The CSIRO has announced that the Northern Rivers is the most disaster-prone area in the nation. And is the most at-risk community in the nation for floods.

“We all saw very first-hand what floods did to our community across seven local government areas, affecting over 300,000 people in one way or another,” said Chris Pauling, standing in for Janelle Saffin at the launch of Tomorrow Ready yesterday.

Tomorrow Ready, an initiative by Northern Rivers Community Gateway, is a grass roots program designed to build long-term disaster resilience for communities. 

It will, says Community Gateway CEO Jenni Beetson-Mortimer, “prepare spontaneous volunteers for action.

The program will recruit and train local people across the region to build a network of skilled volunteers who are able to take organised and immediate action in response to a disaster, and to support recovery.” The program will train 120 volunteers to have leadership skills. The volunteers will provide assistance both during and after an event. 

Yesterday at the launch of Tomorrow Ready Liz Ellis, former captain of the national netball team, was introduced as Ambassador.

Ellis said she comes from a long family tradition of volunteers, “My mum volunteers with everything. We really do have to book her in to have dinner because she is so busy with her volunteer organisations.”

(Liz Ellis with Tomorrow Ready volunteers. Photo: supplied)

She had volunteered during the floods “but I didn't know where to start. I didn't want to make the problem worse and I didn't want to be a burden rather than a help. Really my skills were not much more than sweeping and putting an arm around people. I think a lot of people didn't know where to jump in.”

Ellis went to Woodburn, ”I was really struck that people who were affected weren't able to direct us and tell us what they needed because they were so shell shocked.”

What appealed to her about Tomorrow Ready, “is the training of leaders to help people know where to start, how to start and make sure when you do start that you are doing something useful.”

After the 2017 floods, Community Gateway did some research. "We were funded by the Office of Emergency Management,” Beetson-Mortimer told the Lismore App. The research project was to “develop a framework for the management of spontaneous volunteers.

We highlighted the need for better recruitment, better training and better risk management of spontaneous volunteers. And we found the need still existed after the 2022 floods. The Reconstruction Commission has actually funded us to implement the framework that we developed as a result of that research project.”

Over an 18-month period, Tomorrow Ready will engage people who want to spontaneously volunteer during a disaster. “The program will basically up-skill volunteers to be able to work with vulnerable people, to create leadership skills and create grassroots disaster resistance. We will do police checks, we'll do working with children's checks. So the uniqueness of the Tomorrow Ready program is that our framework will keep spontaneous volunteers connected, engaged and trained for the next disaster. And it doesn't matter whether that will be one year, two years or five years.”

The volunteers will be prepared to work with local organisations to support recovery efforts.

“We have purchased a database, we will store and keep the volunteers engaged. We have been working with volunteering organisations in best practice in the management of volunteers since 1995. So, we are best placed in this space to be able to train those volunteers. So at the time of a disaster, we will hand those volunteers over to different organisations based around their skills and the organisation's needs.” 

Beetson-Mortimer says that “what we are really skilled at is providing trauma-informed care. We are working with vulnerable people all the time. And we find that it is really important the way in which they work with a client, supports those clients, that they understand the service system and what supports are out there for people during those times. I think it is really drawing everything together."

Liz Ellis said she hoped there would be no need for the spontaneous volunteers.

“More than anything else I really hope we are not going to need it, that this program becomes redundant. But sadly I don't think that is going to happen. But you know when the next disaster happens, whatever it looks like it is really heartwarming to know that the leadership will be there to take the community forward.”