By Mikayla van Loon
Montrose CFA Captain Rob Waters has been recognised for his service to his brigade and ongoing support for his volunteers at this year’s Spirit of CFA Awards.
Receiving the award for Excellence in Innovation, as well as being highly commended for the Living the Values award, Mr Waters was humbled by the recognition.
“Acknowledgement from your peers is one of the greatest achievements you could ever have in life,” Mr Waters said.
“So to be acknowledged by my team at Montrose to say that you’re doing a great job, keep going and to acknowledge the program that we’re doing…this is one of the greatest achievements that I’ve ever had.
“I don’t need awards and accolades but just an acknowledgement that we’re heading in the right track is just amazing.”
Developing a dedicated health and wellbeing program that has been running for over four years, Mr Waters said has helped improve the mental health of some of his younger members, as well as improving resilience.
“We were the first CFA volunteer brigade in the state to have a health and wellbeing facility, which is the gym and this is just an extension of that,” he said.
“So we created a program and each month we’ve got a health and wellbeing night that’s designated to us investing back into us in terms of mental health and resilience with things like clean eating and we do sessions with other organisations like Beyond Blue.
“It’s breaking down the stigma of mental health and making sure we all know that it’s okay not to be okay and working through these challenges but also it’s about self improvement in that space.”
Mr Waters said this really came about because of the statistic that one in five Australians will experience a mental health condition or challenge at some point.
“If you throw in an emergency responder, attending traumatic incidents and high pressure situations, that just increases the opportunity for our members to be challenged by mental health,” he said.
After some very challenging years with the pandemic and the storms, Mr Waters said Montrose Fire Brigade has come through that period relatively unscathed because of the openness of the members and the transparency they have created around mental health.
While not everything Montrose CFA does to support its volunteers, like Masterchef cooking challenges, will suit other brigades, there are learnings to be taken from the program.
“One thing that is heartwarming, is if we, Montrose, can impact another brigade, another member throughout the state or a community member to look after themselves a little bit more and prioritise their mental health and physical health then, I’ve won, I’ve just achieved everything that I’ve wanted to achieve.”
Although living the values of the CFA comes quite naturally to Mr Waters, he said modelling that to his 70 brigade members is of very high importance to him.
“If you, as a leader, set the bar really high and always act with professionalism, honesty and integrity, you will have a team that follows and wants to be surrounded by positivity.
“What we are doing inadvertently is also influencing others to do their best. WhatI say to our team is to act with integrity, always be honest, try your best and good things will happen.”
