Community Recovery

Virtually the entire department I work for has been out on Community Recovery since the floods hit Queensland. Of course, once the floods started taking out more and more towns, they kicked up the training sessions to twice a day for… well, I think they’re still running.

I only did my recovery training a few weeks ago since I was tagged as someone who needed to be in the office (whichever available office we could work from while ours was being flood affected) so I could write and post stories to our website. When Cyclone Yasi hit and again I was needed for more story preparations and it seemed like little chance of me going anywhere.

Now we’re back in our office, and most of the team is back from leave/Community Recovery/other life commitments, I got the call and was placed inIpswich for a week. Slightly less interesting than the previously thought placement of Cairns or Townsville, but also a relief that I didn’t have to go away for 7 days and could come home every night, even if it was a long commute each way.

The whole processes was very tiring given I’d already worked a four day week and come Friday I felt like I should be ending the week with drinks and happy thoughts of two days off. Unfortunately I was starting a new week and wouldn’t get my weekend until the following Wednesday.

The first four days I was lucky enough to be placed in Goodna Service Centre where I could sit in an office and process people’s applications for financial assistance for them. Each centre also housed Centrelink officers, Red Cross, Lifeline and a security guard, so we had no end of support—I really loved working with the people from Red Cross and Lifeline, they’re amazing in their volunteer work and looking after, not just the stressed out people coming through the door, but also us Community workers.

I will admit that being in a people facing environment again was refreshing the first day, everyone was happy with the cheques and assistance I could offer them. Come the second day though, when the Emergent Assistance Grant was no longer available, we saw the more colourful and challenging characters coming out of the woodwork to pile abuse upon us for not giving them what they wanted. I could understand their situation, but unfortunately, I have to follow suit with what services/assistance we’re allowed to offer. It’s also difficult to see people who have already been through so much stress to have to face yet another challenge put in place by the government.

For four days I had people cry, shout, argue, hug me—and while those nice people who sat down to tell me their story made my week, I was also vastly aware of the safety of my silent cubicle back in Brisbane CBD. By day 8 I was well and truly ready to get back to my writer monkey position.

My final day I was sent back to Ipswich Coordination Centre and put on Outreach, which means you spend all day in a Community Recovery 4WD with one other person door knocking in all the affected areas in that region and talking to people about their circumstances, making sure they’re aware of any payments they may be entitled to.

My housing officer I was pared with was happy to hear that I could read a map and made me navigator for the day while she steered the giant 4WD around Goodna and Gailes area. It was a long day, I imagine even longer if you didn’t like the person you were pared with, but I enjoyed it more than sitting in the Recovery Centre. Instead of doing assessments and delivering bad news to those ineligible for assistance, I was actually just talking to people and hearing their stories and providing them information—and as a writer I feel much more comfortable doing this than filling in administrative forms.

My two fatigue days came as something of a relief with me falling in bed around 8pm on Tuesday night.

I’ve already been asked when I can be deployed again—I do like that I have the option of putting my personal life first when I can and I’m playing that card now. But, in the longer term view this thing is definitely far from over, so I expect to be placed again in the not too distant future.