Ready Southlake
Ready Southlake is an integral part of Southlake’s disaster response capabilities and creates a community that is more resilient and connected with those around us. Ready Southlake serves as a mechanism to engage faith based community members, the city, and Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (VOADs) to create a resilient and a better prepared community, Ready Southlake will connect all of this entities. We’re stronger together.
Ready Southlake opens the line of communication between emergency management, the City, and faith based organizations. This allows the City to understand the capabilities and resources of each organization specifically. With this understanding, emergency management can utilize each organization’s strengths when coordinating disaster efforts and include these organizations in the local emergency response plan and network. By joining Ready Southlake faith-based organizations will see their house of worship and congregation as a disaster response asset for the whole community.
Emergency Management can use faith-based organizations to pass out vital emergency notifications in the event of natural or man-made disasters and/or events.
Emergency Management can also communicate to organizations what unmet needs exist, not only in local disasters but in wide-spread and remote disasters as well. This allows Ready Southlake partners to align an organized effort of assistance, alleviating the duplication of efforts.
If you are interested in participating in Ready Southlake, please contact your faith-based organization to see if they have already partnered with the City of Southlake. You may also click here to fill out an interest survey.
Whole Community is a means by which residents, emergency management practitioners, organizational and community leaders, and government officials can collectively understand and assess the needs of their respective communities and determine the best ways to organize and strengthen their assets, capacities, and interests. By doing so, a more effective path to societal security and resilience is built. In a sense, Whole Community is a philosophical approach on how to think about conducting emergency management.
Benefits of a "Whole Community Approach" include:
Shared understanding of community needs and capabilities.
Greater empowerment and integration of resources from across the community.
Stronger social infrastructure.
Establishment of relationships that facilitate more effective prevention, protection, mitigation, response, and recovery activities.
Increased individual and collective preparedness.
Greater resiliency at both the community and national levels.
To learn more about FEMA's Whole Community Approach to Emergency Management, Click Here.