Building Community Resilience
Written by Tim Buckley, March 2023
A tornado tears up a Midwest town. Category 5 hurricane winds and tidal surges cripple a coastal city. Anxiously, you read the news about emergency responders scrambling to save lives, restore safety, and provide the bare necessities of life in the aftermath.
Lost in the news of such disasters is the fact that preparation before the storm greatly increases the community ’s ability to survive and rebound. It’s called resiliency.
Closer to home, the Community, Business and Education Leaders (CBEL) Collaborative’s efforts to build community resilience is gathering momentum.
Based on the work of the national Building Community Resilience Center at George Washington University, three things distinguish CBEL’s Building Community Resilience (BCR) model from older forms of community building:
Priorities are set, one neighborhood at a time, by residents of the neighborhood, rather than by the city, county, or state agencies.
Public agencies and nonprofits are more effective at working together when the Neighborhood Family Council (NFC) has already established trust and close ties with those most in need of aid.
Equity gets built into the work up-front when neighborhood residents decide what the most important issues are and how to address them.
CBEL’s sponsorship of the Hallman Neighborhood Family Council, in north Salem, is an example. Social gatherings organized by the Family Council have built a lot of trust. The Family Council, with input from hundreds of families, said that safety issues were the primary neighborhood concern. Based on the need for improved safety, here’s what has happened in a very short time:
Increased police presence was requested and was received. This resulted in more cooperation and trust between the police agency and neighborhood residents.
The gang and drug issues in the local park diminished significantly, making the park a safe place for families to gather and play.
More safety in general, and more watchful eyes by neighbors, has made walking to and from school safer.
More connection between neighbors has helped residents to realize housing insecurity is a common problem that must addressed.
As safety concerns have subsided, more parents than ever are participating in Ready for Kindergarten classes that teach parents how to teach their preschool children basic literacy, math, self-regulation, and social skills they need to succeed in school.
The CBEL Collaborative gathers six times a year to:
Hear and amplify the voices of Salem-Keizer neighborhood residents.
Encourage and support government and non-profit organizations to work together to create collective impact.
Track population level results by neighborhood.
Build in enough equity to make it impossible to predict by race which children live in a safe, stable, nurturing home, enjoy good health, succeed in school and go on in life to become financially self-sufficient.
If you don’t already receive invitations to the CBEL Collaborative meetings, and would like to be invited, contact Ashley Russell at CBEL@mwinv.com.