Community volunteers are needed for the City of Lethbridge’s Emergency Social Services (ESS) team.
ESS volunteers play a critical role in supporting individuals and families during times of crisis and promote community involvement in building a more resilient Lethbridge.
“The City takes emergency planning preparedness very seriously and has a number of plans ready to activate,” says Jamie Anderson, emergency planning coordinator.
According to Anderson, ESS is a basic response to evacuees from other communities or should people be unable to remain in their homes during an event in our community.
“As we’ve seen through the last couple of years, we saw Jasper fires last year and we’ve seen fires in California, having a plan to prepare to support people in a time of need makes a huge difference in the overall response of the event itself,” Anderson explains.
Recruiting new volunteers from the community is a way to broaden the team.
When a disaster or emergency event does take place, Anderson says, there’s a lot of chaos with a lot of moving parts. “The importance of having more members and volunteers is we can provide support even if there are members impacted by the event. We’re looking across the city, as opposed to people internal with the City.”
“We’re able to provide a more consistent response and a more broader response with more volunteers,” adds Anderson.
Some of the tasks of the team are to get those affected by an emergency event into hotels or a shelter or help them obtain a change of clothes or medical support.
It was determined, rather than offering large-scale information sessions, learning for volunteers will be broken down into more manageable and digestible portions.
“We’ll be doing a monthly in-person lunch and learn session between 12-1 p.m. at City Hall. Those sessions are also available through Teams and the content from each session will also be recorded,” says Anderson. “We’ll also be including volunteers in some tabletop exercises. And every couple of years, the City does a large-scale exercise, where we get everybody out in character and in action.”
The next training opportunity is this Thursday and will feature representatives from the Alberta Emergency Management Agency.
For more information about the team or to volunteer visit Emergency Social Services (ESS) | City of Lethbridge.
