Canadian Red Cross is looking for Volunteers
Safety and Wellbeing Responder Volunteer Posting:
Do you have a passion for supporting your community, especially in times of emergencies? We want you! The Canadian Red Cross is seeking new volunteers to join our Safety and Wellbeing Team.
Safety and Wellbeing Responders are best known for helping people during a disaster. This role can involve providing emotional support to people at evacuation shelters, connecting with communities by phone or in person following a fire or flood to check how people impacted are coping, or connecting people to services within their community to support their recovery.
We are looking for people who are willing to be trained to provide this type of support to our communities across British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Alberta and NWT.
As a Safety and Wellbeing responder you will:
- Develop skills that allow you to provide psychosocial support and contribute to creating safe and supportive environments for people impacted by disasters in your own community and beyond.
- Be given opportunities to engage in relief activities and field deployments.
- Join our local Safety and Wellbeing team which is part of our larger Mental Health and Psychosocial Support program, providing psychological first aid and connecting individuals to local resources and supports.
Desired qualities and experience:
- Open to working with all members of impacted communities across all cultures, including Indigenous communities, sometimes during very challenging times.
- Availability to deploy for 5-14 consecutive days between April and September
- Have strong interpersonal listening and communication skills.
- Can communicate in a respectful, sensitive, and supportive way.
- Enjoy working in teams.
- Proficient computer literacy.
- A background in psychology, nursing, teaching, social work, youth engagement, public health, emergency services (police, fire, ambulance, nursing, child and youth services) or related fields is considered an asset.
- Must be comfortable working in fast paced, ever changing environment.
- Able to commit to completing 2-5 days’ worth of required online training and attend team meetings and trainings updates as required.
The Impact:
As a Safety and Wellbeing Responder, you will have an impact on the ground in your community. You will be promoting and supporting Community Engagement and Mobilization with existing organizations and ensuring that people who are impacted have access to services that meet their needs.
Whether you are providing emotional support (via Psychological First Aid) to people affected by emergencies, helping connect individuals to supports and services in their communities, providing information sessions to other team members on psychosocial support and wellbeing topics, you will be making a real difference. https://www.redcross.ca/volunteer/apply-now
