This year we have four awardees. Their research topics each address the important issue of wellbeing.
Greg Dean, Senior Sergeant and Acting Manager VicPol Welfare Services. Greg’s topic of study is early intervention mental health and wellbeing respite centres and his research will add to his learnings from previous study in the UK to inform a sector wide feasibility study.
Dennis Smith, Senior Station Officer is currently on secondment to CFA from the MFB. Dennis will be travelling to the USA and Canada to research how mindfulness programs have been applied and evaluated in emergency management settings there and in particular how mindfulness could benefit people working in dynamic incident control and IMT environments where important and timely decision need to be made when people are under stress.
Tiana Hokins, Emergency Services Operations Coordinator at the Australian Red Cross. Tiana’s topic of study aims to better understand the mental health and wellbeing impacts on people undertaking emergency reunification processes.
Marcus Warner, SES Deputy Controller at Bright. Marcus’s topic of study is to explore what can be done to minimise the impact on tourists in wilderness areas of witnessing traumatic events where support services are limited. Marcus is concerned about the ad hoc approach to dealing with such people.
