Building Future Resilience and Preparedness in a Bushfire-affected Community: The Phoenix Project

Setting

The village of Ebor (traditional lands of the Gumbaynggirr peoples) is located in the New England region of New South Wales, Australia. It is a small, rural community with a population of around 150 residents, most of whom are farmers or pensioners. Surrounded by bushlands and farmlands, Ebor sits at an elevation of 1350 meters above sea level, with an annual rainfall of 1300mm and cooler temperatures than nearby towns. Due to its location and geography, Ebor traditionally has been relatively unaffected by droughts and bushfires. However, Ebor was in drought in 2019, and was threatened by two major bushfires that year during ‘Black Summer’, including the Bees Nest fire which burned over 100,000 hectares. Many livestock died and there was also significant damage to fencing infrastructure and local national parks. Due to climate change, Ebor will continue to be at high risk of bushfires.

Figure 1: An indication of drought severity in Australia between 2017 and 2019; rainfall for April-September was far below average in each of 2017, 2018 and 2019 in most of New South Wales (as per Bureau of Meteorology, 2024)

The mental health impacts of the Black Summer bushfires in Ebor

Figure 2: Ebor Falls in 2019 after the fires went through (Photo courtesy of Kyle Donoghue)

The Phoenix Project team (a group of clinical psychologists from the University of New England, in partnership with a psychologist from the Colorado School of Public Health) conducted in-depth interviews with a diverse group of Ebor residents about 3 years after the fires occurred (at the end of 2022 and start of 2023). Those interviewed (7 males, 6 females) reflected a mix of ages from young through to older adults, and included those living in the village as well as on surrounding properties, those employed within the village and in agriculture. Interviewed participants had all been impacted by the fires either through direct loss to property, fencing and/or livestock, or were evacuated during the fires. Throughout the interviews, feelings of helplessness in the face of such extreme, unexpected fires were evident ( “…[I] got back to the house and I thought, we can’t do anything with this, it was burning green grass, so I grabbed my dog and cat and…got them into the ute and I thought, this is it, you know, I’m finished…”), as were feelings of sustained stress with multiple fires continuing to burn in the region and the ongoing threat of fires (“…it was just never ending, it was like Jesus, I wish it would f*cking rain, why can’t it just rain…”). The trauma the community experienced was similarly palpable, including significant presentations of avoidance (“…we don’t have time to recuperate, and to be able to like de-stress from that when the next one is already happening, we’re just in like survival mode the whole time…” and “…I honestly try and steer it away when it [the bushfire] does come up because like…we just really tried to move on and not think about it too much anymore or not talk about it too much…”).

Implementing a community-based mental health intervention

Our intervention was a community-based and co-facilitated psychological well-being and preparedness program, designed based on Welton-Mitchell et al.’s (2016) Community-Based Disaster Mental Health Intervention, which has been successfully delivered internationally. Our version of the intervention was adapted for the rural Australian bushfire context with the aim of enhancing community resilience and mental health capacity in preparation for future fires. Following extensive engagement with the Ebor community over several years, we delivered the adapted intervention in a one-day workshop in September, 2023. Based on community interviews identifying target needs, we elected to focus on the following: 1) decreasing mental health symptoms (e.g., depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder), and 2) increasing: (a) disaster preparedness (feeling emotionally and physically prepared, coping with immediate threats), (b) social cohesion (working together, having tough conversations), (c) social support (disaster-related help-seeking and help-giving), and (d) coping (recognising signs of distress and identifying ways of coping). This interactive workshop balanced information delivery (e.g. on physical symptoms of panic) with practical exercises to build community cohesion (e.g., learning how to have ‘difficult’ conversations with neighbours, and mindfulness grounding exercises).

Self-report data (survey immediately post workshop) from our participants indicated that the intervention was highly acceptable and perceived as helpful, decreased overall psychological distress, and improved resilience, preparedness, and coping following the workshop. Participant comments included: “I just remember the whole thing being positive. I remember leaving at the end, and going, that was good. That was worthwhile going to,” and “There was a lot of good take home messages from the mental health aspect.” The successful delivery of the workshop was not without its challenges. Despite extensive community engagement, community events, and a targeted, broadscale advertising campaign in advance of the intervention delivery, our final sample size (N = 10) was smaller than we had hoped. We also found climate change denial to pose a barrier to participation, as some of our interviewees considered Black Summer a one-off and therefore preparation for future fires was considered irrelevant.

Key insights and lessons learned

The successful delivery of this pilot intervention bodes well for broadscale adaptation and delivery in the Australian bushfire context. We know that as climate change advances, more frequent and repeated exposure to severe climate hazards will be commonplace, posing further strain on an already over-stretched mental health system—particularly in rural Australia, where services are already quite limited and mental health is poorer than in metropolitan areas. With data indicating that the mental health needs in these regions are pressing and that community cohesion supports recovery from and future resilience to extreme weather event exposure, evidence-based community-based and co-led interventions—where the knowledge stays in the community for future delivery—are urgently required.

The adaptation of the Community-Based Disaster Mental Health Intervention for the rural Australian bushfire context shows proof of concept that with thoughtful development of examples and exercises relevant to target communities, this intervention/workshop can be successfully delivered in other bushfire-prone rural areas to help build resilience, psychological preparedness, and prevent the development of mental health symptoms following future bushfires. The workshop manual designed for the Ebor delivery clearly demarcates where these kinds of examples and exercises unique to each community can be embedded. The workshop is designed to be modular and, while in its current iteration was run as a 1-day workshop, can be delivered in a mode and intensity that suits each community’s specific needs and preferences.

Recommendations

• Meaningful community engagement throughout all phases of the development and implementationEmbed ample time for community engagement process and strategies into project timelinesFind community champions to encourage participation and engaged end-users to deliver the interventionEngage with relevant industry partners (e.g., Rural Fire Service) to support and promote the interventionLearn about community dynamics and events and use events to engage with community membersSeek advice from community members as advisory groups to guide community preferences, ensure interventions meet needs, and to assist with navigating community challengesValue that meaningful engagement can be time-consuming, but that it is critical to gaining trust and tractionBe flexible to the needs, dynamics, and preferences of specific communitiesLarger scale and more robust designs are needed to assess further effectiveness of this and similar interventionsAdapt and trial the intervention for other types of extreme weather events (e.g., floods, cyclones)

Links / Resources

• Project websiteMedia release

References

1. Bureau of Meteorology. (2024). Previous droughts. Available from: http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/drought/knowledge-centre/previous-droughts.shtmlWelton-Mitchell, C., James, L. & TPO Nepal (2016). Community-based disaster mental health intervention (CBDMI): Curriculum manual for use with communities affected by natural hazards related disasters in Nepal. Available from: https://www.elrha.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/CBDMHI-Manual-Nepal-English-version-Disaster-General_Oct2016_final-Wordv.2.pdf

Written by

Associate Professor Amy Lykins and Associate Professor Suzie Cosh on behalf of the project team: A/Prof Warren Bartik, A/Prof Phillip J Tully, Ms Caitlin Pike, Ms Joanne Robinson, A/Prof Courtney-Welton Mitchell.

Acknowledgements

The project was funded by the Black Summer Bushfire Recovery Grants program. We also wish to thank Ms Henri Dohnt, Ms Sontae Caldwell, Ms Rebekah Carlson, Ms Anna Cho, Ms Isabel McCormick, Dr Clara Murray, Mr Robert Pace, Ms Vivian Pyeun, Dr Kylie Rice, Ms Catherine Summersell, Ms Chrysoula Tsiapis, and Ms Hazel Turner for assisting with the project.