Training and retaining a capable emergency response force
Stone, R. (2000) presented at the Emergencies 2000 Conference, Sydney, 2000
Australia suffers frequent natural disasters - flood, storm and fire afflict communities every year, often with devastating results. This suffering is significantly mitigated by the tens of thousands of volunteer emergency service personnel in the State Emergency Services (SES) and various Rural and Country Fire Services. The following table gives an idea of the impact of disasters on the community, showing the insurance costs for a range of Australian disasters since 1993:
| Event | Location | Date | Insurance Cost |
| Hailstorm | Sydney, NSW | April 1999 | $1.7 billion |
| Hailstorm | Armidale, NSW | September 1996 | $104 million |
| Hailstorm | Brisbane, Qld | December 1998 | $76 million |
| Cyclone Sid and floods | Townsville, Qld | January 1998 | $71 million |
| Cyclone Les and floods | Katherine, NT | January 1998 | $70 million |
| Bushfires | Sydney basin, NSW | January 1994 | $58 million |
| Storms and floods | Wollongong, NSW | August 1998 | $50 million |
| Hailstorm | Singleton, NSW | December 1996 | $49 million |
| Hailstorms | South East Qld | Nov, Dec 1995 | $40 million |
| Storms | Sydney, NSW | December 1997 | $40 million |
|
Storms
| Sydney, NSW | October 1999 | $40 million |
(Insurance Council of Australia data)
Every one of these events was controlled and responded to by volunteer-based emergency services (SES for all except the Sydney bushfires, which was controlled by the New South Wales (NSW) Rural Fire Service (RFS)). Add to this the myriad of day-to-day emergency responses performed by volunteers (for example SES volunteers responded to more than 900 road crashes in NSW alone last year) and you get an idea of the community's dependence on volunteer emergency service personnel.
One of the most versatile and widely used emergency management agencies in the country, the NSW SES consists of 6500 active volunteers, supported by 74 equivalent full-time staff, 40 in regional offices and 34 in the State Headquarters in Wollongong. The paid training staff consists of 3 trainers and an administrative officer.
Our challenge as professional educators is to train and retain a capable emergency response force that can support the community in times of crisis. The demands of a volunteer workforce are many and require imaginative approaches to learning and development. This paper outlines how a competency based training and assessment system has been introduced into the NSW SES, within the context of the concurrent development and endorsement of the Public Safety Training Package.
Download the research paper for more information.
Related Documents: