Version 10

7 August  – with conference paper inserted

Vantastic

Community led recovery

Recovery is complex , one size doesn’t fit all. But as recovery managers we are all guided by the AIDR principles of context, complexity, communication, community led, coordinate, context and capacity.  These principles guide us and provide us with a foundation in which to assist the community to recover.  However, following a disaster, huge pressures are placed on us to develop a recovery plan immediately.  But to use the six c’s of recovery to inform a recovery plan takes time.  And an effective recovery plan, that supports the needs of the communities affected cannot happen without their input.  This book provides recovery managers with another option; one where you can take the time required to get to know the affected communities whilst still meeting the demands of government. And by listening to the community and being truly community led, the outcomes will be like nothing you have seen before.

Mat

In 1978 I entered the world on Christmas Eve at the Royal Women’s Hospital in Carlton, Victoria. I spent my childhood growing up with my family in the suburb of Springvale, Victoria, where I attended Westall Kindergarten, followed by Westall Primary School, which was located a few short kilometres away in Clayton South. I commenced high school at Springvale High School (and many years later found out Sue also attended there at the same time), however after a year I returned to Westall Secondary College where I would end up completing Year 12 VCE. Springvale and Clayton South, were very large multicultural communities, and it was there where I gained a great appreciation and understanding of a very wide and varied range of cultures, ranging from, Greek, Italian, Serbian, Polish, Vietnamese, Cambodian and Chinese. I always considered myself as privileged to be part of a wide and varied community. I would often listen to my friends recount their days in their home country, where they would describe situations of mass devastation, and hostile environments that they were lucky to escape alive from. They would share how lucky they felt to be in Australia and would often describe the pain that they and their parents suffered before fleeing to Australia. Something that I struggled to imagine, and on days that produced large thunderstorms it reminded them of gun battle and it was on these days I would use my weird sense of humour and personality to try and bring a smile to their face and make them feel at ease. 

It was in high school where I had my first experience undertaking leadership roles, as Secretary of the Student School Council and as Captain of the School AFL football team. The school footy team unlike the soccer team were always heavily defeated, but for me it wasn’t about winning, it was about teaching my fellow peers the skills and rules of a new sport. With the large majority of the team having migrated from non-English speaking countries, seeing them transition from head butting the football and kicking the ball along the ground, to being able to execute a perfect drop punt, was a very satisfying experience and one that I will never forget. 

Playing football for Springvale and winning the under 15’s Grand Final was one of my major sporting highlights. However it wasn’t until many years later that I realised the importance of the words that my football coach Ray Harper would say to all of us each and every week. He would say, “you are all equal players, there’s nobody that I can’t replace you with, you all have two arms and two legs, so if you want to muck around go right ahead, because I guarantee you, I don’t care how good you or your parents think you are, you won’t be playing next week”. As a player that wasn’t a standout superstar this meant the world to me. However it was several years later after sustaining a workplace accident that severely damaged my left shoulder, that those words that Ray would shout out each week would really mean something to me. 

After sustaining such a significant injury that in total required five operations over many years.  I had bone taken from my hip and had it smashed into my shoulder with a range of titanium plates and screws to hold it in place.  As it was a work injury I was involved in the dreaded workcover system.  I battled significant hurdles in my workplace allowing me to perform meaningful work. Post the accident I was suddenly treated differently, at times I wondered if I had acquired a brain injury that I was unaware of… Everytime someone would speak to me, they would speak to me as if I was not a full functioning person, at 18 years of age this was difficult to grapple with. I kept thinking to myself I’ve got two arms (although one wasn’t functioning very well), two legs and a brain, I was  just as good as anyone else. It was however becoming clear to me, that not everyone was as caring as Ray, it now wasn’t good enough if you weren’t at your best. This combined with medical professionals telling me that I would suffer with a shoulder impairment for the rest of my life, and as a result my life long dream of joining Victoria Police would no longer be a possible option, because I would never be able to pass the medical and fitness tests, put me in a vulnerable state of mind. I isolated myself from my friends and entered what I now know to be a state of depression. I still lived at home with my parents and younger sister when Dad got a transfer in his job to Warrnambool. 

I was excited by the opportunity to move and experience life in the country. It wasn’t long before we moved to a rural lifestyle block in a nearby town and I was motivated to continue my shoulder rehabilitation and begin a new life. I soon enrolled at Deakin University, and commenced a Bachelor of Arts degree majoring in Criminology, Sociology and Psychology. I quickly took to it like a duck to water and was obtaining excellent results, before I met my now wife and we had our first baby boy together. As a result of needing to provide for my new family I decided to stop going to university and gain full time work. I had now conceded that I wouldn’t work in the policing industry and undertook sales work and later would be become a postie. 

On Sunday 22 January, 2006 it had been another hot summers day and we were listening to the local radio in the evening after having a BBQ dinner, where the music was continuously interrupted by emergency warnings being broadcast for the Mount Lubra fires in the Grampians, we would listen to the broadcasts mention the town of Pomonal as one of the areas under impact. My Dad’s Aunty Norma and cousins, Norman and Malcolm lived on a large horse complex in Pomonal and we became concerned for their safety, but strangely weren’t alarmed. The news the next morning however was very alarming, we learnt that Aunty Norma’s home had been under fire threat and they had suffered stock losses, building damage and a significant amount of fences were destroyed. The most significant loss of all, was my dads cousin, Malcolm and his teenage son Zeke who in their efforts to return home and help defend the family property, despite being told not to, passed through a police roadblock.  They ran off the road into a tree in thick smoke, just several kilometres from their home and perished in their vehicle. After only seeing both of them the weekend before, the tragedy and loss hit home pretty hard. 

The following days and weeks were hard, in particular for Aunty Norma and the rest of the family, who were hounded by the media for an interview. As time passed, and having listened to Aunty Norma talk about the issues she faced in recovery and the lack of support for the family following this devastating tragedy, it was heartbreaking to hear. It wasn’t something that she enjoyed talking about and seeing the pain in her eyes, I knew I wanted to do something that would protect my community from this type of suffering. It was now for the first time in my life I felt I needed to join my local CFA brigade. By late 2006 I had joined my local brigade and commenced my journey of becoming an operational firefighter. It wasn’t long before I was the Secretary of the Brigade and Junior Brigade Leader, and brigade training officer. My commitment to CFA was quickly recognised and I became a Deputy Group Officer and the group Communications Officer, a position that I still hold. In 2008 I gained employment with CFA and was awarded customer service employee of the year for my highly quality customer service. I progressed from my initial administration position to roles in community safety and later into the role of Structural Training Coordinator. Whilst undertaking these roles I also completed numerous training courses in leadership and Incident Management. My training prepared me to undertake a cross section of roles with an Incident Management Team, where I fulfilled roles as Media Liaison Officer, Public Information Officer , Logistics Officer,  management support and as a Communications Planner. 

On Black Saturday 2009 I was tasked to the Hamilton District Command Centre, (DCC) where I provided management support to the Operations Manager. As  I arrived at 7:00am to commence my shift, there was an uneasy feeling in the air, the wind was strong, it was already warm and the sky had a pink hue. It was a busy day in the DCC, with much of the day consumed by the operations of the fire at nearby Coleraine and the organising of strike teams to support the fire suppression. At 18:00hrs we first discovered the devastation that was occurring around the state, and requests for support crews from further afield were coming in. 

At 21:00hrs before finishing my shift I left the Hamilton DCC and headed in the opposite direction to home to drop of food supplies at the Coleraine CFA staging area. Over the following weeks I would perform a multitude of tasks in relation to the Black Saturday fires. However of all the tasks that I performed throughout my deployments during the Black Saturday fires, the one that had the most significant impact on me was, my deployment to the Kangaroo Ground Incident Control Centre (ICC), where I was involved in the community information unit. On a visit out to Kinglake to deliver community newsletters, was where I witnessed the first significant signs of destruction that the bushfires had caused. Buildings were flattened to the ground, burnt cars were abandoned on the sides of the roads, tree stumps were smouldering, Victoria Police forensics officers were fossicking through charred rubble, the Australian Defence force were setting up what seemed like hundreds of tents. After seeing the burnt out cars draped in Police tape, I couldn’t help thinking about what Malcolm and Zeke must have experienced back in 2006. As we pulled up in front of the burnt down police station in Kinglake, I climbed out of my CFA marked vehicle with my colleague from the South West, when I was suddenly confronted with a middle aged woman pounding on my chest and shouting at me, that I had killed her husband. I had no idea of who this lady was, she was angry with the advice her family had received prior to the fires, in relation to what is now known as the controversial CFA stay or go policy. She held a small silver camera upto my face and played me video footage of her husband being overrun by huge flames, as he tried to defend their family home. He and two of their children had died in the fire, this lady was in such huge distress and I was the first person in a CFA uniform that she had encountered. She wasn’t angry at me, she was angry at the organisation that I represented. I can’t recall much more of the encounter, only that the staff from the nearby bakery that was somehow not damaged by the fire, handed me a coffee and thanked me for what the CFA had done to help their community and we continued on delivering our newsletters and talking with the community. Although we didn’t talk much, we just listened a lot. For the following weeks every time I went to bed and closed my eyes I would relive that moment over and over in my head. Her video footage was stuck on repeat inside my mind and the smells of the burnt ash that I encountered that day made it feel like I was back in Kinglake again. 

After returning from Kinglake I took on extra roles and training with CFA. It was during my training to become a Fire Ready Victoria, Wildfire safety presenter where I first met Sue. 

Following gaining the qualification as a Wildfire Safety Presenter I delivered significant numbers of Fire Ready Victoria presentations, I spent many hours working for Sue in her role as Community Éducation Coordinator. I was determined to ensure that the communities surrounding me would have a complete understanding of the risks and dangers associated with bushfires and how they could best prepare their properties and understand that the safest place to be was away from the fire. At times I would even dress up as Captain Koala to ensure that children were engaged in the important messages we were delivering. I remained a full time employee at CFA and was involved in many more ICC deployments both locally and across the state and finished my career in the training department in 2012. For my contribution during the Black Saturday Fires I was awarded the National Emergency Medal with the 09 Fires Clasp. After leaving employment with CFA I remained as a volunteer where I continued to be a part of and leader of many strike teams across Victoria and into NSW. 

In 2013 I took up employment with local government in regulatory compliance that later saw me move up the ranks to the Coordinator of Community Safety, where I was responsible for Fire and Emergency Management as well as Regulations. Included as part of my role I was the Municipal Fire Prevention Officer (MFPO) and The Municipal Emergency Management Officer, (MERO) where I would be on call 24 hours a day 7 days a week to coordinate councils resources at emergency incidents. The role was extensive and as part of the emergency management planning requirements I engaged Sue as a consultant to support me with developing many of the municipal emergency management plans and over summer would include her on the emergency on call roster in the role as Municipal Recovery Manager (MRM).  Over a period of 5 years I had experienced a range of emergency incidents from, house fires, small grass fires, floods, marine incidents and wind events. It was however not until 17 March 2018 that I would experience the most challenging and significant emergency event as the MERO with local government. Following the fires I would take on a new role as Community Recovery Case Manager and work alongside Sue as the Municipal Recovery Manager, where together we would support the survivors of the South West Fires and pioneer a new community-led outreach recovery model called Vantastic. 

Sue

I grew up in Springvale, a suburb 45km east of Melbourne and went to Springvale West Primary School and then Springvale High School.  Little did I know that Mat followed me, attending Springvale High School 2 years later! 

I worked in many different jobs over the years and found myself studying Social Anthropology at Deakin University.  I was keen to understand about the different social systems of other cultures.   I found the love of my life and we had a desire to move to the country. In 2003, following my graduation from Melbourne University with a Masters in Agribusiness, we purchased a property in Victoria’s South West.  Upon moving to the country we immediately signed up to our local CFA brigade as operational firefighters.  We got married and started renovating our beautiful house.

Being a member of a small rural fire brigade taught me many new skills that I built on throughout my 13 years as a firefighter.  But in 2006 a lighting strike hit the Grampians National Park and our brigade was on standby.   The Mt Lubra fire ended up burning approximately 45% of the Grampians National Park equating to 184,000 hectares.  It burnt  from 19 January until mid February 2006 and sadly took the lives of a man and his son.  This would be the first big fire I would be involved in until 2009. 

February 7, 2009 was incredibly hot and dry. Warnings had been going on for days.  The week leading up to the weekend was hot with no respite in sight. Something was going to happen we just didn’t anticipate what did.   I remember walking around our farm early in the morning to make final fire preparations and thinking it was like an oven. There didn’t seem to be any air. As I walked around leaves crunched under my feet and the ground had cracked everywhere due to the extremely dry conditions.   The sky was a strange pink colour which made me feel unsettled.  My husband and I had a bushfire survival plan in which he would go on the truck if needed and I would stay and defend.  Our farm was in grassland and property was as prepared as we could be.  

Just after lunch, the fire siren went off.  A fire had ignited just north of our town.  Local farmers and the brigade hit it pretty hard and fortunately it was extinguished quickly. Later I did predictions on that small fire and if it hadn’t been pulled up quickly, with the wind and dry conditions it would have hit the town in under 7minutes. We were incredibly fortunate on that day.  Others were not so lucky. By night, it seemed that the whole state was on fire.  Before I knew it I was on the back of a fire truck in Kinglake. Kinglake was totally destroyed. As we drove through streets there was devastation in every direction.  The Black Saturday Fires as they became known, burnt over 1 million acres with 173 people losing their lives. As many as 400 individual fires were recorded on Saturday alone. 

Kinglake was a pivotal moment for me.  I saw first hand what large fires can do, the destruction and devastation was all consuming.  Coming home from Kinglake was when I decided that I wanted to help people understand their fire risk.  I put my hand up to be trained as a Wildfire Safety Presenter with CFA.  Within weeks of returning from Kinglake I was headed to Melbourne for a two day training course where I met Mat.

Following the course I applied and was successful in obtaining the position of Community Education Coordinator – Recovery, with CFA.  In my role as the CEC for District 4 and 5 covering the South West corner of the State, I worked directly with fire affected communities and many high risk communities. I was involved with reshaping the community education packages delivered to high risk communities and I delivered the largest community education program across the State leading up to the 2009-2010 fire season.  I was adamant that everybody who lived in my patch, would understand their fire risk and have a plan.  Following the 2009-2010 season I received a Letter of Commendation from CFA acknowledging my outstanding efforts with the community.

Whilst at CFA I also trained as a Community Fireguard Facilitator, Media Liaison Officer, Community Officer, Public Information Officer and Emergency Management Liaison Officer and worked in many incident control centres across the State . 

Throughout my career with CFA, I was honoured to spend time with community members that had been affected by fires.  Some as recent as Black Saturday, others from as far back as Black Friday in 1939 and Ash Wednesday in 1983.  Their experiences and memories of what happened during the fires and what happened after the fires stayed with me.  They would describe how some things were done well while others were not, how hard it was to decide to leave, or stay and what they saw and experienced. But there was a common theme and expectation from the broader community and that was to get over it and move on.  Mental health wasn’t a “thing” even back in 1983.  You pulled up your socks and just got on with it. No need to talk about what happened you just moved, as best you could.  

My contract with CFA finished just before I welcomed my first baby boy into the world.  My helmet and turnout gear remained in my bag for two years as I left all the firefighting to my husband. But each time the pager went off I was keen to respond! I welcomed my second baby boy in 2013 and again hung up my gear for a while.

In the meantime, I continued training with CFA and obtained the qualification of Crew Leader and completed an Advanced Diploma of Community Safety (Emergency Management).  I did some emergency management consulting work in the area and performed the role of Municipal Recovery Manager or Emergency Management Liaison Officer at the incident control centres when needed. 

The 17th of March 2018 was hot and an incident control centre was set up in Warrnambool.  Nothing much had happened during the day and everybody was stood down at 8pm.  We all thought that we had got through the day unscathed.  But at approximately 9pm a fierce wind storm hit the south west igniting over 23 grass and scrub fires.  Information was limited but with 100kph winds, the fires were hard to pull up. 

I was called into the incident control centre on the night of 17 March 2018 by Mat to perform the role of Municipal Recovery Manager.   As the fire transitioned into recovery, I was appointed Recovery Manager and Mat Recovery Case Manager. More than 40,000 hectares were destroyed along with 29 homes and over 10,000 livestock across 219 farms were lost to two main fires; Gazette Fire and Garvoc Fire. Together we designed a recovery outreach model called Vantastic.

I was again deployed in March 2019 when a lightning strike ignited a fire at the Bunyip State Park in Victoria’s East.  I wasn’t on the back of a truck this time, I was part of the leadership team and worked two night shifts. Being in an unknown area at night is challenging and with the added risk of a going fire made the two night shifts exhausting.

In November 2019 I was deployed to the Gospers Mountain Fire in NSW for a five day deployment.  This was my first interstate deployment and my first time being transported by the ADF.  The days were long and it was incredibly hot and hard work and sometimes incredibly daunting, however, what stands out for me is the comradery and mateship that is developed whilst working as a team and the people you meet along the way. The Gospers Mountain fire burnt over 512,000 hectares and took over three months to contain.

In January 2020 I was on the leadership team for the Budj-Bim fire in South West Victoria.  I participated in two single day tours .  Being on Gunditj Mirring country I was in awe of its history and beauty. Some of the lava canals were exposed as a result of the fire and I commented constantly about how beautiful and amazing it was to see them – what a privilege position to be in.

In February 2020 I was deployed as the Deputy Strike Team Leader to the Bendoc Fire in Gippsland. Flying in over Gippsland I was shocked to be able to see more than 8 large fires from the plane. There seemed to be fires in all directions, along with the hundreds of thousands of acres already burnt; this deployment would be dynamic and physically and mentally challenging.

Throughout all my deployments as a first responder and working on the ground following the fires in recovery what I’ve learnt is that nobody wakes up in the morning and thinks that they are going to be ripped from their lives and transported to another world with just their pyjamas on through no fault of their own.  They didn’t think in the morning, that this is the day they would lose somebody dear to them and have their entire lives changed in an instance.  No matter what the disaster is, people need compassion, they need to be supported and they deserve to be listened too.  Buildings can be replaced but its the people that we need to support and walk beside.   

I hope that after reading this book you will find techniques and tips that you can use so that you can put people first.

Saturday, 17 March 2018 – the first 24 hours 

Mat

Summer had passed and we were a couple of weeks into Autumn, there hadn’t been any significant rain for a while and the ground was still very dry. The BOM had forecast that Saturday was going to be a warm one with temperatures in the mid 30’s accompanied with some strong northerly winds. CFA had issued a Total Fire Ban and advised us that the Fire Danger Rating would be Severe. Authorities warned the public not to be complacent and the Emergency Management Commissioner Craig Lapsley told it straight during his media conference leading into the weekend that this would be a weekend that would test us.  And test us it did. 

I commenced the morning by conducting a CFA radio Sched at 9:30am that involved me broadcasting the predicted weather conditions for the day and checking in with the Brigade Captains in my group regarding crew availability and preparedness. The majority of Captains and Deputy Group Officers were on air advising of their brigades preparedness and readiness to respond if the need arose. I concluded the Radio Sched at 9:46am and began undertaking a check of both my CFA PPE and my work MERO bag, where in addition to my laptop and iPad I stored hard copy versions of the Municipal Emergency Management Plan and other associated handbooks and my all important Log book. 

At about 10:00am I received a call from the Senior Sergeant at Warrnambool Police Station advising me that the Warrnambool ICC was operating and he confirmed my availability. I confirmed as per the Council readiness matrix I would not be attending the ICC unless there was an incident in the Moyne footprint, however I would be available via telephone and could attend the ICC within 10-15 minutes. He was satisfied with my response.  I made a record of the conversation in my log book and I continued about my morning at home. 

At 11:00 I received a telephone call from the operations officer at the Warrnambool ICC requesting my attendance at the ICC. I advised I would not be attending as per the Council readiness matrix and told him I would be a available to respond to the ICC within 10-15 minutes of an incident occurring. He acknowledged my response, but I could tell by his voice he was unhappy. It had become common practice for CFA to conduct what was known as hot starts in the ICC, where personnel would commence work in the ICC in preparation for any incidents that may occur. Due to the high amount of these occurring in the past, a Council MERO would spend many days at an ICC without a single incident occurring. Council is not a response agency, so this was of the opinion of management that attending an ICC before an incident occurred was unnecessary and a waste of a valuable resource.  

 Just after 13:00 hours  I received another phone call from the Deputy Incident Controller requesting me to attend the ICC, I reiterated my previous responses, and he ended the conversation with I don’t think the IC is going to be happy. At 13:54hrs I received yet another call, this time it was from the Incident Controller himself requesting that I attend the ICC, I again gave him my now well rehearsed response. He pleaded with me that he really wanted me to be in the ICC and said he could do with my local knowledge. Having worked with this particular Incident Controller for many years both when I worked at CFA and as a volunteer, I respected his opinion and honoured his request. 

By 2:15pm I was now set up behind the Police Liaison Officer and ready to work from the Council liaison desk situated in the main operations room of the Warrnambool ICC.  There were no current incidents, however the ICC was full of people, there were easily over 20 people filling all of the ICC’s functional roles. I wandered about the ICC, catching up with old friends and other emergency service agency staff, grabbed a bottle of water and sat down at my desk, where I logged in to relevant software programs to monitor fires around the state, the weather and Councils crisis management system.  After an hour, I was beginning to become frustrated with myself for giving in and agreeing to attend the ICC, there was nothing happening, which was of course a good thing, however I could have been at with my family and relaxing on the couch.  

Just after 4:00pm we all sprang to life after hearing the Pager Data Terminal beeping that said there was a grass and scrub fire that had started just north of Dunndonel it was within the Moyne Shire. So I gathered with the Operations Officer and Incident Controller around the map table, we listened intently to the radio traffic from the local brigades who responded quickly and within several minutes had the fire under control. It was a small fire, that had the potential to spread quickly, we were all relieved that it was under control. I now had justification for being there.  The rest of the afternoon remained incident free and at about 18:00hrs the logistics section advised us that dinner was ready in the planning room.  We all ate and chatted amongst ourselves, the temperature was still hovering around 32 degrees and the wind was getting up to about 40 kilometres per hour. There was talk about going home in about an hours time. I sent a text message to wife and said I would hopefully be home by 20:00hrs, even though I hadn’t done much work for the day I was starting to feel tired and was looking forward to going home for a cold beer. 

At 19:30hrs the temperature has dropped and the Incident Controller after checking the outside conditions, agreed to let some people go home with many of the staff  in the ICC having travelled from Hamilton and had commenced their shift at 10am. I packed up my gear and was given permission to leave and confirmed I would be available to return if the need should arise. I thought there goes that beer.  I returned home at about 20:15hrs and my wife asked if I would accompany her to pick our teenage son up from work from a Port Fairy Hotel where he worked as an apprentice chef.  As I hadn’t seen my family all afternoon I went with her and my young daughter to Port Fairy.  

Whilst undertaking the 20 minute drive to Port Fairy I noticed the wind was getting up, it was like a storm was about to hit. I commented to wife, that I was glad that the wind wasn’t like that during the day. I was relieved that we made it through the day unscathed. Little did I know that was about to change. On arriving at Port Fairy, the Vic Emergency App was starting to consistently beep, and soon enough the CFA radio in my car had a constant stream of radio traffic.  A fire had started in Terang close to the power sub- station and was spreading quickly. I could hear my CFA colleagues from Hopkins Curdies turning out to the fire along with the Aerial Pumper from Warrnambool. You could hear the voices over the radio become more and more anxious. I then received a phone call from the Warrnambool ICC informing me of the Terang fire and requesting I attend the ICC as soon as possible. We were still waiting in the car for my son to finish work, without even thinking I went inside and said to his boss in need to take my son now, there’s an emergency unfolding and I need to go. We headed straight for Warrnambool, ( there’s a reason why I always carried my MERO bag with me). Enroute to the ICC I received a call from my CEO, asking was I aware of what was happening, he said his Vic Emergency App was going off. I informed him I was heading to the ICC, he wished me luck.  

It wasn’t long and my CFA pager was going off  and I was alerted about a Grass and Scrub Fire at the Sisters. The wind was so strong it was buffering our car around on the highway.  I then made a call to Sue and asked if she was available to attend the ICC and provide support to me as the Municipal Recovery Manager, she agreed and we arrived at the ICC at about the same time.  On arrival there was only about four other people in the ICC, it was all hands on deck. Sue and l took up our usual position at our liaison desk, the same place I had sat all afternoon. However we were unusually shouted at and requested to move to the planning room.  Sue and I looked at each with amazement and we ignored this and concentrated on the task at hand, about 5 minutes later the same person yelled at us to get out into the other room. This time we grabbed our stuff  and found a desk in the planning room, ironically the person shouting it is to move should have been working from the other room. 

For the SES crews across the south-west, things were just starting to get frantic. By 9pm they had had 44 requests for assistance which 14 units were dealing with. The SES received 67 calls for help between 10pm and midnight. In total, on Saturday they had received 151 calls for help in the south-west, 105 reports of them were for trees down, many of which were causing traffic hazards to those fleeing the fires. There were also five calls to help rescue people.  

I made phone calls to our outdoor physical services on call supervisor and informed him of what was occurring and asked him to contact his staff  in preparation for supplying equipment. Within minutes I requested Water trucks, Graders and road closed signs to be dispatched to the Sisters – Garvoc area. The fire was increasing in size and heading south.  There were numerous other fires popping up on the incident log within our area. Radio traffic was chaotic, it was difficult to get a sense of what was happening out on the ground.  I recall having a conversation with Sue and the Incident Controller about opening a relief centre. We discussed opening a relief centre at our pre planned venue at Panmure, Sue made a phone call to the Local contact person at the Recreation Reserve at Panmure and was told there was a function on there but most significantly the power has gone out.  Whilst Sue was on the phone we simultaneously learnt that a large fire had started at Garvoc and was heading south to Hawkesdale. We then knew we wouldn’t be able to staff  multiple relief centres and suggested to the Incident Controller that we open the Warrnambool ICC at the Arc Stadium. Both Moyne Shire and Warrnambool City Council had trained in working together and we had conducted an Emergency Relief Centre exercise at the facility just months earlier, we were confident in our decision. 

We called the Warrnambool City Council MERO and requested he attend the ICC to support us and advised him we need the Warrnambool Emergency Relief Centre. Sue made calls to the Warrnambool City Council Emergency Relief staff  and I made calls to the Moyne Shire Emergency Relief Centre Staff. At Moyne shire we operated an on call availability roster, unfortunately some staff  members were sick or failed to answer the phone, however I was able to make contact with enough people. I requested them to attend the Warrnambool ICC where I would provide them with a full briefing of the situation and their tasks.  

Whilst this was occurring I continued to get calls on my phone from people requesting information and requests from my own CFA brigade Captain. My brigade was called out to a pole fire on the outskirts of Warrnambool and they were having difficulty in putting the fire out due to the strength of the winds and the height of the pole. Their radio messages were going unanswered, I assumed because of the volume of traffic, but later discovered it was because the power had  gone out and the back up battery’s had quickly become flat due to volume of radio traffic.  My brigade was accompanied by several other nearby brigades but were requesting the support of the Warrnambool Aerial Pumper to take advantage of its extended reach. However I had to inform them that the Aerial Pumper was already committed to the job at Terang.  I still proposed the request to the Incident Controller, who however said they are going to have to try and come up with a solution with the equipment that they have.  

The intensity of the situation continued to build within the ICC, not all the people that were in attendance at the ICC during the day had come back. I the early stages there was no mapping or situation unit, so on the information that we had, Sue and I drew our own prediction maps of the two main fires in our municipality, they would be known as the Sisters – Garvoc Fire ( later knows as the Garvoc fire) and the Gazette – Hawkesdale Fire ( latter known as the Gazette Fire)  There were Emergency warnings in place for the townships of Gazette and Hawkesdale and Garvoc. There were reports of over another 20 fires occurring on a smaller scale within the Shire footprint. I was receiving multiple requests for additional resources, I was limited in the number of resources that I could supply, and my major concern was I didn’t want to our staff  in the path of a bushfire. 

Some agency requests for road closure signs had to be denied because I would not allow council staff  to drive through dangerous areas. This would frustrate some volunteers on the ground and they would call me direct pleading for them, I held steady with my decisions and denied their requests.  By 23:00hrs we heard the fire at Terang was under control, it was being managed from the Colac ICC, unfortunately for us the Gazette and Garvoc Fires remained out of control and noone in the ICC knew for sure exactly where the front of the fires were. CFA staff  were in the field trying their best to get accurate information back to us but it was proving difficult to get an accurate picture.  Eventually the demand for resources calmed down and I could catch my breath, at about 2:00am my CFA captain and council work colleague attended the ICC to see how I was going and provided some very welcomed food. It’s amazing how a party pie at 2:00am in the morning can taste so good and provide you with a much needed boost.  

I was so grateful for the support from Sue who was looking after all the requests from the Emergency Relief Centre. The ERC was being well attended from people from both fires and surrounding areas including from many residents that were amongst the people that received one of the 51 Emergency Warnings and 21 advice messages.  Included amongst the townships issued emergency warnings were both the townships that I lived in and my family was located that night and where Sue lived and her family were located. I had made contact with my wife several times throughout the night, most often by text message asking was she ok. Our home was well prepared and my wife had the sprinklers going and we were fairly confident that she would be ok.  Most concerning was when a fire was listed as going just down the road from where Sue lived and her husband had failed to answer his phone. After several failed attempts I could see that Sue was concerned for her families welfare, and I can’t imagine how the must of felt for her, so I encouraged her to go home and check  

By about 3:00am both the Gazette and Garvoc fires were marked as under control.  With a reprieve from requests for assistance, I set about with Sue and the Warrnambool City Council MERO in planning the staff  roster for the ERC and ICC for Sunday and Sunday night.  Collectively we made plans for the arrangements of breakfast for the people attending the ERC. Soon enough it was time to wake staff  members up and seek their availability to work at the ICC and ERC. As this was a significant emergency I drafted a detailed email informing all staff  of what had occurred throughout the night and prepared them for the tasks that lie ahead for the following days.  By 8:00am it was time to go home and get some much needed sleep, I provided a handover to the incoming staff  and Sue and I then attended the ERC to check on how the staff  and community were going. I have vivid memories of walking into the ERC and witnessing a place of calm and care. I was delighted to see dogs sitting on their owners laps and kids playing with toys and watching cartoons on the big screen projects. We spoke with many of the people and thanked the staff  for their amazing efforts. We left the ERC and before heading home called in to the supervisor of the Warrnambool Airport and thanked him for his efforts in ensuring that back up power was provided to the aircraft fuel pumps that allowed the Police Helicopter to refuel throughput the night. After several phone calls later and a debrief and recount with my wife on what she went through during the night I fell into bed and re attended the ICC with Sue at about 16:00hrs for the next shit in the ICC. 

Sue

I was home most of Saturday where I checked my fire bag to make sure all my gear was ready to go if needed to respond.  I also checked my Council bag where I keep printed copies of the MEMP including the recovery plan, my log book, lots of pens and highlighters, sticky notes and a toiletries bag.  Usually I have a bag of snakes in the bag but ate them during a long training session and I had forgotten to replace them!  We had been told that the weather was going to be hot and windy but it was Autumn and like most, had thought that we had made it through the summer unscathed. I checked in with Mat several times over the course of the day and knew that he had gone into the ICC.  Our family had plans to have dinner with friends that night and upon confirming with Mat that nothing was going on we headed out for dinner.  

We kept in touch via texts during dinner and I knew that Mat was headed home at 8:00.  We were free, now I could have that glass of wine! We headed home at 9:00 and I remember stepping through the front door and receiving the call from Mat.  He sounded agitated and asked if I could come straight into the ICC.  I agreed and quickly said good night to my children and husband and grabbed my bags and headed into the ICC.

On arriving at the ICC to perform the role of Municipal Recovery Manager (MRM) I signed in and remember thinking there doesn’t seem to be many people here.  I checked in with Mat who had the MERO function and set up where we usually set up.  I quickly noticed that there were fires popping up across the entire south west.  When fire crews could access the fires quickly they were extinguished however many fires were starting to build and intelligence from the ground was limited.   Unfortunately we were told to pack up our stuff and move to another room within the ICC which was unusual and caused some friction.  There was no reason for this to happen and it didn’t make sense but to appease the clearly overwhelmed officer, we moved into the planning room which was empty.

Reports had also started coming in regarding a fire at Gazette heading to Hawkesdale.  What information I did receive was that the fires were moving fast and their air within the ICC seemed to be disappearing.  Decisions were made to close roads including the Princes Hwy but the fires were moving so quickly, conversations swiftly centred on opening an emergency relief centre.  Mat had a phone permanently stuck to his ear and his pager was going off all the time.

At 10:09 I spoke with local people at Panmure and discussed opening the Panmure Recreation Reserve as an emergency relief centre, however the power was out in the town and intelligence from the ground was still limited.  Our discussions were whether we could guarantee the safety of people if they gathered at Panmure.  We couldn’t guarantee that as the fires were still uncontrolled and the winds were unpredictable and Panmure might not be a safe place. After eliminating Panmure, I reviewed Council’s other predetermined emergency relief centres and Mat and I discussed whether we had the capacity to open multiple emergency relief centres.  The answer was no. So at 10:27 we made the recommendation to the Incident Controller to open the ARC Stadium in Warrnambool.  We could guarantee the safety of people seeking shelter from both fires, road access was open and it could accommodate a large group of people and animals.  Although there were no fires in the municipality of Warrnambool, the relationship between the two Council’s was strong; they planned, exercised and responded together. The stadium was also close to services such as hospitals and could be staffed by agencies.

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At 10:31 approval was received by the Incident Controller to open the ARC Stadium as the emergency relief centre for both fires.  It was immediately communicated via the Vic Emergency App.  At 10:42 the ARC Stadium was officially open with community immediately arriving to seek shelter. 

Shortly thereafter, the MERO from Warrnambool arrived at the ICC and the three of us worked together to activate the Red Cross, VCC EM, DHHS and St Johns.  St Johns required us to provide them with a purchase order number.  None of us had the ability to do that at the ICC and we gave them our postcode.  This worked until lunchtime the next day and we received a call from them requesting a proper number! Sometimes you have to make quick decisions and move onto the next problem.

Once the ERC was open our small team immediately planned for the change of shift.  We discussed changeover occuring at 08:00am and decided to contact the change over staff at 6:30 that way they would all have had a good night sleep.  We also had to organise breakfast for 150 people and a briefing at 8:00am.  The supermarkets opened at 06:30 so we planned on having a staff member waiting at the door with his credit card under the instruction of purchasing enough breakfast items for 150.  

At 01:11am reports from fire crews were that the fires would be impacting the Hawkesdale township within the next 30mins.  Due to the limited number of staff in the ICC I was trying to provide some prediction maps based on the observations from the fire ground.  I worked out from the wind and fire spread that their predictions were correct and they would be devastating.  At 01:30 I remember holding my breath and waiting for reports from the ground.  Luckily the fire headed towards a creek and crews were able to pull it up 4kms from Hawkesdale. There was still plenty of work to do but at least this fire edge didn’t make it into town.

At 02:06 there were 100 people in the ERC.  People had heeded the warnings and advice from the Vic Emergency App with some people even self evacuating to Warrnambool.  Towns such as Woolsthorpe were blanketed in smoke.  Smoke at night adds a heightened level of uneasiness and people chose to self evacuate to be safe.  People From both fires sought the safety of the stadium.  The numbers slowly increased and at 03:14 there were 120 inside the stadium with many more preferring to stay in their cars in the stadium carpark with their pets.

As the Gazette-Hawkesdale fire continued to build I was concerned that it would run straight into the north edge of Koroit, where my family was.  I tried so many times to contact my husband to make sure he was prepared and aware but to no avail.  Mobile coverage was pretty poor in our new house especially in our master bedroom where I thought they would all be. I was only 15 minutes away and decided to drive home to check.  As I drove home I remember the wind hitting the car but I couldn’t smell any smoke and whilst I was on top of Tower Hill I can’t remember seeing any fire but I was pretty focussed on checking on my family and getting back to the ICC.  I got home and went in the front door and scared the life out of my husband.  He hadn’t received any messages but once he walked into the hall way his phone received my messages.  I gave him a quick update and headed back to the ICC.

With reports of injured livestock coming in overnight at 04:37 I requested animal welfare officers be on the ground at daylight across both the fires.  It was important that farmers were supported in the terrible job of euthanizing their own injured stock.

At 04:48am I started to organise a community briefing for the community at the ERC so that when people woke up they could be provided with the latest information. I liaised with Ambulance Victoria, CFA and Victoria Police and they all agreed to participate.

There was an IEMT briefing at 05:30 where the following update was provided:

Gazette – crews had halted rate of spread and were continuing to work in the eastern flank. 2 graders were putting in fall back lines along the highway and 2 excavators were pushing over dangerous trees.  Garvoc – there was no chance to hold the fire, crews were working on the eastern flank.  An MFB assessment team was arriving for daylight. Houses have been lost at both fires – and there is a wind change predicted for 07:00.

Reports started to come in outlining loss of stock and houses.  It is very difficult early on in a fire  to accurately determine losses as sheds get confused for dwellings and its very difficult for crews on the ground at night to determine loss of stock, but from initial reports we anticipated that these would be high.

06:30 – I made calls to the replacement ERC staff and advised them that changeover would be at the ERC at 08:00

After an incredibly long night I was replaced and I left the incident control centre completely exhausted. As I had my car at the ICC I drove Mat home but on the way we couldn’t help but visit the ERC and catch up with the staff on duty. We also visited the Warrnambool Airport where a Council staff member had spent the night to ensure aircraft such as the Vicpol helicopter and HEMS 4 all had power and could pump out fuel as the power had gone off during the night.  I dropped Mat off at his house and headed home.  My head was spinning as I went over what had happened and was thinking about what was continuing to unfold.   I grabbed some food and fell into bed and slept and was back in at 2pm.

Over the course of the South West Fires, Emergency Management Commissioner Craig Lapsley revealed that authorities had issued 51 emergency warnings –  the highest level of warnings –  and 29 advice messages. (I sourced this from the standard) article is on my phone

At 4.00pm on Sunday,  Mat and I were back at the incident control centre.  The staff in the ICC had tripled since I was there earlier in the day.   A full incident management team had been flown in to replace the crew and there were people everywhere!  We checked in with our replacements and they had been busy organising contractors to be on the ground at Garvoc first light on Monday.  Two community meetings were organised by the public information officers; Hawkesdale was scheduled at 4pm and Garvoc at 8pm.

I participated in the Hawkesdale meeting with the Deputy Incident Controller, DHHS Recovery Coordinator, Agriculture Victoria representative.  Over [photo] 60 people attended the meeting.  The community at Hawkesale were in a state of shock.  Nobody had had much sleep.  Information about the status of the fire was provided along with large scale maps for people to view.  Safety issues were highlighted and flyers were available for people to take away and read later.  

And Mat…..

I returned to the ICC and attended an IEMT briefing at 6pm.  Briefing advised that:

There were still 3 fires in our footprint.  The Gazette was still going with a watch and act in place. That fire had an estimated 2790 hectares burnt.  The Garvoc fire was still going with an estimated 4000 hectares burnt with a watch and act in place.  The Garvoc fire was more active at this time and traffic management was in place for both fires. During the briefing it was confirmed that assets had been lost at Garvoc.

After the briefing I made sure that the staff on night duty had everything that they needed and we both headed home.

Gazette Fire

Gazette is a rural farming community 79kms north west of Warrnambool in Victoria with a population of 43 people.  Gazette is predominantly a sheep and grazing hamlet and is nestled between the dormant volcanoes of Mt Rouse and Budj Bim with the area steeped in volcanic history. Amongst the large farming properties with Gazette CFA Fire Station being the only public infrastructure.  Gazette is in the Southern Grampians Shire Council.

The Gazette fire started by a tree within a blue gum plantation falling onto power lines as a result of the wind event that hit the South West that night.  

With the strong northerly winds, the fire quickly travelled southwards through Minhamite towards the township of Hawkesdale.  Hawkesdale is a larger town with a population of 322 people situated within Moyne Shire Council.  Hawkesdale is 35 kms north of Port Fairy.

Controlling this fire was difficult due to the speed it was travelling at, there were no roads that enabled the fire trucks to get to the front of the fire and much of the terrain was rocky and difficult to traverse.  The roads linking Gazette to Minhamite were largely inaccessible due to the fallen roadside trees and debris.  The main access to the fire was via private farm tracks. The added complexity of fighting this fire was that it was at night and gauging a sense of where the front was and how to access it was extremely difficult.  At the time no firefighting aircraft were permitted to fly at night so air support was not available. 

Before being extinguished the fire burnt through 2783 hectares destroying three homes, many sheds and outbuildings, thousands of livestock and kilometres of fencing.

Garvoc Fire

Garvoc is a small township with a population of 243 people that is surrounded by predominantly large dairy farms and is located 34kms east of Warrnambool. The town is divided by the Princes Hwy, and straddles both Moyne Shire and Corangamite Shire Councils.  A train line runs through Garvoc providing a vital connection to Melbourne from Warrnambool.  Garvoc was once a thriving town with a pub, general store, hall, school, and both Presbytherian and Catholic churches.  In 1983 Garvoc and surrounds were severely impacted by the Ash Wednesday Bushfires. Within twelve hours on Wednesday 16 February, 1983, more than 180 fires fanned by winds of up to 110km/h caused widespread destruction across the states of Victoria and South Australia. In Garvoc and surrounds, nine lives were lost, many thousands of livestock destroyed, many homes and outbuildings razed with many family and communities impacted.    Both the Presbytherian Church and school were both rebuilt, along with many homes and properties however the school closed permanently in 1993 and was followed in the mid 2000’s by the pub and the general store, leaving only the public hall.

The Garvoc fire was caused when a pole adjacent to the Terang-Framlingham Rd snapped in high wind igniting a fast moving grass fire that rapidly spread in a south-easterly direction crossing the Princes Hwy and train line destroying homes, thousands of livestock and kilometers of fencing nearly missing the town centre.  Due to the high winds, the speed of the fire, combined with the darkness of night fire crews battled to save life and property. By morning there was confirmation that two homes had been lost xXXXXXX

Before being extinguished the Garvoc fire burnt through 3857 hectares destroying two homes, many outbuildings and sheds, killed thousands of livestock and destroyed hundreds of kilometres of fencing

Emergency Relief Centre

The ARC Stadium in Warrnambool was opened as the emergency relief centre for both the Garvoc and Gazette fires on Saturday night at 22:30. 

The ERC was coordinated by Warrnambool City Council and  staffed jointly with Warrnambool City Council and Moyne Shire Council staff.  Agency representatives from DHHS, Victoria Police, Red Cross, Victorian Council of Churches Emergency Ministry, Ambulance Victoria and, St.John Ambulance were also on site. The ERC was open for three nights and four days.  Over 160 community member accessed the ERC many with their domestic pets and horses.

