Volunteer Fire Fighters Association

Project title Exploring the influence of leadership styles on volunteer firefighter mental health and wellbeing. What does the research involve? This study seeks to explore the

As a volunteer firefighter, you may have experienced exposure to many stressful events while carrying out your duties. These stressful events, such as working on dangerous and unpredictable firegrounds during bushfire threats, can have an impact on the way we feel. The ways in which people experience and process their involvement in such events affect many aspects of their lives.

The Victim summaries contained in this document are from volunteers and staff who have bravely contacted the author to express their distressing and desperate plights. What is clear in every case is that the New South Wales Rural Fire Service (RFS) knowingly showed an arrogant disregard of its duty of care as an employer. It, the RFS, fosters a culture where reports of Bullying, Harassment, Discrimination and Sexual Misconduct were ignored, suppressed or dismissed. Complaints and grievances are systematically lost and investigations delayed and incompetently mishandled to the point complainants simply give up and leave the service. Retaliation is a common occurrence for victims of the RFS. It is common for a complainant to be the subject of a new counter complaint especially when the original complaint is about a Captain or other senior member of their Brigade.