 Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Jim MacArthur. I'm from Newcastle, so I'm a Northerner. Thank you for attending this session on the importance of engaging with youth. My role in Newcastle, I've been in the SES for seven years. The last two of those years I've been the local controller at the Newcastle's unit at the SES. And I've also had another role which has been the regional cadet coordinator for the Hunter Region. And it's a very, very satisfying role and I'm quite passionate about this subject of engaging with youth. I'll just start off by sort of asking a question, not that I expect anyone to answer me at the moment, but it's a question I ask myself and I say, well, how often do we get the opportunity to noticeably influence the life of a young person in a positive way? And I guess the important words there are noticeably and positive. Because when I look around, I'm sure there's a whole bunch of you people out there who are kind of going, you know, I know I influence people in a positive way and I'm sure that you do. But for me personally, until I took on the role of regional cadet coordinator, I don't think that I could have answered this question in a positive fashion. So I want to talk specifically about the New South Wales Cadet program because that's a program that has given me the opportunity to noticeably influence young people's lives in a positive way. For I do that, just a couple of quick stats from New South Wales youth engagement. These numbers are from 2009 till 2013, so they're relatively new, a year and a half old. The number of active New South Wales volunteers in the 16 to 25 year age group has increased from 901 to 1754. Quite a market increase in that age group and it's dropped the average age of the New South Wales volunteer from 47 to 42. This is the active members by age group and you can see the blue line on the bottom is the 2009 numbers and at that point the biggest age demographic was about 45 to 59. But since then the demographic has changed very much to that 16 to 25 demographic. That's a number that a lot of organisations would be quite proud of, I'm sure, to engage that number of young people. Now I'm not saying that the cadet program has been entirely responsible for that, but you would have to believe that that's part of it. So the New South Wales SES cadet program, what is it for those who aren't aware? It was started in 2008, so it's been going as long as I've been in the SES. We've had 135 programs since that time. 2,500 cadets have participated in the program in that time. Interestingly enough, I think these numbers have now changed 52% female and 48% male. If you look at the photo that I've got up there, you'd be hard-pressed to find a male in there, but there's actually three blacks in there somewhere. The rest of them are all females. I wish I was going to schools still. The focus is definitely on quality, not quantity. So it's not about how many programs we can run, but the quality of the programs that we're able to run in schools. And there's this exponential influence. What I mean by that is that although we run a program in a school and the program might have 20 or so cadets in there, they've got parents, they've got carers, they've got relatives, they've got friends and so forth. So the exponential influence of these programs is quite wide, quite widespread. A little bit about the programs themselves. They run on two different types. There's a five-day program, which is an intensive program at the school, and I'll explain it a little bit more, but at the school for four days. And one day is an activity day where they actually go out and just have fun all day doing some SES stuff. That's certainly my preferred method in many respects because you get that continuity of involvement with the cadets. You get to know their names a little bit easier. The other sort of program is 10 weeks, which is the life of a term, a school term. A couple of hours a week for 10 weeks is the other way to run the program. The five-day program is somewhat more intrusive on the school curriculum. As you can imagine, the school's actually got to build it into their school curriculum. Whereas the 10-week program, they can generally find a couple of hours, which is a sport afternoon or something like that to run a program. And they do that as well, and then they have the activity day as a separate day. But definitely my preferred option is the five-day program. Generally targeted at years 9 to 11, so somewhere around 14 years old to 16 years old in that age bracket. It's facilitation versus training. So there are courses that we can attend to learn how to be facilitators. So in a way what I'm doing at the moment is teaching. Sorry, that should be teaching or training, so no mistake for that. Teaching is getting up and just imparting information. And we try not to do that. We actually get the kids involved and you've got a plan that you're working with, but you want to throw it out there and get the kids involved and work with them. So it can take different paths, as you can imagine, but the trick is to get those kids back on the path. But it's