Interestingly in November the previous year Mat and I, wrote and delivered an Exercise at the Arc Stadium called “Exercise Ready-vac”  Exercise Readyvac was a multi agency field exercise to test the Municipal Recovery Plan by opening and operating an ERC.  This exercise was run in real time with the ICC, MOCC and ERC running simultaneously.  Victoria Police, Red Cross, VCCEM, Moyne Shire Council, Warrnambool City Council, Ambulance Victoria, CFA, Wannon Water and the community all participated.  Having exercises in peace time is so important to not only test plans but it builds relationships between agencies so that when you do have to go into battle, you are familiar with each other and understand each other’s role and function. 

When we conduct training on how to operate an ERC, our overarching request for people working in an ERC is twofold:

• do not process people. Emergencies happen to real people who were never thinking that they would be thrusted into an emergency situation.  People may be traumatised and unable to think clearly and are seeking care and compassion. The last thing they want is to have paperwork to complete or to answer a thousand questions.  In some instances they have just fled their homes, sometimes leaving loved ones behind, with only their pyjamas on and no shoes.  The last thing we should do is make them line up and process them.  There will be plenty of opportunities whilst in the ERC to capture their details for services such as Register.Find.Reunite but it doesn’t have to be upon entering. 
• be kind.  Offering somebody a blanket or a hot cup of coffee and a listening ear can go towards the recovery of that person.  How they are treated by the first agency that sees them will affect their recovery.  One farmer who lost his entire farm headed into another relief centre on Monday only to be confronted at the door with something asking him what he had lost.  “Did you lose your house?” he was asked. To which he replied , “no”. He was then told there was nothing they could do for him.  All he wanted was a hot cup of coffee and to sit down for a rest!

Be kind to yourself and to the colleagues you are working beside.  This is a hard job. You will be exposed to a variety of difficult conversations that may cause emotional distress.  It is therefore important that you take time out and talk through your experiences with your colleagues throughout and at the end of your shift.

We received a lovely letter weeks after the ERC closed from a family that had sought shelter there describing that they felt safe at the ERC and were amazed by the agency support and by the quality and training of people.  They felt really cared for and were really appreciative of the care taken of them and their dog.

Mat and I visited the ERC early on Monday morning.   It was calm and welcoming environment.  A little boy was curled up on the couch fast asleep, next to him was a whippet also curled up fast asleep and in a seat in front was a cat in its box.  

Over the next two days offers of food and donations of goods were starting to appear.  People want to help out by baking some cakes by dropping off sandwiches or clothing.  Managing these offers is quite difficult as you don’t want to hurt their feelings but even the well intended egg sandwich can, if not made and transported correctly,  cause gastro in the ERC.  We also don’t want to be a drop off point for material goods as this can quickly get out of hand.  Our policy was to not accept any food or material goods and all our staff were well trained in how to deal with those offers..

During another visit to the ERC we spoke to a couple who had travelled hundreds of kilometres from their home with meat in their car with the intention of cooking a BBQ for all the people in the ERC. Although their intentions were incredibly honourable we couldn’t accept their offer and suggested alternatives in ways that they could support people affected by the fires.  These interactions have to be dealt with with kindness and compassion and its always important to provide people with alternatives.  Although our policy was not to accept any donations of goods, sometimes commonsense has to prevail.  During the first night a little boy came to the ERC with his mum and donated all his lego to the children in the ERC.  This donation was kindly accepted!

Staff and agencies who worked in the ERC told us that the training and knowledge that we provided prior to these fires contributed to the overall success of the ERC. Staff and agencies felt confident to perform their role and understood the needs of the community and that it was more than just processing people.  They provided more than a safe place, it was a place where people felt calm and cared for. 

.Tips: 

• Recruiting kind staff to work in an ERC
• Training staff how to open and operate an ERC each year
• Exercise the opening of an ERC
• Refer to the Six C’s manual “Opening and operating an ERC”
• Developing relationships with local relief and recovery agencies prior to an emergency 
• Have an ERC kit stocked with essential items 
• Establish and maintain record keeping processes (electronic and manual) 
• Don’t focus on capturing personal details of attendees
• Remember to care and be kind
• Encourage and allow domestic animals in an ERC
• Pre plan for accommodation of large livestock

Monday 19 March  – the first week 

Contractors hit the ground first thing Monday morning clearing trees off roads and discussions began with farmers about burying stock. Our phones didn’t stop ringing.  Everybody wanted information. The ERC was still operating, a MOCC was being set up, a Secondary Impact Assessment team was being established, there was still a requirement for us to be in the ICC and an internal Council Recovery Committee and the Regional Recovery Pillars were being stood up.

Recovery plan or recovery pain?

Mat

There is no doubt that a recovery plan is an essential tool to focus recovery efforts.  A recovery plan should be created to ensure that communities’ needs are identified, the risks and consequences  assessed with actions put in place to allow for mitigation and implementation. But for some unknown reason 3 days post disaster,  having a completed recovery plan was now the state government’s highest priority.  

I knew what should be in a recovery plan but just in case I was unaware, my email inbox was flooded with numerous examples of what appeared to me as complex pages of guff that actually didn’t mean anything. They didn’t address the needs of the community, they told a history and provided a detailed description of legislation and structures that should be implemented and flow charts that should be followed. I resisted and challenged their style of the recovery plan that they wanted us to develop. 

Me resisting their request of “just putting something together”caused a lot of frustration to some state government departments and by day 4 there were two representatives from different state government agencies thrusted into our Municipal Operations Control Centre to provide assistance in developing the all important recovery plan. By now my tolerance was wearing thin, together with everything else, including the 10’s of daily meetings, combined with a phone that was almost permanently attached to my ear and an inbox that was overflowing to the point that I was not able to send emails any longer – I’d had enough.  I sat the staff members from the state government agencies at a computer and said knock yourself out, write me a plan. 

They sat there for a couple of days compiling or cutting and pasting segments from other past recovery plans, threw in some local demographic and geographic data, added a pretty cover and provided me with a plan. Senior representatives from the state agencies were delighted, they had a plan that they confessed was needed to show ministers that the process had been completed, a box needed to be ticked, it didn’t matter what was in the document it was simply an element that needed to be ticked. 

If you haven’t worked out by now we are not the kind of people that do things to just tick a box, so once the pressure was off, we developed a very thought out and simplistic Recovery Plan, that would guide us through our entire recovery journey, it was a plan that allowed the community to lead their recovery.  It was founded on the six c’s of community-led recovery and focused on the pillars of Economic, Natural, Built and Social environments.  It was simple, effective and meaningful and guided everything we did – it was only one page and written to be community facing!

An operational plan sat behind the recovery plan – this document provided all the detail and was designed to be internally facing.

MOCC

Sue

On Tuesday we moved into our Municipal Operations Coordination Centre (MOCC) .  The purpose of a MOCC is to capture record and action requests and offers, coordinate council resources, liaise with agencies and to report to internal and external committees and agencies.  The information technology staff at Council had set up a meeting room at a council facility on Sunday and we were fully equipped with computers and phones, whiteboards and printers.  Also on Sunday the fire map GIS layer was overlaid on our rates system.  This enabled us to print out a list of landowners with their contact numbers that had been impacted by the fires.  Our first job on Monday in the MOCC was to telephone all of the affected landowners to offer assistance.  

I had already been to the ICC early on Tuesday morning and arrived at the MOCC at 8:00 and waited for staff to arrive.  As it ticked over 8:30 the phones started ringing.  I was in the MOCC by myself and answered the first call.  It was from a farmer in Garvoc who had lost his home. Whilst I was on the phone with him, all the phones started ringing – the fire affected community were asking for help and the broader community were offering donations of goods and services.  When the staff arrived I gave them a quick briefing as I was needed back in the ICC.

Keeping accurate records of requests and offers post disasters is incredibly important.  To capture the data electronically, we used a system called Crisisworks, a cloud based system designed for managing emergencies.  All contacts were recorded directly into Crisisworks.   Each telephone call from a fire affected property was entered as a case file in the Recovery section of Crisiworks.  That way we could manage the contacts that we had for that property regardless of who telephoned; i.e if the landowner called for one request we recorded it against the property that way if another person from that same property called we had a history of that in front of us. The history of each contact built over the course of recovery.  Crisiworks also has the ability to manage requests and assign them to different users of the system.  If somebody requested something we could record it in requests with a priority set and assign it for actioning.  It was a great way to manage a lot of information quickly.  It didn’t matter where I was, I could still access the system and view the data.

We did have some issues where landowners who owned multiple parcels of land called in with requests pertaining to different property addresses. Unfortunately these were entered under a new case.  Another confusing aspect was that parcels of land were owned by the same property owner however, had different company aliases. These issues quickly became apparent and over the course of the next couple of weeks were sorted out and the multiple files were linked together.  Capturing this information correctly at the start is crucial.

All enquiries received by Council reception relating to the fires were directed to the MOCC and we received over 140 calls on the first day of operation. We quickly became inundated with the amount and complexity of the calls so it was paramount to ensure that you have the right staff working in the MOCC that were able to listen to the calls and record the details accurately directly into Crisisworks. It was an intense and emotionally charged room.  For some callers it was their first opportunity to talk about their experience and relive the fire.  It was crucial to have staff trained and prepared for the amount and type of calls that they received.  

As Mat and I were actively involved in the day to day and forward planning operations our time was divided between the MOCC, internal Council meetings and the ICC. 

Tips: 

• Recruit people that are trained to perform roles within a MOCC.  
• Conduct regular SMEACS briefing with all staff
• Clearly outline what information needs to be captured and how  
• Use whiteboards to display critical information and intelligence
• Develop a system to prioritise requests
• Coordinate tasks and requests
• Ensure Councils customer record management systems are up to date 
• Make sure that GIS is part of your EM team
• Have a dedicated MOCC Coordinator and Deputy. 
• Develop clear reporting lines to the MRM and MERO/MEMO.
• Refer to The Six C’s training manual for ”How to plan for and operate a MOCC”
• Debrief all staff 
• Offer all staff mental health support

Secondary Impact Assessments 

Council is responsible for conducting secondary impact assessments following any natural disaster.  Its purpose is to assess the impact that the emergency has had on infrastructure both public and private.  In our situation we formed two secondary impact assessment teams that consisted of a building surveyor, environmental health officer and an environment officer.  Their priority was to inspect the fire damaged buildings to ensure that they were safe, undertake an assessment of the needs in relation to clean up, water supply and septic systems. Each team were given an ipad, 

Tips:

• Don’t use a script to speak to people
• Ensure the team travel together to each property
• Be respectful of people’s properties and their loss
• Take photos and record information consistently
• Develop a process to escalate issues and action requests
• Have a manual back up system in case technology fails
• Take your time and listen – don’t set quotas per day
• Have a PPE kit 
• Provide mental health support to staff

Mat

Have you ever been annoyed by someone knocking on your door, trying to sell you something that you weren’t interested in? Can you imagine how it would feel to have multiple agencies over multiple times, some that you may have never heard of, arrive at your property and just start driving all over your property and assessing your livestock, taking pictures of your decimated infrastructure, and then when they finally do bother to talk to you, ask you the same questions that all the previous visiting agencies have asked you. Not to mention, they have all arrived unannounced and expect you to stop what you are doing to be available to answer their important questions.  

