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The Eleventh task in the 30 Days 30 Ways challenge centres on crime prevention and local action.

1 Pt:  Share an idea or resource in how to keep your home and neighbourhood safe.

2 Pts:   We want you to do a little research. Do you know where to find “Crime Watch” information for your neighbourhood? Share what you find about where you live without sharing too much about where you live…Were you surprised?

Following a disaster, news media often cover stories of social disorder, panic and looting; a post-disaster response perpetuated by Hollywood. However, there is evidence which points to reduced crime after a major disaster.

The shared experience (both by those directly impacted and through being so visibly public) can reduce social divisions, bringing individuals and communities closer together. The visibility of suffering increases empathy, altruism and social cooperation, and whilst this is often fleeting, can also serve as the catalyst for longer-term social change.

The availability of targets, absence of guardians and presence of offenders presents an increased likelihood of acquisitive crime. However, contrary to this logic there is rarely strong evidence of looting. Similarly for more violent crime, whilst there are a handful of well-known exceptions, the general rule is for a decrease in crime rates.

So although I question the link between emergencies and crime, I do think that having strong, reciprocal relationships with neighbours can be useful techniques for reducing the likelihood of both. Having someone to watch over your home while you’re on holiday means that thieves are less likely to break in; it also means that should there be a major emergency, someone is able to contact you. There are also some very practical benefits to knowing your neighbours too, like not having to rearrange deliveries!

To get the 2 points, I think the best resource in the UK is police.uk which shows local crime mapping, and is very useful for people looking at moving to a new area. Neighbourhood Watch schemes in the UK, in my experience, seem to have stagnated, but there is growth in online localism (like NeighbourBlog), which could be another way of finding out about your local area.

Oh, and in case you don;t know the image for today;s post – it’s Michael Pain, the Nosey Neighbour from 90’s TV Sketch Show Harry Enfield and Chums, who definitely knew his neighbours well!

One of the things that I’m most interested in at the moment is risk perception, and analysing warning signs often reveals information into how perception influences both the communication and interpretation of the message. I’m therefore genuinely interested in the images being shared in today’s 30 Days task, which is as follows:

1 Pt:  Share a Funny Emergency Sign

1 Pt: If you found the sign and took the picture yourself.

3 Pts:  Are you willing to make yourself into an emergency sign or safety message… such as the “wear your life jacket to work”

The first part of that is relatively easy. A colleague and I jointly wrote a blog last year looking at warning signs around the world (you can check out the original post here but I’m reproducing some of the content below so you don’t have to click away).

My favourite was this example warning of SLOPPY slopes in Thailand (with credit to @Twickerman).

 However, as that one isn’t my picture I thought I’d also share the best one that I have personally found, literally just around the corner from my office. Whilst it’s not specifically an ’emergency’ warning sign, I think it could have potential applications in emergency situations!

Following yesterday’s post on the unusual item in my Grab Bag I’ve been challenged by a colleague on Twitter to take a #CBRNEselfie…maybe I’ll incorporate the third element of today’s challenge into that to gain those extra points! Stay tuned!

I’ve completed (or at least attempted) a whole week of America’s 30 Days 30 Ways emergency preparedness challenge. Some of the tasks have been simple, others have been much trickier!

Today’s challenge recognises a point that I made on Day 3, that if you do have a Grab Bag it should be tailored to your specific needs.

1 Pt:  Share with us the most unusual item in your kit and why its in your kit.

2 Pts:   Share with us an item in your kit with multiple uses.  Be sure to list all the uses for the item…

I don’t think there is a realistic use for the most unusual item in my kit; an Escape Hood. Essentially a bag that you can put on your head in the event of a chemical, biological or radiological incident. It’s not something I would have save for a former employer issuing them to staff. Whilst I can conceive of the situations where this would be useful, I doubt I’d have ready access to my grab bag, making it utterly pointless…I just can’t bring myself to throw it away, you know, just in case!

