As Safety and Resilience Manager at Eastleigh Borough Council I am responsible for emergency planning, community safety and safeguarding. I lead for community resilience within the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Local Resilience Forum, the subject area of my Fellowship: the role of volunteers in disasters.

Volunteers can include both trained and spontaneous volunteers, who respond to a disaster by helping during and after an incident. Prior to my Fellowship I was developing a young people's response network in Hampshire and was working to include volunteers throughout our response and recovery.

Because of Covid-19 I had the opportunity to put into practice my learning by working closely with local spontaneous volunteer groups supporting those shielding and self-isolating. I am also undertaking further research funded by the Fellowship to examine the work of these groups during the pandemic. I am hoping the learning will lead to much greater acceptance of volunteers in the resilience community.

It has been an incredible experience meeting wonderful and inspiring people and learning so much from them, providing me professionally with a chance to make a positive difference in my field of work.