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Australia is the lucky country – there’s no doubt about that!

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Are you looking for a change in direction in your life?

Join like-minded women in a positive, safe and nurturing learning environment to gain confidence in setting life goals and ambitions, enhance interpersonal skills, develop effective communication and develop effective communication and develop a positive self-image while identifying personal strengths.

The course runs from February 2 to June 29 from 9.30am to 3.00pm.

For more information please contact Centre for Participation on 03 5382 5607

A major new research project has been launched in a bid to measure the value of volunteers for people with disabilities.

Also looking at identifying models of best practice that will pave the way for volunteer services in the future, the research is being undertaken by Interchange Incorporated, in partnership with the University of Melbourne and the Department of Health and Human Services.

The first of its kind in Australia, the project aims to provide an evidence base to inform policy and practice nationally and comes amid a period of uncertainty around funding to support volunteerism under the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

Interchange Incorporated executive officer Kerry Uren said the aim of the six-month research project is to gather evidence about the benefits of volunteering in the disability sector in Victoria.

“The NDIS is saying that they are supportive of social capital retention but they are uncertain about how the funding looks or where it fits and have been non-committal about how they are going about doing that,” Ms Uren said.

The idea is to provide an evidence base so that we can provide some information about it and help them decide,  she said.

Prior to the NDIS, community service organisations for people with disabilities received and distributed funding for services on a group basis, known as block funding.

And volunteer programs were typically funded through these block grants, however, under the NDIS, payment for securing volunteer services are not included in the individualised funding model.

It is unclear how the Information, Linkages and Capacity Building funding component will support volunteer services for persons with disabilities, with Ms Uren commenting that the ongoing uncertainty around funding was having a significant impact on the sector.

“The uncertainty has put a lot of pressure on the ability of service providers to transition to the NDIS and to strategically plan for moving forward with their volunteer program, which has been a bit of a challenge,” she said.

Researchers believe part of the problem is that volunteering is “underestimated and undervalued”.

Ms Uren said she believed volunteering had been undervalued as there was no clarification about the size of volunteering: “So there has actually been no research undertaken that can demonstrate how many people volunteer, how many hours are provided or how many people with disability are supported or benefit from community inclusion because of volunteers.”

“That’s what we’re hoping this research will help us to provide,” she said.

And researchers are now calling on volunteer supported services, volunteers and people in receipt of volunteer supports to take part in the project to provide a better understanding of the current profile of volunteerism in Victoria.

Services that have recently made the decision to discontinue using volunteers because of the uncertainty around funding are also encouraged to take part.
Stage one of the project will see participants complete a five-minute online survey including questions like whether the organisation offers any volunteer supported services/the number of programs offered.

For more information or to take part in the research project register here.

The Licencing the Wimmera program aims to assist Learner Drivers who have been identified as facing a significant barrier or disadvantage which may prohibit the from gaining the necessary driving experience required to apply for a probationary licence. Many people lack the support networks to facilitate such driving experience or face issues with finance or lack of access to a vehicle.

Volunteer Mentors are required to assist Learner Drivers to gain the necessary driving experience to obtain their probationary licence. Volunteer Mentors are required from Nhill, Dimboola, Horsham, Warracknabeal, Hopetoun and Goroke.

Mentors will need:

• to have a full drivers licence
• participated in training our mentor training
• to have a police check
• working with children’s check and
• other checks as required by the program.
• to commit to at least one hour of driving per week

Driving times and days are worked out according to the suitability of both Mentor and Learner. Organisational vehicles are used both the vehicles and volunteers are fully covered by our insurances. To register your interest, please call or email the Centre for Participation on (03) 5382 5607  or info@centreforparticipation.org.au to register for the next round of volunteer training.

All Victorian drivers approaching or passing a stationary emergency vehicle must slow to 40km/h, under a newly introduced VicRoads rule.

Under the new rule, a 40 km/h speed limit applies when passing a stationary police vehicle, emergency vehicle, enforcement vehicle or escort vehicle with flashing lights or sounding alarm, including:

• Police vehicles
• Ambulance Victoria vehicles
• Metropolitan Fire Brigade vehicles
• Country Fire Authority vehicles
• Forest Fire Management Victoria vehicles
• State Emergency Service vehicles
• Search and Rescue Services
• VicRoads Transport Safety Service vehicles
• Enforcement vehicles under the control of a state transport body including VicRoads, DEDJTR and Taxi Commission enforcement vehicles
• Other emergency patient transport vehicles with red and blue flashing lights.

Introduced to improve safety for emergency and enforcement workers, the new rule states drivers must slow down when approaching and passing the vehicle, and must not increase their speed until they are a safe distance from the scene, and does not apply to vehicles on the opposite side of a divided road separated by a median strip.
40km/h was designated as the maximum speed at which pedestrians are likely to survive vehicle impact.

Near misses

Incidents on Victorian roads place first responders and others involved at a high risk of being struck by passing vehicles or debris.
Near misses are common, with a survey of more than 1,600 emergency service and enforcement workers revealing that in the past three years:

• 17% had a near miss involving a passing vehicle on four or more occasions
• 3% had been injured while evading a passing vehicle
• 8% had their vehicle struck by a passing vehicle
• 23% of those involved in an incident had consequential mental health issues.

Anyone breaking the new rule is can be fined from $272.05 up to $777.30, with Victoria Police advising that its primary goal is to educate the community about safe speeds around incidents to prevent the death or serious injury of workers and others at the scene.

Too often we hear tragic stories of another young life being cut short in a car accident, yet any attempts to dramatically reduce the death toll are just not working.

This is according to University of the Sunshine Coast Research Fellow Bridie Scott-Parker, who shared in her article in “The Conversation” recently, who says that now is not the time to place blame but rather to focus on increased education and better systems.

Young male drivers are hardest hit, with male drivers aged 17 -24 making up just 12.7 per cent of all licence holders but accounting for 20.3 per cent of driver fatalities.

Shockingly, P-platers are four times more likely to be involved in a fatal road accident, with 45 per cent of all deaths of young people attributed to road accidents.

And, while there has been some reduction in the number of fatal accidents involving young people over the years, the focus needs to be on increased driver training and education for young drivers, as well as looking at the environment and behaviour of young drivers, including:

• • • What vehicle they drive
    • When they drive
    • How they drive
    • Why they drive
    • Responsibility

“Systems thinking is a radical approach in young driver road safety,” Ms Scott-Parker said, also commenting that most crashes can be understood as a failure in the system which should actually protect young drivers.

For example, a crash leading to a young person’s death can be related to factors at every level of the system, such as:

• • • Driving an older vehicle which has fewer crash-avoidance and crash-protection features on poorly maintained roads
    • Driving after drinking alcohol
    • Driving at night
    • Driving when parents are unaware of how they behave on the road now they have their own car and are licensed to drive independently
    • Whether there is public transport available

There is a general need for more information about who is out there, what they do, and how we can work together, Ms Scott-Parker said.
But we are signalling a new age in which we can radically improve young driver road safety, she said.