Belfast Healthy Cities is excited to announce the PREPARE project. Prepared & Resilient Communities through Education, Participation, Action, Research and Essential Connections is a community led programme with local authorities and organisations to understand and prepare for the health impacts of changes to our climate.

At the heart of PREPARE is a simple idea: people and communities should have a meaningful voice in decisions that affect them. Climate change is already affecting our homes, health, livelihoods and communities. PREPARE will explore what we can learn from living through COVID-19 and use the lived experience of communities to help shape how we prepare and respond to future public health emergencies related to the changing climate. 

This initiative will bring people together in Belfast and Glasgow with members of the UK Healthy Cities and Towns Network to share experiences, build knowledge and co-design practical approaches to community preparedness. It will create opportunities for communities to work alongside statutory partners, ensuring that local knowledge and lived experience help shape emergency planning and response. 

Belfast Healthy Cities will lead the three-year PREPARE programme, working with Glasgow City Council, Involve, alongside community and voluntary organisations and partners across the UK Healthy Cities and Towns Network. 

The work will include community conversations, informed by lived experience, a co-produced Community Preparedness Framework, training resources for community and voluntary organisations and policy briefings for emergency planners. Each city within the partnership will lead on a specific lens for the PREPARE programme. Belfast will lead on Health in All Policies and Emergency Preparedness, Glasgow will focus on Climate, Place and Health and the views and experiences of vulnerable communities, including engagement with youth and older people, while a third city will lead on wider influences on health and the role in community resilience focused on public health emergencies related to changes to our climate.  

“PREPARE is about bringing people into the conversation about climate change adaptation and emergency preparedness in a meaningful and practical way. Communities have enormous knowledge, experience and expertise. We want to create the space for that knowledge to help shape how we prepare for the future.” Charlene Brooks, Chief Executive, Belfast Healthy Cities. 

The project will particularly seek to involve people and communities who are often under-represented in emergency planning. PREPARE will also connect local action with wider learning. As a member of the WHO European Healthy Cities Network and secretariat of the UK Healthy Cities and Towns Network, learning from communities in Belfast and Glasgow can be shared with towns and cities across the UK and Europe. 

PREPARE is about moving from experience to action – helping communities feel informed, confident and ready to play their part in creating a more resilient future.  

Thanks to National Lottery players, PREPARE has received £1,496,584 from the Climate Action Fund, a long-term commitment from The National Lottery Community Fund to support communities across the UK to act on climate change and involve more people in positive environmental action. 

Recruitment for posts in Belfast and Glasgow is now open until Wednesday 4 November 2026 at 4:00pm.  

Further information, job descriptions and applications can be found on https://www.belfasthealthycities.com/news/ukhctn-job-opportunities/