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Volunteers needed for road trauma education program

July 24, 2019 BY

PEOPLE who have experienced the trauma of a road accident are encouraged to volunteer for Road Trauma Support Services Victoria’s education program, promoting road safety in local communities.

RTSSV volunteers present four 20-minute education sessions a year, addressing road attitudes and behaviours, and share their stories as a means of accident prevention.

Seeking more of these presenters, RTSSV would like to speak to anyone who has been injured, or has had a friend or relative injured or killed in a road incident, has been first on a serious road scene, has been a witness to an accident, a driver involved in a serious incident, or was emergency services personnel at a scene.

The program volunteers speak to various community groups and offenders, generating learning and subsequently creating safer road users.

CEO, Bernadette Nugent said most of the service’s volunteers have never publicly spoken previously.

“We provide them with training and help them to prepare their talk,” she said. “The talks can be in a variety of forms. Some show photos of their loved ones or how they were before the crash, others will prepare a PowerPoint presentation, while others will sit and tell their stories.

“There is no right or wrong way to go about it, although we do not use shock tactics or crash scene photos.

“The main thing we focus on in our programs is behaviour change. Programs are delivered to traffic offenders who have been referred as part of a police cautionary process, as a court-ordered sanction as part of sentencing, or through a lawyer/solicitor prior to court.”

Interested people should contact RTSSV on 1300 367 797 or visit rtssv.org.au.