okay if you wander off it every now and again. And that's the facilitation side of it rather than the teaching side. And the focus is on these things, really. It's on teamwork. It's on communication. It's on leadership. And the term that we've heard a lot of today already and we're going to hear a lot more of them this afternoon and tomorrow is resilience. And recruitment for us is a bonus. Now that might sound a bit odd. It's not actually a recruitment program. We're not going, let's go to these schools and we'll run these programs and we'll get X amount of volunteers out of it. That happens, but it's a bonus. And the reason that I'm so passionate about it is because it really is about the bigger picture. It's about the SES delivering a program to schools where you actually do have an influence and an effect on those cadets' lives. And I think that's, to my way of thinking, is more important than us signing up one more volunteer or two more volunteers. We do get them, but that's not the reason for being. Just a snap of the activity days and the things that we might get the cadets to do. That shop with the roof kit is actually taken at the Newcastle unit. We have a roof set up close to the ground so no one's going to hurt themselves falling off too badly. And that's part of a visit that they do during the course of that program. The program, they actually visit a unit. They also visit another service. And my general modus operandi is to take them to a fire station for a visit because then the kids get to play with hoses and jaws of life and all that sort of fun stuff. And they actually absolutely love that sort of stuff. In fact, I think the fire service do much better out of recruitment-wise than we do after that. But that's okay. It's really about volunteering. Floodboats, that's a typical SES day, isn't it? It's been raining and you can hardly see. So they build stuff out like tripods and we have a simulated collapsed building called the USAR tunnel, Urban Search and Rescue tunnel. And kids absolutely love it, crawling through that and getting dirty. It's in the dark and we put stuff in there like sticks and rocks and stuff like that. So they love getting themselves dirty and having fun. And they've got to rescue someone from there. It's a mannequin, not a live person. Some success stories. And I've got to say, there's been many. And these ones are only from my experience. And remember, I'm only in the Hunter and these programs are right across the state. The success stories that I talk about are mirrored right across the state. If we look at this young girl here, that school said to us that girl's trouble. She's a problem. We had her in a program. We saw that she had natural leadership abilities. We drew those leadership skills out of her. And she not only was a star of the course, but she went on to be much more engaged in the school itself. So much so that the teachers were saying to us, we cannot believe it was the same student. We also awarded her the Annie Roberts Award in 2012. Now the Annie Roberts Award is an award for within the SES for students who go from here to here. You know, it's an improvement award. So she was a recipient of that award in 2012. This girl here, she joined the cadet program because her friend did. The next day the friend dropped out. She was there on her own, didn't know anyone and decided to stick it out. And at the end of the course she was so engaged. Absolutely loved every bit of it. She's since gone on to do pathways to university. She's going to become a paramedic. And she will openly tell you that the reason that she is so passionate about what she does for the future is because of that course. And she's come back and she's attended other courses that we've run at that school. She was also an Annie Roberts Award winner in 2013. This girl here was the reason that that course got underway at that particular school. It was actually a college so that was slightly older. A natural leader. And she pestered the careers advisor until he actually put on a program. She was runner up for cadet of the year in 2013. And keep in mind this is just in the hunter. This is not across the state. In 2013 the SES were asked to fill the team. And for the first time we filled it a team in the Fire Cadet Championships down at Mayuna Bay. And you can see they're all standing around with medals on them. They actually did it. It came a credible sixth out of 26 teams. Pretty good for an SES team to do that. But in fact they got second place in the teams challenge. 