2.2.9 Poland

Introduction

Fourteen people representing the authorities and volunteer organisations responded to the questionnaire, and one person representing the authorities participated in an interview. The quotations in this report are summarised paraphrases from this interview. Of the volunteers that responded to the questionnaire, eight are volunteer or contract fire brigades, one represents a search and rescue organisation and two represent the Association of the Volunteer Fire Brigades of the Republic of Poland (ZOSP RP). State, regional and municipal levels are all represented, the fewest (four) representatives were from the regional level. The authorities are evenly split among the three levels: two of them represent the rescue/emergency services and one represents the spatial planning department.

While the actual numbers regarding the size of the respondents’ organisations were not available to this survey, by analysing the statistical dispersion of the replies we can conclude that the volunteers’ organisations are generally relatively small. Typically they have approximately twenty or more members, except for the ZOSP RP, which has a quarter of a million members.

The prevalence of cooperation and contracts

The volunteers generally consider their cooperation as being good, with six saying good or very good, four being neutral and only one saying bad. All of the volunteer organisations have contracts with the rescue and emergency services. About half of them also have contracts with the police and/ or some risk management authority. Only two volunteer organisations are not included in the authorities’ contingency plans for major disasters. All of the volunteers cooperate with the rescue/emergency services and municipalities. A few cooperate with the police, and two respondents replied they cooperate with a risk management authority. All of the authorities cooperate with volunteer fire brigades. The Red Cross, the Home Guard and some other organisations each gave two answers, and one of the authorities cooperates with the Air Rescue. The other organisations are mostly rescue services and scouting organisations, along with the Polish Medical Mission, Caritas Poland and the Polish Humanitarian Action.

The COVID-19 pandemic has generally affected society both nationally and internationally, but it has also affected the cooperation of volunteer organisations with the authorities. Just under half of those surveyed believe that the pandemic has increased cooperation. The rest of the respondents are divided into two equally large groups who believe that the pandemic has either led to a decrease in cooperation or has had no significance.

Positive development is more restrained among the authorities, among whom the respondents are divided into three equal-sized groups.

What kind of tasks were volunteers involved in during three years in Poland?

Rescue tasks (Concerning people, property and/or environment

Firefighting

Fire prevention (Provision og information on fire safety, work done with fire safety equipment etc.)

Serch and rescue

Other prevention (general guidance of citizens concerning safety, security, resilience and preparedness)

Support services (for example: temporary shelters, catering, clothing to vulnerable persons, staff support, management… Information gathering and information spreading to citizens in case of disasters or major emergencies

Something else, what 1 2

1 1 3

3

3

3

3 5

5 8

8 11

10

10

0 2 4 6 8 10 12

Volunteers Authorities

Figure 11: Tasks of the Polish volunteers. Eleven volunteer leaders and three authorities replied. The answer in the category ‘Something else, what?’ was elaborated as activities against leukaemia (from a volunteer organisation) and logistical support (from an authority).

What kind of tasks do volunteers in your organisation carry out in Poland independent of the authorities?

Fire prevention (provision of information on fire safety, work done with fire safety equipment etc.)

Firefighting

Search and rescue

Prevention concerning rescue tasks other than fire prevention (provision of information and guidance to… Information gathering and information spreading to citizens in case of disasters or major emergencies

Something else, what? 0 5 7 8 9

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Figure 12: Independent tasks of the Polish volunteers. Eleven volunteer leaders replied.

Training available for volunteers and needs for improvement

Only one volunteer organisation replied that they do not provide training for their volunteers; all of the authorities replied that they do. The training provided is matched with the tasks in which the volunteers participate. Most of the volunteers replied that they find the training insufficient. When asked if the training is sufficient, the authorities’ replies are spread evenly among ‘yes’, ‘no’ and ‘don’t know’.

When asked what type of training needs to be increased, more than half of the volunteers mentioned firefighting, rescue tasks, other prevention and search and rescue. Support services and crisis communications each got two responses and three respondents mentioned fire prevention.

Exercises with the authorities

Almost all of the respondents to the questionnaire replied that volunteers and authorities have joint exercises. One respondent from each group replied that they do not know.

Recruiting and challenges of recruiting

While ten of the eleven volunteers said that their organisation recruits volunteers, none of the authorities does. Of the ten, six have difficulties in recruiting enough volunteers.