This is exactly what happened following the fires.  

Story

A lady came to visit us at the van and said that she wasn’t able to leave her property for days. We asked her why and she told us that somebody had marked the tree at the front of her gateway with a big red “K”.  Nobody had come to her door to discuss what this meant or what they would be doing about it. They had simply marked the tree and left.  The lady guessed that there was something wrong with the tree and decided it would be best if she didn’t drive past it because she thought somebody would be back that day to either remove the tree or talk to her about what the K meant. Days past and she was starting to run out of food.  She had flagged down a CFA fire truck to enquire what the K on the tree meant they informed her that it meant that it was a killer tree and somebody would take care of it.

Her son in law then called and wanted to know when Council would return to deal with the tree.  His mother in law was quite distressed and was too scared to pass the tree as she now knew that the K meant killer tree. I then made calls to the ICC to establish who marked the tree and when they would be dealing with it.  After numerous calls the tree was finally removed.

Having a well coordinated approach where all agencies visiting  properties together to undertake an inspection, with the ability to share the information makes sense to someone that has just experienced significant trauma. 

Those who had negative experiences, were still suffering from the actions of agency staff months later. There is no disputing that where an issue has been found and that it poses a danger, it needs to be addressed, however a tactful and thoughtful approach could be used to convey the message. The community member that you are talking to, has not only suffered significant trauma, they have more than likely not had no sleep are deeply emotional and irrational and most likely annoyed and frustrated that you are on their property, and this is all before a word from you has even been spoken. So remember to be respectful and stop for a minute and try and imagine what they are trying to process at that moment, before you commence pointing out the items that need improvement or rectifying. This is a whole new world for them, and just days before they were going about their business, without any blink of a thought that they would be experiencing what they are, at that point. 

Note:

If a community member has lost their home during a disaster it is probably not the best time in the hours after that occurring for Council to remind them that they need to replace 

appropriate time to 

Tips

• Before the MSIA team is deployed into the field it is essential that they are briefed by the MERO & MRM on the situation and their task. 
• We recommend the briefing be conducted using the SMEACS briefing format. 
• Complete Equipment Checklist including PPC and Food & Water
• Ensure staff sign in and out and are given the MOCC contact information
• Refer to The Six C’s MSIA training handbook for further information and specific advice.
• Can use Crisisworks offline if no internet 
• Don’t process people
• Have compassion
• Work together with all agencies 
• Recovery should have a Deputy I/C to coordinate recovery whilst still in the response phase

Livestock loss

Farmers expected to lose livestock following the fires but many were unprepared for the amount of losses they endured.  Nothing could prepare them for what they would encounter when dawn broke.

Scattered throughout their paddocks were injured, dying and deceased stock.  Understandably this was incredibly confronting to farmers who cared so deeply about their animals. For many dairy farmers the daily interaction with their cows meant they knew each cow and each cow’s personality, most having been raised from calves within a long genetic line of breeding, these cows were more than numbers – they were mates. Farmers shared their experiences upon seeing the devastation and described how painful it was to find so many injured, dying and deceased mates. To us, listening to their recollections and describing what they saw and smelt was unimaginable.  The pain that they were feeling was real.  Finding deceased cows and sheep piled at unopened gates added to the trauma that these farmers were experiencing. Many blamed themselves for not being able to save them.  

Many dairy farmers tearfully described that when they were in their paddocks they could see injured cows trying to lift their heads upon hearing their voices. Initially farmers received many offers of assistance from friends and community to help euthanize injured stock and help triage others, however, many found the scene too distressing and left leaving the job up to each farmer. Upon discussing the burial of stock with each farmer, we heard that many farmers who lost stock during these fires had also been impacted by the Ash Wednesday Fires in 1983.  Following those fires, trucks would collect deceased stock from farms and transport them to nearby large trenches that were dug on the road reserves. However, the legislation has changed and the preferred disposal method is for deceased stock to be disposed at a municipal landfill.  If that is not available, deceased stock must now be buried on farm.  

This legislative change caused distress with some farmers and they were disgruntled at having to bury their stock on their own properties. The consequences of where stock are buried have a significant and lasting impact on farmers. It is a complex process requiring multi agency approvals that includes; the Environmental Protection Authority, the Municipal Environmental Health Officer, the landowner and the contractor. But our priority was still to bury stock as quickly as possible.  

The team were on the ground and began burying stock on Monday 19 March and all stock were buried by lunch time on Wednesday 21 March across both fires. From our perspective this was undertaken quickly and efficiently however, there were still some farmers that considered that the process was too long and bound in legislative requirements, with some unhappy with the final location of the pits.

Several months after, many farmers described the paddocks where the stock were buried as, “Dead stock paddock” or the “Grave yard”. Farmers described severe difficulty and anxiety with putting livestock back into these paddocks and in some situations, surviving cattle would not enter those paddocks.  However for those who had stock buried within sight of their house it was a constant reminder for them, every time they looked out the kitchen window, or drove out their driveway.  

Although deceased stock was buried quickly, the job for farmers had only just begun. Some had severe injuries with long lasting effects that would require daily attention for months.  Some unfortunately had to be sold months later because although their injuries had healed they were no longer productive.  The stress and anxiety that the farmers endured was compounded by uneducated comments from the wider community repetitively saying, “Why don’t you just go and buy more cows”.  Unfortunately it is not as simple as just buying any old cow from market, farmers had lost generations of genetic breeding stock that could not be replaced quickly nor for some in their lifetime.  This weighed heavily on farmers who felt that they were responsible for losing the work of their great grandparents. Compounding their loss was a daily reminder when their automated computer system at the dairy would alert them to the fact that a large number of cows had not been milked. This happened twice a day and whilst not a difficult administrative task to remove those cows from the system it was however an emotional barrier that some could not confront.

Tips:

• Deceased stock needs to be buried quickly, not only for the environmental issues but for the mental health needs of the land owner.  
• Losing stock causes severe distress
• Losing stock is a long process
• Accurate records should be kept

Community Spirit

Following the fires the community quickly rallied to support affected neighbours by cooking meals and providing donations. The Garvoc community dropped off cooked meals to the Garvoc Hall almost immediately.  The donations quickly grew and the hall became the focus for local community to either donate or recieve meals.  Although it wasn’t an official emergency relief centre, the community had self activated and started to support and care for their own community.  We recognised that they were providing essential support to those in need, whilst our attention was focussed on the designated emergency relief centre and commencement of recovery activities, we actively supported the communities requests for resources.  We also ensured we provided emotional support to the coordinators who worked tirelessly to support their neighbours by visiting them regularly, checking in on their welfare and providing them with any additional resources. 

The Peterborough community situated on the Great Ocean Road approximately 30kms south of the main Garvoc fire spent much of the night awake patrolling their town under a blanket of smoke and ash.  Although there was a neighbourhood safer place – a place of last resort that was situated in the monument carpark lookout the community however gravitated to the recently built community hall located adjacent to the fire station in the centre of town.  The community opened the hall and provided support to many tourists and locals.  Although the fires did not reach the township of Peterborough, the impact to the community was significant which led them to seek further assistance in preparing for future fires by undertaking CFA community education sessions and successfully advocated to Council to provide them with a generator for the hall.

Hours before the formal evacuation message was sent, the local Hawkesdale community with CFA volunteers alerted their community by door knocking each house advising them of the impending danger.  Many evacuated to the local recreation reserve and the neighbourhood safer place – place of last resort.  Upon receiving the official emergency alert many of the residences relocated to other towns including to the designated emergency relief centre in Warrnambool.    Following the fires, the local community came together in a unity of strength to not only thank the local volunteer emergency responders but also to gather together to talk about their experiences.

The wider business community including many large organisations in Warrnambool also rallied to support those impacted by the fires.  We received many calls of offers for donated goods.  All the offers were very kind and generous, unfortunately, most of them were too premature. For many that lost their homes and everything it contained, the furniture or whitegoods that were immediately on offer weren’t able to be utilisted.  A voucher system would be a good addition to the state recovery arrangements whereby people that have lost their homes can redeem all the offers immediately available 1-2 years down the track.  Most families only started to rebuild 18 months after the fires, focussing initially on getting their business back up and running.  

Mat

We experienced all sorts of offers of support and donations of goods, one member of the public,telephoned the MOCC and demanded that he speak to someone in charge in regards to the donation that he wanted to make. In the middle of many other tasks, I took his call and he expressed his sadness for the people that had lost their homes and said he wanted to offer a complete bathroom and toilet fit out to one of the families that had completely lost their homes. I thought what a very nice, although unusual gesture, and initially thought that the gentleman that I was speaking to on the phone was from a commercial plumbing business. I took his details down and made enquiries on whether he wanted to put a value on the offer he was making, and whether it would be in the form of a gift voucher or supplied directly when the affected family were ready to rebuild. He seemed shocked by my comments, and informed me that the bathroom and toilet was ready to go now and it must be collected immediately.  As I attempted to explain the logistics of arranging this immediately, he became aggravated and told me that the shower, bath, vanity unit and toilet had been ripped out of his house and it was on the front lawn and needed to be collected ASAP. I asked him if it was new, even though I just heard him say that he had ripped it out of his, I was in disbelief that someone would think that an old bath and toilet was appropriate to donate to a family that had just lost their home and all their possessions.  He angrily responded, “They’re not getting the new stuff mate, this is the stuff that I have taken out of the old house during renovations”. I began to explain that we could not accept his donation and attempted to try and explain why, when he started yelling and abusing me, telling me that I was denying people of perfectly good items that they should be grateful for, after all they had nothing and this was better than nothing. My numerous attempts to explain why we couldn’t accept his donations were met with additional anger and outrage and he was angered because he would have to pay to dispose of the items at the municipal tip.

We heard many times from the broader community that people who have lost everything during the fires should be grateful for anything including their old clothes.  For those people that lost their homes, they found many bags of clothes dumped at their doorsteps including items that had holes, were soiled and the wrong size. This left the survivors with further rubbish to dispose of at their cost.

So whilst donations are very appreciated and often make the donator feel good about donating, it is not always to the benefit of the intended recipient. Having a carefully managed donated goods process and asking suppliers for vouchers would improve the usefulness of the generosity.