26 teams all up. And our little SES team got second place in the teams challenge. Pretty proud of it. This fellow here is a member of the Newcastle unit. He's been nominated for young volunteer of the year. So for this year he joined the unit. He's done all the training. He's been through the cadet course. He goes out on call outs. He's just absolutely passionate about it. There's a pretty impressive little line up there. And that's just for the hunter in the last couple of years. And those success stories are mirrored right across the board. You can't see this and that's why I'm going to take some extracts. The last course that I ran, a very quiet young girl, came up to me at the end of the course and slipped me a note. A letter. And that's the letter there. And that's what she said. The amount of information, guidance and future values we received throughout the five days will truly impact our lives forever. It's not a bad statement from a young girl. I've gained deep knowledge of teamwork skills, leadership roles and a variety of communication sources. I mentioned earlier that that's what we focused on. She's picked up on that and that's what she said. Very encouraging stuff. So getting back to our topic, the importance. What is the importance of engaging with youth? These are just some of them. I mean there's got to be several more social skills. They get mixed with a whole bunch of people that they don't normally mix with. Sometimes different skill-term levels. They make friends that they didn't have before. Certainly community connections because of their involvement in the SES, their family and their friends and their neighbours. We focus very strongly on safety of course. Safety is an important part as it is with the CFA. Safety is a major part of what we discuss in the program. It also gives them the whole concept of volunteering. What is volunteering all about? And because we're volunteers and because we're taking our time and we're going there and spending time with them they get some idea about what the whole concept of volunteering is. Team dynamics of course and it doesn't matter where you go in life from school onto the workplace you're going to be involved in a team of some description aren't you? So learn how to operate in a team. Learn how to take direction. We put them out of their comfort zone of course. They do things that they've never done before. And that's a good thing to do out of their comfort zone and finding out, hey I can actually get dressed up in a harness and climb up on a roof even though it's only this high off the ground. Anyway, we give them a lot of challenges and a lot of tasks that cause them to think outside the square. They've got to think naturally, think creatively, work together on that, communicate, work things out. So it's not just a school room based thing. We get them outside all the time. We're all the time going out, doing activities and giving them fun things to do. But at the same time then analysing those things and saying what was all that about? What did you learn from that? A double AR, an after action review. What did we do? What could we have done differently? And an introduction to leadership. And I've seen a lot of instances of those cadets who have found that within them they have this ability to be able to lead a team. Because we spread that roll out quite a lot through the program. Give a lot of the kids a chance to be a leader and it's quite surprising sometimes how many step up to the mark. And I guess the only other thing I would have mentioned there is that from an SES point of view, I guess it is future bursting. It's got the potential to boost our ranks. Now there's a letter there from our commissioner, our new commissioner Adam Dent. And I'll just read it here. I heard some incredible stories about a program that does so much more than recruit young people into SES. Our cadet program is actively building leaders, connecting young people with their communities and changing lives. Sorry, you didn't hear all of that, but hopefully you can read it up there, at least the important bits. And that's from the new commissioner of the SES. So he recognises the value of the cadet program and thankfully he is 100% behind it. So what's the future in terms of the SES? Certainly continuing with awards like the Young Volunteer of the Year Award. Obviously, continue running the program and offering awards like the Cadet of the Year and the Andy Roberts Award. Promote the VA, which is the volunteer association sponsored Young Leadership Program. Talk of establishing a New South Wales Young Members Group so that the young members of the SES have a forum, have an opportunity to get together and determine some of their own future within the SES. And there's talk of investigating an ambassador program. It's kind of like, well, now the cadets are finished, what do we do? Where do we take you? What's the next step? And the next step could be some kind of ambassador program from cadets out of these programs. So I'm going to leave you with just the rest of the thought from Caitlin. I know for a fact assisting my community and sharing what skills I learnt will definitely influence my career. This week was life-changing. That's extraordinary for a young person to say that. That a program they did at school with a volunteer association was actually life-changing. Unsolicited, and it's not the first time that we've heard it. What a great way to finish it. Are there any questions? Yes. That's the only program that we run at the moment. Yeah, that's the only one we run at the moment. I tend to think that we can be flexible within that, within those guidelines about those programs as well. But at the moment, they're the only two styles of programs that we run. Did