.
    • Attached is a printable (2 page, double sided and fold to create leaflet) version of the advice note on insurance and health and safety, which again is available on the website here Annexes | Ready Scotland
    • Attached is a promotional leaflet for Ready Scotland LEARN which you are welcome to print and hand out too.
    • If you are delivering in person presentations, here are a couple of narrated PowerPoint presentations from me that you can slot in if you have time to fill on your programme: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1fD_yhECIsbgwoNHsE2gYgnJLOejdAWDa?usp=sharing  These are saved as video files. If you can’t access or play them, please let me know.
    • Social media toolkits | Ready Scotland  with suggested messages and images for you to use on your own social media channels which all help to raise awareness of risks and the actions that the public can take. Many of our partners also have social media channels with vital information about emergencies and preparedness which would be valuable to share, for example:  @metoffice @SEPAFlood @nwatchscotland @trafficscotland @LifelinesScot

Do you live in the UK or Ireland? Have you been impacted by wildfire or experienced smoky conditions, or do you live or work in an area that is at-risk from wildfire, or where fire is used as a land management tool? 

If so, you are invited to participate in a 15-minute online survey that focuses on community wildfire resilience.


The survey aims to learn from people who live or work in rural, urban and interface areas in the UK and Ireland. It is the first stage of a research project that will also include in-depth interviews with people on their properties or places of work. 

For more details and to participate in the survey, please follow this link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/firesukie 

Douglas Crawford
Business Analyst

Community Support and Engagement

Highland Council