Submission to the Royal Commission into National Natural Disasters

The St Vincent de Paul Society National Council’s submission outlines the Society’s history in providing assistance in response to natural disasters.

It details the three-tiered service response, donations received (in response to bushfires) and distributed and issues with administering and reporting on Commonwealth-funded emergency relief.

With respect to service responses, the Society recommends that: 

• a coordinated approach to service responses be developed locally and in partnership with all levels of government and other service providers, with services and payment types clearly defined and delineated 
• the location of Recovery Centres be continually reviewed throughout the crisis phase.   
• outreach models must be provided
• a case manager or team assessment approach should be adopted to enable agreement on identified need and allocate service responses.    

Read our submission - pdf file