Published works

The Out of Uniform: building community resilience through non-traditional emergency volunteering project aims to support the development of new and more inclusive models of volunteering for the emergency management sector. Its underlying purpose is to assist the sector to harness the benefits of engaging with and supporting a wider range of ‘non-traditional’ and unaffiliated volunteers while addressing associated risks.

The three-year project is being undertaken by researchers at the Centre for Risk and Community Safety at RMIT University, led by Professor John Handmer. The project methodology involves three key activities: literature reviews, case studies, and a cross-case analysis and evaluation of alternative emergency volunteering models.

A key outcome from the project will be practical guidance for end users on supporting key types of non-traditional emergency volunteering.

Key outputs from the project this year included:

• A report on the role of informal volunteers in emergency and disaster management that highlights three important forms of informal volunteerism: emergent, extending and digital.
• A report on broad trends in volunteering that examined likely implications for emergency volunteering and identifies focal areas that need to be incorporated into emergency management planning.
• A case study of Be Ready Warrandyte (BRW): an award-winning community-led bushfire preparedness project that involved a high degree of collaboration with emergency management organisations.

Key stakeholder engagement activities this year were: a 3-monthly project newsletter, an annual stakeholder communication workshop in October 2014, a project teleconference to assist case study selection in March 2015, and participation in the BNHCRC’s Research Advisory Forum in April 2015.

Three PhD students undertaking associated projects also began or advanced their research this year. Their proejcts focus on: the use of volunteered geographic information in community engagement for bushfire preparation (Billy Haworth, University of Western Sydney), community-led recovery in the 2013 Forcett bushfires in Tasmanias (Fiona Jennings, RMIT University), and social capital, inclusive volunteer engagement and community resilience (Julie Molloy, RMIT University).

The next year of the project will see the Out of Uniform project move from conducting case studies to conducting cross-case analysis and beginning work to evaluate alternative models of emergency volunteering through workshops with end users.