Equitable Resilience Builder

This training webinar will demonstrate the EPA’s Equitable Resilience Builder (ERB) tool, which incorporates local knowledge and experience into the development of a resilience, hazard mitigation, or climate adaptation plan.  ERB is a downloadable application that supports communities in strengthening resilience to disasters and climate change. It contains a series of collaborative activities users can select from to include local voices in resilience planning via storytelling, trauma-informed engagement, participatory mapping, and indicator prioritization.

Presenters will guide participants through each step of applying ERB to inclusive resilience planning. The first steps are to Plan and Engage: assemble a core team, establish project goals, identify community connections, and prepare an engagement plan. The next step is to Assess: who is most impacted by current or future hazards, why, and how; and evaluating local built, natural, and social environment system’s resilience. Users then take results and Strategize Action. Finally, it offers guidance for how to Move Forward to implement actions, monitor for change, and maintain partnerships. The presentation will discuss trauma-informed approaches to storytelling with community members about environmental hazards and disasters.

The ERB tool and user guide can be accessed here.