ESF is the only organisation that is entirely dedicated to the prevention of mental health injury for Victoria’s emergency workers. We do this with the support of 14 member agencies.

Tony Pearce, Victoria’s Inspector General for Emergency Management, and volunteer Chair of the Emergency Services Foundation is so passionate about supporting and improving the mental health of Victoria’s 139,000 emergency workers, who are both paid and volunteer in frontline and support roles, that he has committed to a solo ultra-distance walk.

On the 10 March 2023, Tony will commence his journey in East Melbourne and over the next 50 days cover around 1440 kms.

Funds raised from Tony’s Trek will be used by ESF to support programs such as:

• An ambitious research program that seeks through evidence to identify appropriate initiatives and strategies that could be developed by ESF to assist in reducing the likelihood that those in the early stages of their mental health journey will progress to suffer a significant mental injury.
• A lived experience program which will see ESF train mental health ambassadors from across the sector to safely share their stories of mental health injury and recovery. This will help to reduce the mental health stigma which pervades the sector and inhibits early help seeking when the chance of recovery is greatest.
• A pilot residential wellbeing program to bring together emergency workers who are mentally struggling to help them process trauma and develop resilience skills supported by experts who completely understand their experiences. This will help them effectively self-manage to reduce the cumulative effect of trauma and the risk developing serious mental health injury.

Emergency work can be traumatic. That’s why ESF must be at the frontline of workplace mental health making sure we have the best possible strategies to help prevent people from our sector being harmed by the tough work they must do. ESF works collaboratively with agencies with a focus on prevention as it seeks to get ahead of the mental harm and injury threat that currently pervades the sector – so everyone benefits.