This Tactical Research Fund project will help emergency management agencies better prepare communities for emergencies. The project will test a community engagement framework for emergency preparation that will guide and support community engagement activities that will be conducted by agencies.

The project will develop:

1. An index of the core community competencies for preparedness.

2. A new framework of community engagement for emergency preparation.

3. A method of facilitating implementation and evaluation in a range of community contexts.

4. A prioritised list of household preparedness activities that can be central to community engagement messages.

5. Guidelines for developing networks to facilitate and sustain relationship-based community engagement.

Workshops will be held with project end-users to facilitate implementation of the framework, and ensure knowledge and skills transfer.

The long-term benefits of this project will be a continuous improvement model of community engagement for preparedness, where evaluation is used to improve the approach of each agency for the following year’s preparation.