Disaster Welfare and Support Team volunteer — Hawke's Bay, Hastings
Join our Disaster Welfare Support team!
Help people prepare for disasters and get through when an emergency or disaster happens. Meet new people, gain a range of new skills and be there for your community.
Role description
Support your community before and during an emergency. You could be deployed to assist in a flood, fire or other large-scale emergencies.
Your Tasks
- Setting up and providing support in evacuation centres.
- Undertaking needs assessments to understand what support people need.
- Providing psychosocial support.
Volunteer requirements and training
You’ll receive training in comprehensive first aid, psychological first aid, welfare support, and other essential skills for the role. Our teams train regularly and sometimes take part in scenario-based exercises with other response teams.
We need you to be physically fit, a good communicator and able to commit to your team for at least 12 months – some of our volunteers have been with us for more than 20 years.
Our volunteers need to be available to deploy for up to five days (excluding travel days) when responding to emergencies. Often employers see value in the training the team members receive and proudly support their staff in the welfare disaster team to enable them to remain flexible during emergencies.
Health, Safety and Wellbeing (HSW)
We all have a responsibility for our own and others’ Health, Safety and Wellbeing (HSW) when undertaking activities on behalf of Red Cross. Therefore, it is important you:
- Take reasonable care of your own health and safety, do not adversely affect the HSW of others -Complete health, safety and wellbeing induction, training, programmes and activities – as directed.
- Follow all reasonable instructions given to you relating to HSW.
- Cooperate and comply with New Zealand Red Cross policies, standards and procedures related to health, safety, and wellbeing.
- Use personal protective equipment (PPE) if required, to undertake any work activity
- If you identify a hazard and/or you are involved in an incident or near miss, report this straight away to your people leader
- Know what to do in an emergency – for example, how to escape during a fire or what to do if an earthquake occurs
- You must tell someone in charge if you have any health and safety concerns or worried about someone else’s health and safety
Apply Online on the Red Cross website
Our team is excited to expand, and we invite you to apply and join us on our fortnightly training evening at St Leonards, Hastings and Onekawa, Napier.
If you are interested, please apply, and we will send further details about the information evening to all applicants.
For more information, please contact [email protected]