Volunteers - a final report

Two final reports from the Bushfire CRC’s seven-year Enhancing Volunteerism project are ready to read on our website.

www.bushfirecrc.com/projects/d3/enhancing-volunteerism

Led by Latrobe University psychology professor Jim McLennan with researcher Adrian Birch, the Volunteerism project provided fire services across Australia and New Zealand with information to help strategic planning and policy development concerning volunteer numbers, and suggested new ways of recruiting and supporting volunteer workforces.

One of the reports summarises the findings of what was Australasia’s largest project investigating the recruitment and retention of volunteer firefighters. The second is a much shorter Synopsis.

The project found volunteer-based fire agencies were suffering from declining volunteer numbers, had problems getting volunteers to turn out in business hours and faced static, ageing populations in small rural communities. It looked at ways to tackle the problems.