Volunteering at the State Enquiry Centre, Red Cross House

On Monday night I was asked to volunteer at the Red Cross State Enquiry Centre (SEC) for the night shift. There were several of these centres set up within a day or so around Australia to cater for the massive amount of calls in response to the devastating bushfires in Victoria.

 

The SEC is set up to register victims of the disaster and also takes enquiries from people looking for victims. By victims I mean anyone who was displaced by the bushfires.

 

I was the team leader for my shift (originally 9:30pm – 6:30am), which was only meant to be only 9 hours but ended up being about 14. Oh well…

 

Thankfully the overnight part of the shift was very quiet as most of the callers were still asleep. We had expected callers from overseas seeking their friends/family etc but they must’ve called earlier. In this quiet period we ended up entering victim registration information into the National Registry Inquiry System (NRIS) which is a database accessible by the Emergency Services during these times. This information included who the person is, my original and new address etc.

 

From about 8am the calls came thick and fast as people woke up and sought answers. The calls started off being about people looking for others or people registering themselves. There were quite a few distressing calls that made you just sit back for a few minutes and try to absorb what you’ve just heard.

 

Thankfully by the end of my shift the calls had progressed to people who’ve found each other or those wanting to remove themselves from the register as they had found their way back home or were in regular communication with loved ones.

 

As Team Leader my job wasn’t to answers actual calls, unless we were really swamped, but to watch over the other volunteers, problem-solve any issues that popped up, address any personal issues the volunteers had with the callers, and more importantly watch out for signs of stress in my volunteers.

 

I must say, our volunteers did a stellar job handling the calls and more importantly remaining calm and composed when listening to some of the tragic stories over the phone.

 

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