Purpose & Overview

As we near the peak of the Omicron wave, this is a critical time for the sector to come together and ensure that we can continue to provide critical care services to the people in the community who need them the most.
WACOSS would like to encourage all community services organisations, even those with just a few staff, to register now for the CSSP so that we can be agile in the event that COVID-19 impacts our ability to serve the community.
The Community Sector Surge Pool (CSSP) is an initiative to connect the sector by sharing staff via secondment. CSSP provides organisations with the requisite resources to register their capacity to send staff on secondment and to efficiently request the need for a surge workforce by an organisation in need. The purpose of establishing such capacity is to mitigate the impact to clients and social services due to furloughing of staff. In a very real sense, working together in such a way across the community services sector has the very real potential to save lives. WACOSS would like to acknowledge that need for the CSSP may not eventuate which, ultimately, would be a good outcome for all of us. But, we would still urge our members and other community service organisations to register just in case. Once you are a part of the pool, your staff can be requested by a critical service in time of need.
Do you have capacity to send staff on secondment, or do you have part-time staff who are willing to do full-time hours? Register your details using the link below and help the sector by preventing service disruptions.
Are you experiencing staff shortages due to quarantine and/or isolation directions? Use the webform below to request available staff from our surge workforce pool.

Some core documents to facilitate secondment:

  1. Memorandum of Understanding – to establish the agreement between the parent and receiving organisation on how to engage in the secondment exchange 
  2. Secondment Agreement – to establish the agreement between the employee and the parent and receiving organisation, capturing the employee’s rights, responsibilities, terms and conditions of the secondment, and key contacts for any questions 

The above documents are templates, which will allow matched organisations to enter their requisite information within. The sections for them to enter are either highlighted (MOU) or coloured (Secondment Agreement).

Our intention is for organisations wishing to contribute or draw from the surge pool to review them (along with the info sheets) and then determine if acceptable to proceed with the engagement.

Informational Resources

Looking for COVID-19 advice and resources?

WACOSS has developed a COVID-19 Resources page that provides information, advice, resources, tools for community service organisations with the latest updates to WA Government information.

COVID-19 Resources

Please fill in this form to register your employees/staff for taking part in the CSSP:

 
1General Details
2Staff and Organisation Details
3Review and confirm

Please fill in this form to place a request for staff in case your services are currently affected:

1General Details
2Staff Request Details
3Review and confirm

Surge Volunteer Workforce

Many services in our community rely on generous support from volunteers all over WA.

As we move through this challenging period where COVID-19 is impacting our ability to continue to deliver important services to the community, this impact is also being felt in organisations who rely on volunteers to continue their work, which can lead to service disruptions with serious consequences for the people we support.

If your organisation is in need for volunteers, please reach out to Volunteering WA and follow their processes to register volunteering opportunities at your organisation. Similarly, if your volunteers have capacity to dedicate more of their time outside your organisation, please encourage them to reach out to Volunteering WA and explore the available options.

By working together across the community sector we can ensure that all of us make it through this difficult period together.