@article {bnh-7972, title = {State Emergency Service (SES): Volunteer views on experiences, wellbeing, and motivations {\textendash} Findings from the Cultural Assessment Tool (CAT) Survey 2019-20}, number = {660}, year = {2021}, month = {04/2021}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {MELBOURNE}, abstract = {

In 2017, the University of Western Australia (UWA) began a research collaboration project with the Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES), funded by the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre (BNHCRC), to investigate ways to improve the retention rates of their emergency service volunteers. Thus, researchers from UWA and Curtin University collaborated with DFES to develop and administer a Cultural Assessment Tool (CAT) in the form of an online survey from September 2018 to February 2019.

The CAT survey conducted in 18-19 was intended to learn more about the SES volunteering experience from the volunteers{\textquoteright} perspectives. The goal was to obtain information on how to improve volunteer recruitment, retention, wellbeing, and diversity practices within the overall SES volunteering journey. The findings of the 18-19 survey were then used to inform the design of the follow-up CAT survey conducted in 19-20. The key purpose of the 19-20 survey was to assess the current state of volunteering within the SES in 2019 and 2020, in addition to tracking changes in the SES volunteering experience over the last 12 months. The CAT 18-19 findings served as the basis for comparison, such that the 19-20 survey was used to investigate which areas of the volunteering experience have remained the same, improved from the previous year, or have room for improvement.

Survey information

The CAT 19-20 survey was administered on the Qualtrics online survey platform, allowing the research team to collect data from multiple Western Australian regions in a short amount of time. We also offered paper and pencil versions of the survey to volunteers upon request.\ \ 

Individuals who completed the CAT 19-20 survey did so anonymously, to encourage transparency in their responses. In the CAT 18-19 survey, participants were asked to supply their email addresses to be contacted for future research. Of the 398 participants from the 18-19 survey, 307 gave their email addresses. These volunteers were invited to participate in the 19-20 survey and were given three reminders to complete it. The survey was also launched at the Western Australian Fire and Emergency Services (WAFES) conference in September 2019. The survey was later promoted through stakeholder meetings and online means (i.e., volunteer e-newsletters, the DFES online volunteer portal, and Facebook).

There were six main themes in the CAT 19-20 survey, and a total of 90 individual survey questions, plus ten demographic questions.

Compared to the 18-19 survey, the theme of {\textquoteleft}Meeting Expectations{\textquoteright} and the sub-theme {\textquoteleft}Reasons to Join{\textquoteright} were removed due to sufficient information collected from the previous year. However, several open-ended questions were included in the 19-20 survey to measure; any leadership or role changes in the unit, changes in the personal lives of volunteers that affected their ability to volunteer, and any changes in the incluvieness of their unit climates in the last 12 months.

Of the 2033 registered SES volunteers across Western Australia (WA), we received 226 complete responses for the CAT 19-20 survey, with an overall estimated response rate of 11\%. Of the 226, 136 participants had also participated in the CAT 18-19 survey. However, due to incompleteness in the CAT 18-19 survey, the final total number of matched participants for both surveys is 95 respondents. In comparison to 18-19, the survey response rate has reduced from 21\% to 11\%. One possible explanation for the lower response rate in 19-20 is due to the survey overlapping with other SES volunteer surveys being conducted by different organisations using similar timeframes.

The document will now proceed with discussing the participant demographics and findings for the CAT 19-20 survey. This will be followed by a comparison of the findings between the CAT 18-19 and 19-20 surveys. Finally, the document will conclude with key implications; highlighting group differences, key areas of strength, and key opportunities for improvement.

}, keywords = {Cultural Assessment Tool, experiences, motivations, state emergency service, survey, volunteers, wellbeing}, issn = {660}, author = {Hawa Farid and Darja Kragt and Patrick Dunlop and Maryl{\`e}ne Gagn{\'e} and Aleksandra Luksyte and Djurre Holtrop} }