Needs and Offers Role
Key Responsibilities
- Collect and display (if required) any community needs.
- Collect and display (if required) any community offers of help.
- Report any urgent and serious ‘needs’ to the Supervisor.
- Ensure a record is kept of needs and offers (with times and dates).
As with any incident, the community will require different help in different situations, at the same time, there will be plenty of people willing to help out in any way they can.
There is a necessity for somebody to organise these different needs and requirements. One way to do this is to split them into two different ‘boards’; Needs and Offers. Therefore, one person might come and offer some assistance with clearing debris from a storm and another community member may come in asking for help to clear the footpath to their home.
It’s imperative that someone manages this situation and matches key needs to offers. There will be many ‘needs’ that we do not have ‘offers’ of assistance for. This will then lead to matching responses to available resources or by escalating to emergency responders.
Life Threatening Needs
- Contact the emergency services immediately!
- Make sure the hub Supervisor is made aware.
- Pass information to any multi-agency responders on the scene.
Needs and Offers Boards
Consider the use of needs and offer boards (these are large boards that the public can see that identify needs and offers). However, these do not need to be conspicuously displayed.
Ensure that you record the time and dates of needs and offers, along with the people’s contact details (not to be put on the display boards). If anyone is only available at certain times, it’s also important to record this detail.
Match Offers and Needs:
Match the offers and the needs of the community – try to group both to ease the process. Also, to encourage those offering help to have a broader remit. For example, it’s better to have a general offer of help to clear debris, rather than a specific offer of help to clear branches on a footpath.
Keeping the boards up to date is vital to ensure accuracy and to avoid double counting.
