2018-04-10 S&O Agenda - Attachment 1 to Item 4 - Local Disaster Recovery Subplan

6.7      Managing volunteers
Noosa Council will act as the managers of spontaneous volunteers within the Noosa area, within
local capacity. The long-term recovery period in disaster situations presents volunteer
management challenges that include maintaining the motivation of disaster response volunteers,
developing strategies to mobilise new volunteers for the recovery period, and organising large-
scale volunteer efforts for clean-up and rebuilding.

6.7.1    Noosa volunteer philosophy

Recovery planning in Noosa recognises the role of volunteers in community recovery.
Volunteering often emerges spontaneously within a community and coordination and support is
required to maximise outcomes for both the volunteers and those that receive volunteer
assistance.

Volunteer coordination is a function of the Human and Social Subgroup. The Subgroup is
responsible for promoting, coordinating and supporting the volunteer effort with the assistance of
the other subgroups as required.

The Subgroup will work closely with Volunteering Queensland and other volunteer organisations
including not-for-profits to develop appropriate volunteering programs and supporting
frameworks to assist the community where practicable.

Volunteer management on the ground e.g. briefings, tasking, resource support, safety etc is to
be undertaken by Council and/or non-profit organisations with the appropriate insurance, policies
and procedures for effective and safe volunteer management.

The LRG will monitor and report on volunteer effort within the community including providing
public information on volunteer progress and outcomes.

6.7.2    Setting objectives for volunteer effort

It is likely that a range of volunteer programs will be needed to address diverse needs in the
community. For example, volunteers may assist in urban clean up, farm debris removal and
fencing, environmental care projects, provision of psychosocial support, recovery event
management, provision of specialised or technical work, or management of donated goods.
Matching volunteer availability and skill and resources will be required across diverse functions
that operate over different timeframes. For example, farm fence repair may be undertaken over
months whereas clean up of community infrastructure will often need to be completed in the
immediate aftermath of a disaster.

It is important for the LRG and the subgroups to clearly define objectives for the volunteering
effort to assist planning and to enable the matching of volunteers’ availability and skills with tasks
on the ground. Volunteering programs, recruitment and management can then be undertaken to
achieve those objectives.

Objectives should be SMART i.e. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and include a Time
Frame. Volunteer objectives may be short, medium or long term. Long term volunteer objectives
should be developed to ensure that volunteer effort can be managed to support the long term
recovery of the community.

A volunteer management plan should be developed and endorsed by the LRG. It should be
updated regularly to reflect the changing volunteer environment.




Noosa Local Disaster Recovery Subplan 2018                                                   Page 31