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Share skills with neighbours

No household can hold every skill. A neighbourhood skills register fills the gaps and lets you trade teaching and help.

How

1. Build or join the neighbourhood skills and resources register described in continuity-20. The UK community toolkit suggests assessing volunteers, tools, supplies and transport.
2. Add a teaching column: who can teach first aid, canning, engines, radio, building or animal care.
3. Run skill-swap sessions: one household teaches canning, another teaches chainsaw maintenance.
4. Agree which critical skills the neighbourhood covers jointly (for example a nurse, a mechanic, a radio operator) and which each household must hold itself.
5. Practise together as the toolkit advises: exercise the plan with scenarios and update it afterwards.
6. Keep personal details private and get consent before listing anyone.

Do these first

• continuity-20

Sources

1. Community emergency plan toolkit. UK Cabinet Office toolkit (copy hosted by Test Valley Borough Council), accessed 2026-11

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