For the second part of the task, I have a standard ‘multi-purpose tool’ but that seems like a cop out!

The time difference between me and most of the people playing the game means that most people will submit their contributions overnight, but I’m really interested to see the suggestions of how people have personalised their grab bags.

It’s a tricky one today, but I’m hoping that drawing on my adventures from this weekend will bag me at least one point in today’s 30 Days challenge.

We want you to find an event in your area, attending and tell them you are playing #30Days30Ways. 

2 Pt:   Share a photo of yourself at a Preparedness Event 

5 Pts:   Can’t find an event during the month of Sept in your area?  How about create your own?

Whilst I’m attending a whole host of work related events and meetings, they don’t really fit the bill of what this task requires. In fact, resilience occupies a position so far down the political agenda in the UK that I’m only aware of two community based events where it’s even been a consideration in the last 4 years! The notion of an emergency preparedness fair is something which hasn’t yet made the transition across the Atlantic (although I’m pitching London Flood Week to colleagues on Friday!)

What this boils down to is that I’ve bent the rules…

Yesterday I attended the Battersea Dogs and Cats Home Annual Reunion – an event which brings together (primarily) dogs that have been re-homed by the charity which was founded in 1860. Whilst not specifically a preparedness event I mention it for two reasons

1. It’s such a great cause
2. Animals in emergencies are often overlooked so it’s a useful reminder to consider emergency plans for pets and assistance animals

Sadly I didn’t realise the task was to promote the campaign at an event or I would have mentioned it to some of the people I spoke to!

Also, here’s a photo of a dog that I loved – he looks like he’s pretty resilient!

Today’s 30 Days 30 Ways challenge is about identifying and connecting with your local emergency manager.

EASY – that’s me!! You can find out more about me, or you can connect with London Prepared on twitter.

Well, as that was pretty easy I thought I’d try to put an estimate on how bit the emergency planning community is in the UK. It turns out this was quite an ambitious task!

The first thing to note is that I had no easy or quick access to any definitive information, so what follows is an estimation based on the size of the following LinkedIn groups and my personal experience.

• Institute of Civil Protection and Emergency Management – 1,088 members
• Emergency Planning College – 2,247
• Public Sector Resilience – 2,108
• Emergency Planning Society – 2,371
• BANG – 1,709

Assuming the same is true across the country as in my own team, 50% aren’t active on LinkedIn, so let’s double the average size (1,094) to give a better estimation (3,143).

Acknowledging that emergency planning may not be the primary responsibility for some people, I’ve doubled again (6,286) and then added 10% ‘for luck’ and then rounded to the nearest thousand. That gives a final estimation of 7,000 emergency planners in the UK. Does that sound about right? I’d be interested in thoughts of others in whether this sounds about right, or how a better number could be determined.

Whilst 7,000 sounds like a sizeable number, many of those are in the private sector and although extremely knowledgable, couldn’t really be considered your local emergency planner!

The best way of finding your local emergency planner is to contact your Local Authority, or your Local Resilience Forum.

Update: Following a suggestion from @Rubonist I’ve taken a look at the number of registered users on ResilienceDirect (an online system used local resilience forums in the UK). I’m not sure I have access to the full data, but I’m about 300 shy of the number of registered users. As the system isn’t expensively used by the private sector I’m going to revise my estimate to nearer to 8,500! 

Update 2: After a question from a colleague @UKResilience – for clarity I’m defining an Emergency Planner as someone who is responsible for and actively involved in developing emergency plans in their organisation. This might not necessarily mean EP is 100% of their role, but equally, I’m not counting the people at senior levels who have a responsibility but don’t actually ‘get their hands dirty’ with the work. 

Update 3: The Emergency Planning Society (one of the leading Professional Bodies for resilience practitioners in the UK) have released their Annual Report 2013-14. In this document the below breakdown of membership is provided. It’s interesting to see that there has been a considerable reduction in the number of members compared to the previous year, but also that there are fewer members compared to the EPS LinkedIn group!