Tips:

• Ask larger companies who want to donate goods to provide them in vouchers. That way they can be given directly to the affected people and they can use them when they are ready. 
• Encourage the community to donate money to the designated local charity, rather than goods
• Have a clear donations policy prior to an emergency
• Ensure the donations policy is communicated to the community
• Ensure staff understand the policy
• Be reasonable and take a common sense approach

Recovery Pillar Committee meetings and non stop teleconferences

Recovery arrangements in Victoria are divided into five main pillars:

• social, 
• economic, 
• built and natural
• agriculture

Each pillar was led by the agency responsible for that function as determined by the Emergency Management Manual of Victoria (EMMV) and membership was made up of agencies or support agencies relevant to that function for example the social pillar was chaired by DHHS and included Council, Red Cross, VCCEM, Salvation Army, South West Primary Health Network, WestVic Dairy and the Department of Education and Training.

The pillar groups were designed to provide strategic oversight of each function with members providing input and advice in relation to the needs of the community within their portfolio.

All the pillar chairs then reported up to the Regional Recovery Leadership Committee chaired by the DHHS Regional Recovery Coordinator.  These meetings started immediately with Council participating in all four pillar meetings and the leadership meeting.

The meetings largely involved agencies reporting on statistics.  Whilst statistics are very important to government because it provides them with an identifiable measure to quantify service delivery, it does not qualify success or provide an accurate analysis or reflection of what is occurring on the ground.  Our reporting focussed on the community’s needs and their wellbeing rather than how many kms of fencing was damaged and how many sign posts need to be replaced. 

As Council are members of all the pillar meetings, for the majority of time I had a phone stuck to my ear attending meeting after meeting where there were lengthy discussions based around policies and processes of how these pillars should function, developing terms of references and determining membership which caused me great frustration.  It appeared that this was the first emergency that had occurred in Victoria and we needed to start developing documents from scratch. The time that this took out of my day lessened the time I could spend talking and supporting the community which was my priority.  Initially other members of staff offered to participate in some of the pillar meetings to share the burden however, after several weeks they became tired and frustrated with the process and time taken from their core responsibilities, so I attended the majority of the meetings going forward. 

Whilst it was important to attend and participate in these meetings it was quite difficult to find the time to attend them regularly when often the meetings were more about process than about people.

Tips:

• Ensure Council EM structure supports membership of pillar meetings

The first week post the fires was intense and completely overwhelming.  We quickly discovered that our expertise was required everywhere and at the same time.  We were still required to be part of the IEMT at the ICC as well as meeting with agencies to solve problems and resolve issues, we had staff to support and provide guidance, we were coordinating on ground resources and planning rosters, reporting everywhere and every minute of the day, supporting the community whilst forming a plan for the future, whilst still being parents at the end of the day.

The pace of the week is so intense that it is not until you get home and are told by your children that you are talking too fast that you realise that you have been operating at a heightened level.  This combined with the constant demands to make thoughtful and correct decisions whilst multitasking a thousand jobs makes the first week extremely challenging and overwhelming.

We experienced a range of emotions during the first week, some that provided us with a sense of satisfaction and purposefulness and others of helplessness and sadness. Being able to fulfil some requests quickly and provide support directly to the community were overshadowed by the frustrations of attending meeting after meeting and being requested for data and reports that didn’t have any positive impact for the community.

The next six weeks

Whilst the response phase to the Gazette and Garvoc fires was completed, the Warrnambool ICC continued to operate and have control over the neighbouring fires that continued to burn for some weeks.  There was still a requirement for us to have a presence in the ICC although at times this felt like a burden, it became invaluable for meeting and liaising with agencies pertaining to our recovery efforts on the ground. 

The next six weeks started to impact Council staff. Seconded staff were beginning to feel the pressure of work mounting in their nominal job with the addition of intense and emotional interactions with the community of whom they started to build relationships with. It wasn’t only the staff directly involved with the fires, other staff in supporting roles such as payroll, also faced increased pressure with the added complexity of processing timesheets that were complex due to the amount of overtime and call out allowances.  Many staff also knew people that had been impacted by the fires or were involved themselves in evacuating that night or were involved in a volunteer response or recovery agency.

Something that can easily be overlooked is the welfare and acknowledgement of staff and the roles and functions that they performed.  For many it was their first experience working in an emergency situation.  We knew it was important to acknowledge the staff for the difficult work that they were undertaking by providing them each with daily support, copious amounts of coffee and day spa vouchers to encourage them to take some time to relax.

The MOCC continued to operate until after Easter where requests for immediate relief support started to slow. Prior to transitioning staff back to their role we conducted a formal debrief with them where they were able to not only discuss what worked well and what didn’t but how they were feeling.  Staff were further supported in their transition by a psychosocial support session delivered by counsellors and reminded them of the Employee Assistance Program.  We also made sure that we popped in, when we could, and spoke to each of the MOCC staff to check on their welfare and provide them with an update on the recovery process.

On the closure of the MOCC we moved into a small office back within Council.  Upon moving into our new office we attached two fire maps to the wall and cross referenced data of impacted properties with the Crisisworks records we had begun to record whilst in the MOCC to ensure that all property owners had been contacted and nobody was missed.  At this stage we only had some information and local knowledge from the ground along with information gathered from council staff.  With this limited information we triaged property owners in multiple categories including loss of home, building damage and asbestos and stock losses.  It was now time to focus on moving forward and planning how best to support the community.

Contractors

Acknowledging that contractors played a significant role directly within the community immediately after the fires where they cleared roads, removed dangerous trees, cleared up damaged buildings, provided copious amounts of skip bins to support landholders with their clean up, stock burial, we knew it was paramount that we not only thanked them for their services but also acknowledged the emotional toll that it took on them and their staff.  We held an afternoon tea where all the contractors and their staff where invited where the Mayor presented them each with a certificate of appreciation. The contractors were overwhelmed and expressed their gratitude of appreciation in being acknowledged for the challenging work undertaken immediately following the fires.

Tip:

• Get to know your contracts before an emergency.  
• Acknowledge all the work of contractors 
• Reward and thank all staff whether they are actively involved or in a supporting role

Food

Mat 

I received a phone call from a fire affected community member who was very concerned about their neighbour. They knew that their neighbour had not been able to leave their property because they had been so busy feeding their livestock and re-fencing with Blazeaid and the neighbour knew their supplies were getting low.  I contacted FoodShare in Warrnambool and enquired whether they would be able to assist in supplying food that was easy to prepare to feed volunteers working in their paddocks.  FoodShare were more than happy to accommodate my requests and Sue and I immediately visited and collected the hamper that had been prepared.  Whilst in FoodShare Sue noticed that there were boxes full of toiletries and we asked if I could take some to distribute, they agreed and Sue filled up a shopping bag.  We went straight out and delivered the hamper.  Upon arriving at the farm they were overwhelmed by the generosity and timing of the delivery.  Sue offered some toiletries including toothpaste and the offer was met with tears.  They had just finished their last tube and didn’t know when they would be able to get another.  Sometimes it is the simplest things that make a really big difference.

Learning from this experience, we discovered that there may be others in a similar situation who would be too proud to ask for help or not have neighbours that looked out for them and there were.  We delivered many more food hampers and they were all gratefully accepted with many relieved that they now had easy meals to prepare in a time where they were extremely time poor.

We discovered that by delivering food hampers it not only showed that we cared but it started to build trust with the community and each time they felt more comfortable with us and relationships started to develop. During the delivery it was a great opportunity to start a conversation and gain an understanding of where they were at and if they needed any further support.  We could also discuss opportunities that they might have missed, particularly those opportunities that needed responses within a set time frame.

Hampers

Although the food hampers were only delivered to a small segment of the community, the response we received was overwhelmingly positive.  Receiving a hamper made the recipients feel good, and they knew that somebody outside their community cared about them.  The food hampers also allowed us to build relationships and gain an insight on how the impacted community were really feeling and how we could support them going forward. Knowing this we designed a hamper strategy that would allow us to engage with all of the impacted community’s.  Our strategy was to design hampers that were filled with items that were meaningful and useful and show that we cared.  

We chose the timing of Mother’s Day for our first hamper because families could use the items within the hamper as gifts to their mum if they were unable to get to town. It was important to us that the hampers contained good quality and thoughtful gifts that would encourage them to take time out and feel appreciated.

The mothers day hamper included:

• a potted plant
• writing pad and pen
• luxury bath soap and loofa
• a drawing from the local school
• high quality chocolates
• flavoured tea 
• personal hand written card
• biscuits

We hand delivered the hampers and there were a few tears from all of us .  Everybody was so grateful and used words like, “I can’t believe how much you care”. The Mother’s Day hampers were such a huge success we decided to do another one to coincide with Father’s Day and then Christmas.

We deliberately designed the Fathers Day hampers differently to the Mothers Day hampers; where the Mothers Day hampers were designed for self care, the Fathers Day hampers were designed to encourage sharing with friends and family.  We sourced locally handcrafted cheese boards and filled a high gloss black tote bag with a mixed cheese box, playing cards, peanuts, mixed crackers, a bouquet of native flowers, locally handmade wooden spinning tops accompanied with a handwritten card that encouraged them to share the contents. 

On receiving these hampers, many men were overcome with emotion and were overwhelmed to receive such a thoughtful gift months after the fire. It was satisfying to hear weeks later that many neighbours had gathered together and shared their hampers with each other.

Our final hamper was simply a beautifully packaged Lions Christmas cake.  This simple gesture again demonstrated that we understood our communities and that how a small gift reinforced that there were people that cared and supported them outside their community.

Whilst the hampers where purposeful with their well thought out contents, they also provided us with a valuable tool. We hand delivered each and every hamper, and where people were home, it provided us with a unique opportunity to engage with them on a personal level. The hamper opened many doors and for many, it was the first time they could see first hand how much we cared. For the ones that weren’t home, we left their hamper in a secure place at their back door. We received many messages of thank you and notes to say how grateful they were to receive such a meaningful gift. 

What we were doing here was building the foundation of community relationships, by showing we cared, it enabled trust to be built. A relationship built on genuine trust and honesty would allow us to have positive impacts and results within the community. 

Whilst delivering one hamper to a family that had been so busy trying to maintain their family dairy farm, they hadn’t an opportunity to take the children shopping for Mother’s Day presents, they described the hamper as the ultimate lifesaver. It now meant that kids would have something that they could give to their mum on Mother’s Day morning and that dad had one less thing to worry about. 

Whilst there was an enormous effort involved in coordinating the hampers and distributing them individually, the rewards would end up being enermous. 

Local knowledge 

We tried to gain as much information about the affected communities as possible from Council community development staff.  We wrote each township that had been affected by the fires on to an A3 sheet of paper and we invited Council staff to add any detail and information they had about the community.  The pages quickly filled with information relating to the hall committees, sporting clubs and buildings.  Interestingly, the majority of the conversations centered around infrastructure and there wasn’t a great deal of information about the people within the communities.

We remember being invited to attend lots of meetings with many organisations, and interest groups with a strong desire for us to coordinate events and workshops that they believed would be a fun activity to get the communities out of the house and socialising.  Even from our limited knowledge of the impacted community we knew that these types of events were too early.  

