Scottish Mountain Rescue is finalising an agreement with the Rivers Centre for Traumatic Stress to cover the provision of post trauma incident support to volunteers and mountain rescue team members. The centre has well over 20 years of experience of working directly with the emergency services community in Scotland.
The agreement will complement and build on the current support that is available through the Police Scotland Employee Assistance Programme (EAP). The two-year pilot project will be open to all mountain rescue volunteers in Scotland. The process is based on what is done before, during and after potentially traumatic events.
Scottish Mountain Rescue (SMR) has many years of experience in terms of pre-incident and informal peer support for volunteer responders, with a focus on the wellbeing for volunteer responders. SMR’s Wellbeing Officer has been in position since 2018, in addition to a wellbeing working group, which is made up of mountain rescue volunteers including the SMR Medical Officer.
The wellbeing working group can offer a package of support to volunteers and their families to ensure that they are supported in their roles. Since 2016, this has been shaped by SMR’s association with the Lifelines Scotland project. This package includes a ‘Welcome to the Team’ booklet, which tells family members what to expect from volunteering. It also includes promotion and understanding of the Lifelines Scotland project and resources.
Access to an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) has also made available to mountain rescue volunteers by Police Scotland, with a benevolent scheme set up to help mountain rescue volunteers in times of need. Scottish Mountain Rescue also provides learning opportunities throughout the year in volunteer wellbeing, Mental Health First Aid, and Lifelines training sessions. These courses build understanding and confidence in self-care and supporting colleagues.
Scottish Mountain Rescue (SMR) represents 25 Mountain Rescue Teams made up of highly trained volunteers who are available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to respond to emergencies and carry out a specialist search and rescue service in the mountains and remote communities in Scotland to keep people safe and help people if and when they get into difficulty.
SMR and its mountain rescue teams are all charities. In addition to representing these member MRTs, SMR also serves three Police Scotland MRTs and one RAF MRT – with more than 850 dedicated volunteer team members who are always prepared and willing to drop everything they are doing to assist total strangers.
The remote nature of the Scottish mountains, the terrain and the prevailing weather mean that many search and rescue operations in Scotland simply cannot be carried out without large numbers of volunteers able to go out on foot and who can be mobilised quickly. It often is simply not possible to search for people by helicopter in Scotland, because low clouds often prevent the helicopters from flying. These volunteers are the foundation of the mountain rescue community. Each MRT and team member saves lives in the Scottish outdoors.
For more information visit www.scottishmountainrescue.org