you have something in mind? I'm happy to take some of that. I'm happy to take more of it here on campus. Not like it's a campus program. So they go there every week for a couple of hours or something, do they? Yeah, yes. I think it's got some merits, but at the moment, this is the focus for the SES, these sort of programs. And then once they're 16, of course they can join. And then they get the opportunity to go there every week anyway and do fun stuff. Yeah. I believe Victoria have run a program. Are there any SES Victoria people in here who can help? Sorry? It's not resourced very well. It's not resourced very well? Right. Okay. Yeah. Look, it really depends on people being passionate, of course. Well, it depends on a number of things. It always depends on people who are going to drive these things, doesn't it? If you haven't got people that are driving it, it's not going to work. You need people who can go to the schools and facilitate the programs. You need people who can go and be assistants to those facilitators. You need the school to be able to adopt it into their curriculum. But I can tell you, from my experience, and I've been doing this now for two years in Ahara, when I took over, we did two programs. The first year I ran it, I did eight. Then I got a slap in the wrist for overachieving, so I cut it back to five. And I, in fact, could run probably a dozen programs a year. I got to the stage where I had to put skills on biannual programs. In other words, I had to go to the schools and say, I'm sorry, I can't do you this year. You're going to have to wait until next year. They're emailing me going, don't forget us in 2016. That's the strength, that's the level that it's got to. I don't have to go looking. The schools are coming to me and saying, please come and run this program at my school. And the issue I have is having the resources to be able to manage that within the budget constraints of the New South Wales SES program. But if I had the people and a blank sheet I reckon I could run a dozen a year quite easily. Isn't it? Sorry. Yep, yep, yep. We probably have, but not the noticeably no. One of my assistants at the moment is actually a scout person who's been a scout trainer for a number of years. And he's now joined the program to assist me, so that's great. Sorry, there's another up there. Numbers. Yeah, look, I kind of, I aim for around 18 to 24. That's in both, that's in both. Now, the reason for doing that essentially is... Is that a bell? A five? I'll talk quickly. The reason for doing that really is because when we organise an activity day we have a number of stands including flood boats and there's a maximum number that can go on a flood boat. So I sort of plan it, so I've got about four teams of people. So 6-4-24 is kind of a maximum. Once it gets over that you've got a much more difficult task at organising the activities with the restriction on flood boats. I mean it sounds like a funny thing to be limited by but I guess you've got to have a limit somewhere. Also control of a room. I think that number of people is quite adequate. And the minimum I reckon is probably a dozen. You know, once it gets below that you're really talking about a small group of people. Yes, ma'am? Well, you saw my numbers before. 52% female and 48% male. It's quite an extraordinary change. And that's, if you had looked at it a couple of years ago those numbers would have been reversed. Yes, ma'am? Per person? You know, I don't have eyes on that sort of costing. But what we do supply is we give them a t-shirt, a cadet t-shirt, we give them a cap, we give them goggles, we give them gloves, we give them volley shoes and a bag and they get to keep those. We lend them a jacket and a pair of pants and we get those jacket and a pair of pants back at the end of the program for obvious reasons. We also cover all other costs associated. So if there's bus costs to excursion, the SES pick those up. We, you know, we might feed them on that day. We cover that cost. So essentially the selling is that there is no cost to the school at all. That's a big plus for a lot of schools. The budget for... The budget is looked after at a New South Wales level and it's really based on number of programs. So they'll say we are going to do about 30 programs this year and how do we make up that 30 programs across the state? So I don't have an individual budget for that. All I have is we get together a couple of times a year and decide on the number of programs that the SES want to do for that year and try to fit in with that budget. Yes, ma'am? I'm not sure if everyone heard that question but it was about the selection criteria and it's an interesting question because we've had the extremes. I mean, I'm about to conduct a program in a school that has students who specifically have behavioural problems and we've run one there before. I'm going into that school knowing that that class is made up entirely of kids that no other school wants but generally we try to get people who want to be in the program rather than are drafted in the program so the school make that selection. Thank you everybody. Thanks for your question.