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They call it flood recovery, but what stays with you is the endless, stinking mud. When I joined SES, I didn’t have any practical skills. I was just a housewife, and I wasn’t sure what I could offer. But I saw a recruitment ad and thought, what’s stopping me? So, I decided to give it a go. I was lucky enough to get into the first intake. Some people wait years to get in. On my very first night, I turned up thinking it was training. Then I found out it had been cancelled. Oo

***Content Warning: This piece includes lost lives and grief. If these topics are sensitive for you, please pause and consider your current mental health before reading.*** I Joined to Help the Community but I stay because of the People. When I joined SES in 2002, I’d just turned 18. I was barely an adult, still figuring out who I was, and I thought volunteering was simple: you help the community. You show up, you do the job, you go home. I didn’t understand yet how much of t

***Content Warning: This piece includes themes of suicide, lost lives and grief. If these topics are sensitive for you, please pause and consider your current mental health before reading.*** Ron out on the water in Port Macquarie during the 2021 NSW flood event. I’ve been a volunteer on the water for almost 30 years, mostly in search and rescue. I’ve seen the river at its best and its worst, and it’s shaped the way I understand trauma, leadership, and people. But I didn’t st

***Content Warning: This piece includes themes of addiction, overdose, suicide attempt, and grief. If these topics are sensitive for you, please pause and consider your current mental health before reading, or skip this story.*** Sometimes the road that leads you home doesn’t look like a road at all. Sometimes it looks like a broken caravan on the side of a country highway and a stranger walking out of a paddock. That’s how Matt’s story starts. He didn’t wake up one day and d