The interviewee mentioned four possible reasons for such difficulties: rural depopulation, decline in the importance of the community, a lack of visibility of volunteer fire brigades and a lack of incentives for volunteers and their employers.

There are no contractual obligations for volunteer firefighters, so they are not obligated to respond to emergencies. When there are many people who live in rural areas and they commute to the cities for work, the response times of the volunteer fire brigades become bad, since the volunteers are unable to get back to their hometowns fast enough. There is also a general lack of volunteers in some rural areas.

The importance of the community is declining because lately individual entertainment has become more readily available. Therefore, people don’t need the excitement of communal activities offered by volunteer fire brigades in order to stave off boredom anymore.

The local leadership of some of the volunteer fire brigades needs help with recruitment, both in understanding that recruitment is important and also in training to become more visible and to appear more open to newcomers. Incentives for volunteers and their employers. While the volunteers themselves generally receive a small monetary compensation from the local government, there is no compensation for the employer if their employees’ work is impaired by them leaving to respond to an emergency. Authority

Cooperation with spontaneous volunteers

Seven volunteer organisations and all of the authorities have cooperated with spontaneous volunteers in the past three years.

Funding sources and sufficiency of funding

Most of the volunteer organisations are funded by municipalities, by the state and by membership fees. About half of them get funding from private donations and/or other sources, such as foundations and ‘economic activity’ (which assumably means fundraising). One organisation replied that

they do not receive any funding. Eight of the volunteer organisations replied that their funding is insufficient, and three replied that it is sufficient. The interviewee did not go into much detail about financing but did mention that they had once thought that they could increase recruitment by modernising their firefighting equipment. However, they have since seen volunteer fire brigades that have been using EU funds to become very well equipped, but still seem to have problems in recruiting.

Insurance practices

One of the volunteers could not say whether the volunteers are covered by insurance, but the other ten said that they are. Only one of the authorities said the same. According to the volunteers, they are primarily covered by the parties which use the volunteers and/or by state/national legislation. Four replied that they are insured by the volunteer organisations themselves and the last two options had three replies combined. Six of the volunteers also answered that the organisation they represent provides insurance, whereas four do not and one did not know. According to the authorities it is primarily the parties that use the volunteers, or the volunteer organisations themselves, that provide insurance. One answered that individual volunteers take personal insurance and another one replied:

For volunteer firefighters health insurance shall be provided by local government.

None of the authorities’ representatives replied that they provide the insurance.

International cooperation

International cooperation regarding civil protection seems to be relatively rare among volunteer organisations in Poland. Only two volunteer organisations said that they participate in such cooperation. Firefighting, fire prevention, search and rescue, crisis communications and youth cooperation all received one mention by a volunteer organisation.

Firefighting, cross-border disaster planning, and rescue tasks are shared answers by the authorities, while fire prevention, other prevention, search and rescue, crisis communications and training each received one mention.

The Council of the Baltic Sea States is a good forum to organise workshops and the like. We are also active in the CTIF, the EUCPM and as a member of the Visegrád group. We are arranging activities with the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. Authority

The interviewee views this kind of cooperation not only as a way to share knowledge and experiences, but also as a recruitment tool since the opportunity to go to other countries and exchange information can be alluring to young people who are considering volunteering.

Biggest challenges involving volunteers

The answers to this question can be summarised in three categories that are associated with each other: Recruitment, training and funding. Recruitment issues seem to mainly stem from the depopulation of rural areas, as several of the respondents mentioned young people moving to urban areas as a challenge. They also mentioned the lack of incentives such as pension supplements and benefits to the employers of volunteers. One also mentioned the increasing tendency of young people to directly proceed from high school to further studies, which makes it more difficult to recruit them during their ‘gap’ years.

Lack of training is also an issue for many of the volunteers. This seems to concern morale. The logic behind the answers appeared to be that welltrained volunteers are more confident and happy with their work and thus more likely to keep volunteering.

The last category involves funding, and it overlaps with the other categories in the sense that at least some of the above-mentioned issues could be fixed, or at least mitigated, by better funding. As one respondent put it:

This year we take part in 30 SAR missions, but we can’t afford to buy a service car to transport our volunteers. Candidates see this problem and they then quit.

Some volunteers mentioned that they spend their own money either directly on equipment or for financing the operation, or in the form of lost earnings from their jobs – and this is not exactly motivating.