Join Footscray SES

How Do I Join Up?

Please register your interest at www.ses.vic.gov.au. The Unit will notified of your interest to join the SES and our Recruitment Coordinator will contact you as soon as we receive your details (provided you live within the Maribyrnong or Melbourne municipality). Our Recruitment Coordinator will inform you as to the positions that are available (Operations or Support). Recruitment for support roles occurs all year round, however recruitment for operational roles are only open once a year for logistical reasons.

At present the Unit is recruiting for support roles, including Admin, Welfare, Fund-raising, Uniforms, Fleet and Equipment. Our next recruitment for operations personnel will be in July 2010.

What Happens After You Sign Up?

After attending the induction night and signing up to become a volunteer VICSES will arrange for a Police Check. After this has been finalised, you will be asked to attend a General Rescue Fundamentals weekend.  Without attending this weekend you cannot be placed on rostered shifts and attend any call outs so this training is mandatory.  The skills you learn during this weekend will enable you to enrol in the various courses on offer by the SES as they are available. Your three month probation period will commence on enrolment and during this time you will receive your initial Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)  - Orange overalls, safety glasses, steel cap boots, gloves etc, that is required to be worn at every SES event, including training and operational attendance.

What is Expected of Volunteers?

At the Footscray Unit we recognise that our volunteers have work and family commitments and that these commitments can often take priority over other activities in their lives. At the same time, to effectively and efficiently respond to an incident, we need to be able to rely on our member’s availability to ensure the operational readiness of the Unit. With this in mind, we have a structured roster system that enables members to plan for various events by producing the roster three months in advance (this may increase over time) and a process in place for finding someone to cover your shift should you become unavailable.

Footscray members are rostered on for one week in every four. When they are on call they are expected to respond to storm, flood and building damage call outs between the hours of 6.00pm to 6.00am on weekdays and all day on weekends (this includes all public holidays as the SES provides assistance 365 days per year).

What sort of training will I receive from the SES?

VICSES provides training in the safe use of Chainsaws, First Aid, Occupational Health and Safety, Rooftop Safety and General Rescue technique to name a few. There are also optional training courses such as truck driving, land search and traffic management offered at various times throughout the year.

The Footscray Unit runs it’s training nights on Mondays and members are required to attend the unit each Monday night from 7.30pm to 9.30pm for training and maintenance of equipment.