Volunteers on the COVID-19 frontline, assisting people and communities in crisis

We have heard about the long-term effects of COVID, the mental health effects especially on children and those living on their own and we heard A LOT about how COVID affected businesses and the economy… less, of course, about the humongous profits made by some businesses BECAUSE of the COVID crisis – as we showed in our programs on the billion dollar profits of the vaccine ‘inventors’ and producers. Within that cacophony of voices, the past and ongoing effects of the pandemic on the disdadvantaged members of our communities and in society more generally attracted less attention, so we invited Kerri Wellington, Coordinator Partnerships, Programs & Impact at Diamond Valley Community Support to tell us more about this from the frontline of welfare and community service work. She especially makes a point of demonstrating that volunteers need much more support and additional training to deal with the sometimes deeply affected community members or with complex cases of mental health of domestic violence. This certainly needs to be addressed more broadly and systemically as well as in terms of resources.