UK Resilience is a Team Sport

The UK’s resilience challenges are becoming more complex, more frequent, and more interconnected. From severe weather and flooding to infrastructure disruption, public health emergencies, and rising community vulnerability, the demands on our emergency services and resilience system continue to grow.

But while the risks are changing, one truth remains constant: communities are always first on scene.

Long before formal support arrives, neighbours check on neighbours, volunteers mobilise, local organisations open their doors, and communities begin responding. And long after national attention moves on, communities remain, supporting recovery, rebuilding resilience, and helping people regain stability.

At REACT, we see every day the power of communities as both the first and last responders.

We also see something else clearly: the UK does not have a capability gap. It has a connection gap.
Across the country there is extraordinary capability already embedded within the Voluntary and Community sector (VCS). Trained volunteers, trusted local networks, specialist skills, logistical capacity, welfare support, and deep community relationships. Too often, however, that capability remains fragmented, under-connected, or insufficiently integrated into formal resilience structures.

If we are serious about national resilience, we must move faster, work smarter together, and place communities at the heart of the system.

I first heard the phrase “team sport” used in the world of work by DJ Patil (Chief Data Scientist of the United States under President Barack Obama) more than a decade ago, and it has stayed with me ever since. DJ’s argument was that the very best science happens through collaboration, not in silos. The same is true of resilience.

In fact, it is true of almost every complex challenge we now face.

Back in 2022, the Trustees at REACT persuaded me not to use “team sport” as the strapline for our strategy, concerned it risked trivialising disasters. Perhaps I should have pushed back. Because the reality is this: resilience only works when people work together. No single organisation, agency, or sector can meet the scale and complexity of modern crises alone.

Effective UK resilience requires a different approach, one built not on hierarchy, but on humility, trust, and collaboration.

In our experience, a humble, hard-working, and supportive VCS approach is not only needed, it is actively welcomed by partners across the resilience landscape. It reflects one of REACT’s core values: courage and humility - moral courage always; doing the right thing for all people, without exception.

REACT is already embedded within the UK’s resilience architecture, supporting Category 1 and 2 responders by mobilising trained volunteers at pace. Our role is practical and focused: helping to relieve pressure so emergency services can concentrate on their core statutory responsibilities while communities receive the support they need.

This includes providing scalable volunteer capability, community engagement, welfare support, operational assistance, and surge capacity during periods of heightened demand. Crucially, it also means acting as a connector, linking local capability with national coordination and ensuring support reaches where it is needed most.

But we must do much more.
The future resilience model for the UK must integrate community capability into preparedness, response, and recovery planning from the outset as a core component of national resilience.

For REACT, that means scaling our operational capability, deepening integration with partners, and, in time, delivering more than 40,000 hours of trained volunteer support annually across the UK’s highest-priority risks.

It also means investing in relationships before crises occur: building trust with Local Resilience Forums, emergency services, local authorities, health partners, and community organisations so that when incidents happen, coordination is already in place.

Resilience cannot be delivered by any one organisation alone.
The challenges ahead demand a whole-of-society response, one that recognises the value of community leadership, unlocks existing capability, and strengthens the connections between those already working to keep people safe.

The capability exists.

The opportunity now is to connect it, strengthen it, and scale it.