VOAD stands for Voluntary Organisations Active in Disasters and it is a national umbrella body which brings together all the 3rd sector groups, big and small, who undertake work during major incidents. I met with the current President and outgoing secretary of the Georgia VOAD in the spacious and hi-tech Operations Center of the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency (GEMA)

The National VOAD started 50 years ago and in 1975 they introduced state VOADS and its membership includes over 100 of the large national organisations such as The Red Cross and Salvation Army who assist in disasters across the country. At the centre of their mission is the 4Cs: co-operation, co-ordination, collaboration and communication.

Each State has a Board and strong working links with the local Emergency Management Teams (EMTs) to ensure they are all working well together. They deploy with the agreement of the EMTs and are actively engaged in planning, exercises and preparedness work. One of the key elements is to give everyone an understanding of what each organisation can offer and then tasks can be allocated accordingly by the tactical EOC during an incident. The organisations deploy in their own right not as VOAD, but the existence of VOAD ensures they can work well with eachother as those important relationships and working arrangments have been developed during ‘peacetime’.

As far as I am aware, we have in the UK nothing that resembles VOAD and perhaps this could be developed initially at a local level to engage all those local organisations that help us as we tackle incidents. The below State level arrangements in the US are called COAD (Communities Active in Disasters) and being very local include a lot more of those smaller groups who work directly in their own communities such as the Coastal Empire Disaster Recovery Committee mentioned in the previous blog.

Maybe there will be an opportunity to develop this locally in Hampshire or on the Isle of Wight through the community resilence arm of the LRF?

My thanks to Lanita Lloyd of the Salvation Army, President and Sarah Jackson of GEMA previously Secretary of Georgia VOAD for their time and conversation. https://www.nvoad.org/