Community Recovery Roles for Storm Season

The Department of Families, Seniors, Disability Services and Child Safety (the department) has responsibility for Human and Social Recovery under the Queensland Disaster Management Arrangements, which incorporates the social, emotional, physical and psychological wellbeing of individuals and communities following a disaster. Community Recovery assists disaster affected communities and provides human and social support to individuals, families and communities requiring assistance. 

Community Recovery is activated to provide assistance to members of the community after a disaster event. Consequently, the work can be very stressful and emotional, particularly for those staff required to work directly with the public, as this involves actively working with people who are trying to cope with a significantly distressing time in their lives. For this reason, it is imperative that the candidates provided by your organisation demonstrate resilience, empathy and flexibility. 

There are a variety of roles available with Community Recovery, some involve speaking with clientele over the phone or through a visual computer medium. Others such as Outreach may involve face to face communication, whereas some other positions may be without direct client contact in administrative roles.  

Please be mindful that Community Recovery is not suitable for anyone that may be triggered when listening to personal experiences of people that are experiencing trauma or who are emotionally reactive.  

To be an effective team member, candidates will be required to have a strong ability to communicate with people from diverse backgrounds, good situational awareness, commitment to health and safety, the ability to set boundaries and expectations, and de-escalate distressed members of the public to promote productive conversations, have good emotional regulation and control in stressful situations, have good insight into their own wellbeing strategies and stress response, be able to work in a team environment including being comfortable with seeking support from others in the team if required and participating in regular debriefs with team members.  

On site counsellors are provided to support staff should they experience an upsetting and/or difficult interaction. 

Position Descriptions Hardship Assistance Team

• All successful candidates must undertake a police check 
• Shifts will be on a 7-day rotating roster, hours will be dependent on the serverity of the situation  
• 2-3 days of training will be provided on site  
• Fully on-site role no WFH 
• Most roles commence at an AO4 level, which currently pays $60.05 per hour (casual rate)