LAUSR

Abstract Despite the increase in disasters in Canada, communities are not well prepared. We're Ready! is a community disaster preparedness workshop that was developed and piloted in 2016 and 2019 in Alberta, Canada with three types of communities: geographical, ethnic, workplace. We're Ready! was designed to address the lack of emergency preparation and response at the household and community-level, especially in ethnic, geographical, and workplace communities. The workshop integrates hands-on learning, disaster simulation, and community-engaged approaches with the aim of strengthening social connections and designing customized community disaster plans. Assessments of the three We're Ready! workshops were conducted using pre- and post-workshop surveys. The findings suggest that combining interactive presentations paired with hands-on learning was effective. The workshops increased social capital; however, the differences in the community groups and the development of spin-off projects from the ethnic community suggests that community disaster planning is more effective when community connections and social relationships are previously developed. We found that when combining social capital with educational training, communities were more likely to feel that the workshop was highly effective and were more motivated to continue building momentum for emergency preparedness in their households and communities. An implication of the success of the We're Ready! workshops is that communities (social and geographical), with a limited budget but with motivated members, can adapt the We're Ready! activities to further disaster preparedness and build stronger social connections, thereby enhance their community's disaster resilience.