The most invisible part of your emergency preparedness plan

Most emergency response plans assume help comes from the top. But we know it usually comes from the neighbor with a cup of sugar. The coworker who sends the check-in text. The community fridge down the block.

This is care work. And it’s been holding us through crisis all along.

Not all crises are catastrophic, and when we abandon interpersonal care thinking that you will get it when you need it from professional services you are by-passing a lot of the depths the relationships you have around you hold.

The Problem: Care Is Left Out of Preparedness Planning

In most cities, organizations, and institutions, “preparedness” is still shaped by colonial-capitalist assumptions:

• That most people have a car and speaks English

• That people will wait passively for instructions from above in a crisis

• That systems know better than communities

• That logistics matter more than relationships

• That you can plan for a future without imagining one

These assumptions leave out the most important parts of survival - especially for people who are disabled, immunocompromised, racialized, undocumented, neurodivergent, or otherwise made vulnerable by dominant systems.

Care work - the emotional, logistical, cultural labor that holds us together - is rarely seen as legitimate preparedness, that's why it's called invisible labour. But it’s been our primary survival strategy for generations.

What Real Preparedness Actually Looks Like

Here’s what I’ve seen over and over in the organizations and communities I work with:

1. Peer support programs doubling as crisis lines when smoke fills the sky

Frontline workers holding space for clients, each other, and their own families - all while systems scramble to respond.

2. Neighbours checking on the elderly when heat domes descend on the city.

They’re running wellness checks while public health is still issuing a press release.

3. Outreach workers distributing food acting as unofficial emergency coordinators

Because no one else thought to translate the protocol into plain language or include low-barrier response steps.

These people aren’t in the official emergency plan - but they’re also out on the front lines keeping people safe.

In the Inclusive Community Preparedness Lab, we name this as what it is: infrastructure.

The Myth of Neutral Preparedness Planning

Too many orgs are handed a template and told:

“Just customize it and you’re good.”

But these templates often assume:

• No one is disabled

• Everyone has income

• There are no language or literacy barriers

• Cultural safety = a land acknowledgement

This is what happens when care isn’t centered.When preparedness planning is treated like a technical process instead of a cultural and relational one.

What We Do Differently in the Lab

The Inclusive Community Preparedness Lab is a cohort-based space where we slow down, connect, and rebuild our sense of what preparedness can be.

Together, we:

• Unlearn systems that treat preparedness as paperwork, a pre-bought kit, and yearly drill

• Map care networks as central to crisis response

• Design inclusive tools for communities often left out of preparedness planning

• Learn from each other, not just from experts

Some people join as individuals. Some come with a team. Some bring ideas to implement in government, neighbourhood organizing, or peer programs.

We hold it all.

🛠️ 5 Questions We Ask in the Lab

These are the kinds of prompts we use to spark imagination and clarity:

1. Who already shows up in a crisis - and are they resourced to do so?

2. What are you already doing that could be named as preparedness?

3. What access needs emerge during extreme weather that aren’t named in your plans?

4. Who gets harmed or abandoned by “one-size-fits-all” emergency protocols?

5. What does it mean to design for care, not just to tick boxes?

💌 You’re Invited

We start the next Inclusive Community Preparedness Lab cohort on May 21, 2025.

It’s not another dry training. It’s a place to co-create the kind of planning that feels like community

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✅ You belong here if you're:

• Tired of being the unofficial emergency coordinator at your organization

• Holding way more than your job title says you should

• Ready to do preparedness in a way that reflects your people and your values

  
  

🔗 Apply or learn more here

Let’s center care. Let’s redefine readiness.Let’s build a future where no one’s left behind.