Collaboration leads to new toolkit for emergency volunteer leaders

Across Australia, emergency services agencies are often looking for ways to improve volunteer recruitment, retention, onboarding, management and communication strategies.

Researchers from Curtin University and the University of Western Australia (UWA) have created a new toolkit specifically for emergency brigade, groups and units (BGU) leaders, which was developed in close collaboration with the Department of Fire and Emergency Services, Western Australia (DFES).

The toolkit, now available online, is based on relevant models of psychological behaviour and extensive new research with BGU leaders and volunteers. It allows BGU leaders to access highly relevant, evidence-based new resources – such as checklists, tip sheets, sample booklets and templates – to assist at all stages of volunteer management, including:

• Recruiting Volunteers for the Emergency Services – a resource to support BGU volunteer recruitment.
• Supporting New Volunteers – a resource on how to successfully onboard and socialise new emergency service volunteers.
• Volunteer Management Toolkit – a resource on how to motivate and manage emergency service volunteers effectively.

The research team is currently finalising two additional resources for the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC’s Enabling sustainable emergency volunteering project – one to support volunteer succession planning and the other to aid volunteer recruitment messaging.

The toolkit is the product of research from A/Prof Patrick Dunlop, Hawa Muhammad Farid, Prof Marylene Gagne, Prof Alex Luksyte, Dr Darja Kragt and Dr Djurre Holtrop from Curtin University and the University of Western Australia, in close collaboration with DFES.

A/Prof Dunlop and Hawa Muhammad Farid, alongside Jennifer Pidgeon and Kate White from DFES, introduced the toolkit to BGU leaders in an online showcase last week, hosted by the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC, where they guided the audience through some of the tools that are currently being used by DFES in their volunteer recruitment and retention strategies.

Jennifer Pidgeon, Manager of Strategic Volunteer and Youth Programs at DFES, said that volunteer leaders in Western Australia had found that the previous ways of recruiting and managing volunteers were not as relevant with today’s lifestyles.

“Volunteer management and recruitment is complex. The drivers are different to any paid work,” Jennifer noted.

“We needed to provide some sort of resource that could support our brigades, groups or units that met volunteer needs.

“This is where the relationship with the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre, and the team that are now at the Future of Work Institute at Curtin University, became extremely important. DFES has had a long relationship with this team, founded in the work for the Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre.”

The combination of research knowledge and emergency management expertise was a key aspect in the development of the resources, which ensured the toolkits met the needs to the volunteers on the ground.

“That engagement with volunteers in the design process to draw out what is needed from the research and how that can be applied is a key point,” Jennifer explained.

“The benefits we can got from the relationship with researchers and actual application of current knowledge is that we have a useable and very useful resource for our volunteers.

“By building the relationship we’re able to build a bigger picture of what’s happening in our volunteer workforce, and develop and build a resource set that meets their needs, but the long-term relationship with this particular research team means that we’re able to create a holistic picture and they have a very good grounding in what is happening with our volunteers, as well as the broader volunteering environment.”

You can watch the recording of the showcase above or via the CRC’s Hazard Channel, and access the presentations here.

For those who attended the showcase, there is a short survey available to gather feedback about how the toolkit can be approved. Access the survey here.