46) Red Tape
So we started another search for something to do. A member of our church spoke about the need for people to assist the Red Cross in their Telecross service. I had not heard of it before but the she told us how the Red Cross undertake to ring elderly people who live alone every morning to ensure that they are well and healthy. I had heard of a few cases of elderly people laying dead in their homes for weeks before anyone missed them and investigated their non-appearance. It was volunteer work and only meant to take a few minutes a day but I thought it was a good service and was glad to be of help.
I rang the Red Cross and was asked to attend a meeting of volunteers where the whole thing would be explained to us. The meeting was well attended with about twenty-five to thirty people there. We were given a talk about the different sections of Red Cross work that we could get involved in. We could do visiting the elderly in hospital, help with serving breakfast to needy children in schools or the telephone service that I was interested in. Once we had heard an overall description of the Red Cross work we were asked to fill in forms at any of the three desks allocated to each of the different services.
At the desk for the Telecross I filled in my form and was told that as The Red Cross was a “child safe” organisation not only would I have to attend training for the how to do the telephone service I would also have to attend a course on child protection so that I could be accredited as a Red Cross volunteer. I thought that this was a bit excessive as all I would be expected to do was to ring one person every morning between 8.00 and 9.00 am and ask them if they were alive or dead. As I had gone this far I thought I might as well continue but it did seem silly.
The training course turned out to be only a two-hour talk at the Red Cross office the following week so I duly presented myself there to be ‘trained’. There were four of us attending that session and the young lady who was running the course told us how the service works. She told us that anyone who asked for the service was accepted and that we were to make our call as soon after 8.00 am as possible. If there was no answer we were to wait ten minutes and then repeat the call. After that if there was still no answer we were to call the Red Cross number and someone would set things in motion, they would call another number that the client had given them, usually a neighbour or family member who was able to check if everything was all right. Sometimes they would discover that the client had been taken into hospital or gone to visit a friend and forgotten to inform the Red Cross but now and again they would not be able to find any reason for their failure to answer the phone and then an ambulance and emergency service would be put into action.
It all seemed simple enough and as the lady told us that they were very short of helpers I agreed to join them. I was given a large folder with lots of literature about the Red Cross and a number of forms that had to be completed. I had to agree to a police check and ‘working with children check’ even though the I would not have anything to do with children and I would not even be given the address of the person I would be phoning only their name, telephone number and any thing that might affect my call to them. I would be told if they were hard of hearing or would have trouble getting to the phone quickly or not. At the bottom of one of the forms was a small note. “If you do not have an Australian permanent residence visa please check with the Immigration Department that your visa permits you to do this kind of work” I thought that was rather funny and was sure that it would not apply to me. I was glad of an excuse to ring the Immigration Department to make sure that they had not forgotten about us. We had been told not to ring the office unless we had some new information to submit to them but to wait until they contacted us. A genuine enquiry was a chance to get them to take out our file so it would not be left on a back self just gathering dust so I decided to give them a call.
When I got through to our caseworker and explained my inquiry I was told that I was not allowed to work and that included any kind of volunteer work as well. I was amazed. The caseworker told me that if I wanted to I could apply for permission and he would send me the forms. When I mentioned the ban to someone they said “Oh well! I suppose they think that you might be doing an Australian out of work” That was daft, as it was unpaid and I had been told that they could not get enough people to man the service properly anyway. Jonny and I had been doing volunteer bush regeneration work with National Parks and Wild Life for about four years by then and no one had ever mentioned that we needed to check with the Immigration Department before.
Yes all very crazy and over the top but it turned out for the best as when I got the forms they asked if we wanted to apply for permission to do unpaid or paid work and I was able to say both. Two weeks later I got a letter giving us permission to work at any kind of work that we wanted in Australia but that we were still not entitled to any of the welfare states benefits. Now all I needed was to find someone who would employ a 64 year old with no qualifications and no local experience.
I rang the Red Cross and was asked to attend a meeting of volunteers where the whole thing would be explained to us. The meeting was well attended with about twenty-five to thirty people there. We were given a talk about the different sections of Red Cross work that we could get involved in. We could do visiting the elderly in hospital, help with serving breakfast to needy children in schools or the telephone service that I was interested in. Once we had heard an overall description of the Red Cross work we were asked to fill in forms at any of the three desks allocated to each of the different services.
At the desk for the Telecross I filled in my form and was told that as The Red Cross was a “child safe” organisation not only would I have to attend training for the how to do the telephone service I would also have to attend a course on child protection so that I could be accredited as a Red Cross volunteer. I thought that this was a bit excessive as all I would be expected to do was to ring one person every morning between 8.00 and 9.00 am and ask them if they were alive or dead. As I had gone this far I thought I might as well continue but it did seem silly.
The training course turned out to be only a two-hour talk at the Red Cross office the following week so I duly presented myself there to be ‘trained’. There were four of us attending that session and the young lady who was running the course told us how the service works. She told us that anyone who asked for the service was accepted and that we were to make our call as soon after 8.00 am as possible. If there was no answer we were to wait ten minutes and then repeat the call. After that if there was still no answer we were to call the Red Cross number and someone would set things in motion, they would call another number that the client had given them, usually a neighbour or family member who was able to check if everything was all right. Sometimes they would discover that the client had been taken into hospital or gone to visit a friend and forgotten to inform the Red Cross but now and again they would not be able to find any reason for their failure to answer the phone and then an ambulance and emergency service would be put into action.
It all seemed simple enough and as the lady told us that they were very short of helpers I agreed to join them. I was given a large folder with lots of literature about the Red Cross and a number of forms that had to be completed. I had to agree to a police check and ‘working with children check’ even though the I would not have anything to do with children and I would not even be given the address of the person I would be phoning only their name, telephone number and any thing that might affect my call to them. I would be told if they were hard of hearing or would have trouble getting to the phone quickly or not. At the bottom of one of the forms was a small note. “If you do not have an Australian permanent residence visa please check with the Immigration Department that your visa permits you to do this kind of work” I thought that was rather funny and was sure that it would not apply to me. I was glad of an excuse to ring the Immigration Department to make sure that they had not forgotten about us. We had been told not to ring the office unless we had some new information to submit to them but to wait until they contacted us. A genuine enquiry was a chance to get them to take out our file so it would not be left on a back self just gathering dust so I decided to give them a call.
When I got through to our caseworker and explained my inquiry I was told that I was not allowed to work and that included any kind of volunteer work as well. I was amazed. The caseworker told me that if I wanted to I could apply for permission and he would send me the forms. When I mentioned the ban to someone they said “Oh well! I suppose they think that you might be doing an Australian out of work” That was daft, as it was unpaid and I had been told that they could not get enough people to man the service properly anyway. Jonny and I had been doing volunteer bush regeneration work with National Parks and Wild Life for about four years by then and no one had ever mentioned that we needed to check with the Immigration Department before.
Yes all very crazy and over the top but it turned out for the best as when I got the forms they asked if we wanted to apply for permission to do unpaid or paid work and I was able to say both. Two weeks later I got a letter giving us permission to work at any kind of work that we wanted in Australia but that we were still not entitled to any of the welfare states benefits. Now all I needed was to find someone who would employ a 64 year old with no qualifications and no local experience.
posted by MC @ 4:24 PM
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