Can you keep your head in a crisis?
Find out about volunteering opportunities with the Crisis Support Team for Essex…
The Crisis Support Team for Essex (CSTE) is a multi-agency support service for people affected by an emergency or major incident occurring in Essex, or residents of Essex affected by an emergency in another area of the UK or abroad.
Working with the emergency services, the voluntary sector and other responders, the CSTE helps to provide a seamless joined up multi-agency response to support the wellbeing of people affected. This could include injured and non-injured survivors, families of those missing, bereaved families, emergency responders and people in the community where the incident occurred.
Team members are on hand 24/7 and are trained to deliver a wide-range of emotional and practical support to both adults and children. This can include immediate support at emergency assistance centres, offering advice via telephone helplines, explaining processes and legal procedures, as well as providing leaflets explaining or normalising reactions to trauma.
This work is vital and existing volunteers have previously supported people affected by a range of incidents including the July 7th bombings in London, repatriations of British Nationals into Stansted Airport following international events such as the Nepal Earthquake in 2015 and also offered mutual aid to support those affected by the Grenfell Tower Disaster this year.
In order to continue this valuable work, the team needs more volunteers who are able to give just a few hours of their time each month to attend training events and meetings… and of course be able to respond in an emergency!
Individuals from a wide range of organisations and service sectorsare welcome to apply and the team is also keen to speak to individuals with diverse backgrounds to ensure they have a balanced team of crisis support workers to helpdifferent people, groups and communities. Qualifications and experience in providing care and assistance to children and/or adults are not essential, but are very welcome.
All volunteers receive specialist training from a range of subject matter experts from across the UK and will have the opportunity to participate in multi-agency exercises.So, if you’re a good listener, you enjoy working with people and, crucially, you can keep your head in a crisis, find out more about volunteering for the CSTE by or visiting