We also discovered staff from other agencies were parachuted in without our knowledge or understating of what their role was.  We found out that they were engaging with communities and making decisions and promises to community groups without any collaboration with us. Again these distractions took us away from our focus and provided us with no real value; it actually created more unnecessary work and challenges. 

Tip:

• Recovery is a long process
• Workshops and events 
• Don’t be afraid to take control 
• Debrief staff
• Acknowledge and reward / support staff

Recovery Best Practice

We undertook research that described the best practice method of delivering recovery to the community was through community recovery hubs and community recovery committees.  There was a strong narrative that the best way to engage with communities and to allow them to have an input into their recovery was by establishing a formal community recovery committee.  We advertised in our newsletters for willing participants to contact us to register interest in becoming a committee member.  As we had two fires, 100kms apart, research suggested that we should establish a community recovery hub where fire affected communities could access information and we believed the best location would be Warrnambool.  We started to discuss location options with Warrnambool City Council and searched for a suitable facility. Little did we know at this stage that this would not be the best model for the impacted communities.

ICC chaotic

Whilst still trying to fully understand the impacts we still had a requirement to participate in IEMT meetings at the ICC.  A decision was made to move the Colac ICC to Warrnambool ICC where they would take control of the fires that continued to burn within the Corangamite Shire.  The ICC was bursting at the seams with the amount of personnel suddenly doubling overnight.  Portable offices and amenities were craned into the carpark along with generators  to power the portable buildings.  Even with the added space of the additional buildings, people were still working with their laptops on their laps because there were no available tables to sit at.  

As we were still officially in the response phase we still had an EMLO from Council embedded in the ICC, however, it was still important for us to attend and liaise with agencies with our recovery planning as Council recovery was well underway.  

Official transition to recovery

Due to combining the Colac and Warrnambool ICC’s the fires in Moyne and Corangamite were classified as a complex of fires and would be now known as the South West Complex Fires.  While meaningless to us this document is a formal requirement to officially handover all responsibility to Council as the lead in recovery.  All I remember is that it took up a lot of my time and didn’t add any value to what we were doing which was to support the community.

Funding

Disaster funding is complex and complicated.  Disaster funding in Australia is primarily the responsibility of state and territory governments (‘the states’). However, in recognition of the significant cost of natural disasters, the Australian Government established the Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements (NDRRA) to alleviate the financial burden on the states and to facilitate the early provision of assistance to disaster affected communities.

There are four categories of assistance measures under the NDRRA: 1. 

Category A: assistance to individuals to alleviate personal hardship or distress arising as a direct result of a disaster. Category A assistance is provided automatically by the states without requiring approval from the Australian Government.

 2. Category B: assistance to the state, and/or local governments for the restoration of essential public assets and certain counter-disaster operations. Category B assistance also covers assistance to small businesses, primary producers, not-for-profit organisations and needy individuals through concessional loans, subsidies or grants. Category B assistance is provided automatically by the states without requiring approval from the Australian Government. 

3. Category C: assistance for severely affected communities, regions or sectors and includes clean-up and recovery grants for small businesses and primary producers and/or the establishment of a Community Recovery Fund. Category C assistance is only made available when the impact of a disaster is severe. It is intended to be in addition to assistance under Categories A and B and is usually considered once the impacts of the disaster on affected communities have been assessed. Category C assistance is requested from the states and requires agreement from the Prime Minister. 

4. Category D: exceptional circumstances assistance beyond Categories A to C. Category D assistance is generally considered once the impact of the disaster has been assessed and specific recovery gaps identified. Category D assistance is requested from the states and requires agreement from the Prime Minister. 

Category C funding is for recovery to help people, however as mentioned above Category C assistance is only made available when the impact of a disaster is severe.  

The South West Fires did not qualify for Category C funding as it did not meet the criteria. No public infrastructure assets were lost or damaged during the fires that occurred at Garvoc and Gazette the fires only impacted private property so we had no access to those funds.  It seems odd to us that in response to a disaster there is no questioning of the financial costs to protect life and property however, in recovery funding is only made available if infrastructure has been lost or damaged.  Weirdly, the focus shifts from people to buildings. 

Without being eligible for this funding it was reliant on Council to fund the initial recovery efforts for smaller rural councils this could be great impost and for some not possible. Council, in our case, quickly agreed to support the initial recovery clean up.

We continued to fight the funding battle and argued that financial assistance was required to support the ongoing recovery of the community’s.

South West Fires Recovery Managers Meetings

Although the Leadership and Recovery Pillar Committee meetings had been established immediately following the fires we quickly realised that we needed to regularly meet with a group of agencies that actually had staff on the ground like us.  We decided on a membership of Council Recovery Managers (Corangamite & Moyne), DHHS, DELWP and Agriculture Vic.  AgVic kindly hosted and administered the meetings for the group.  Unlike the pillar committee meetings, we felt that these meetings not only provided a great opportunity to share information but it actually got things done.

An example of where this newly established group was able to achieve a great result for the community was by resolving the issue of large tree heaps on private property.

Heaps of trees and trees of heaps

Roads in the fire affected area were single lane carriage ways with trees on either side close to the farm fence line. When those trees fell down due to the winds or were burt down due to the fires, the majority of the trees fell over the road.  Roads were cleared but the reserve on the side of the roads were too narrow to pile the trees safely so trees were piled on private property.  In some cases there were over 12 piles over 10m high on one property alone.  In total we had over 120 tree piles on private property.  

Farmers were keen to re-fence and Blazeaid were on the ground booking in farms to re-fence boundary fencing but the heaps were in the way. The immediate issue was who was responsible for the clean up and the associated costs. The pillar groups however, were more focussed on developing policy and implementing process. 

Farmers, however, were saying that they were road reserve trees belonged to Council and they should cleaned up and fast.  Farmers were getting angry and a solution needed to be found quickly.   Following a lot of advocating through the newly formed group, funding was received and DELWP would be the agency responsible for the heaps.  However, they estimated that it would take two years to clean up all the heaps.  We knew that this was not acceptable. 

We used our newly formed relationships within the group to facilitate and coordinate the rapid removal of tree heaps that would enable farmers to utilise the support of Blazeaid to assist in referencing their property.

Following the Fires 

The state government was pushing us to hold formal meetings with the fire affected communities immediately after the fires.  We pushed back for weeks knowing that farmers were extremely busy looking after and feeding their remaining stock.  Blazeaid had also arrived in the area and fencing was a priority.

From our recent on farm visits, we discovered that most fell into bed late into the night and rose again as soon as the sun came up.  They wouldn’t, nor should they be expected to, attend a meeting just because the state government wanted to hold one.  We understood our community but it was tough to push back. However, at all times we put the community’s needs first and we knew that we were making the right decision.

Finally, after six weeks we decided that the time was right to hold a series of sessions with the community called “Following the Fires”.  We thought long and hard about how these sessions would be run and what we would talk about but our ultimate goal was to start the recovery conversation, not tell the community how it was going to be or how we were going to do this and that, we simply wanted to start the conversation with them about their recovery.  Unfortunately some agencies didn’t like the approach we were taking and refused to participate.  Feeling a little disillusioned that they wouldn’t support our concept we were even more determined to go ahead with our Following the Fire Sessions and start the conversation with the community.

We planned four sessions across both fires and our first was held at the Garvoc Hall.  We both clearly  remember standing outside the Hall and thinking what could we possibly do to help these people, some who had lost everything and most who had watched their entire farm burn to the ground. 

What we did provide was support and care.  Each person was welcomed with open arms and provided with a cup of tea or coffee and a biscuit, we did not pretend to be people we weren’t. We allowed our personalities to be on display, and most importantly we listened, and we wore our hearts on our sleeves, we were kind, compassionate and honest. 

Instead of following the traditional meeting seating layout, we made a conscious effort to remove any barriers between us, agencies and the community, it needed to be a conversation with equal opportunities for open discussion where questions could be asked and answered, it was not to be a forum for government agencies presenting their ideologies to the community. To the amusement of some agencies but to the delight of many of the community members,we all sat in a circle where the agencies that did decide to participate, provided an outline of their services and explained how they could assist. Members of the community asked questions and were provided with answers.  

When it came to Council we were open and frank with our opening address, that made it very clear we were here to support them and remove the barriers of bureaucracy. We outlined that following disasters what normally happens is that we form a community recovery committee.  We explained who might be on the committee and how it might run.  We then asked them what they thought. 

Their immediate response was “no thank you”.  “What we don’t need is another committee”.  What we do need is for you to come to us and be flexible,we are busy people and we don’t have time for bullshit meetings and we don’t want to meet up at the hall.  A discussion ensued on how we might be able to meet their request and advice came from everybody including people that had been impacted in 1983 by the Ash Wednesday fires.  They shared with us their experiences and outlined what worked well then and what didn’t.  Listening to the community on that night provided valuable information on what their needs were and even how to meet them. Following this session a senior Victoria Police member stated that, “Wow, that is how community engagement should work”.

We were both really happy with the first session and the feedback that we received on the informality of the meeting and appreciation of our honesty and transparency.  We were delighted that the community were open to sharing their ideas and honest opinions with us.

We then visited the Penshurst Hall and met with the community where the majority of attendees were not directly impacted by the fire but came to air their concerns and frustrations in relation to the community warnings they received or did not receive, on the night of the fire. At the Hawkesdale Hall we listened mainly again to the broader community talk about what happened that night.  Only a few directly affected community members attended and spoke about their immediate needs. We had three successful meetings under our belt and then we participated in the Gazette meeting.  

The Gazette meeting however, did not go as planned. Miscommunication from agencies to the local community of whom many were CFA volunteers misinterpreted the purpose of the meeting and believed it was an opportunity for them to debrief and raise concerns in relation to internal CFA operational matters.  The CFA volunteers were angry and wanted their concerns addressed.  All of this took the focus away from the community and the purpose of the meeting.  We felt like we were guests in a neighbouring shire and found it difficult to get the meeting back on track. The location was ideal and didn’t provide a neutral space with many community members deciding not to attend because they didn’t feel comfortable with the choice in venue. After the meeting concluded we were able to speak directly with some of the directly fire affected community members who clearly told us that they would not attend any further meetings.

What was clearly understood from all of the Following the Fires sessions was that none of the directly fire affected communitys’ were in favour of a community recovery committee sighting that it would be more government red tape and nothing would be achieved by having one – it would just be a waste of time, time they didn’t have.  They didn’t like formal processes, they were time poor, they hated getting changed to go somewhere, they were busy on farm, they wanted practical support when they needed it, they didn’t want brochures, they didn’t want to be lectured too or told how they should feel or act or what to do or when to do it.  Some didn’t know what they wanted or needed but all said that they wouldn’t travel even short distances to go somewhere to get information.

We now knew that each community wanted us to come to them, at a time that suited them and that we had to be flexible with our approach and not be driven by rules and regulation. We were working with busy farmers who had businesses to reestablish and maintain. 

There was increased pressure from government agencies for us to establish a community recovery committee and open a community recovery hub in a major town even though the community clearly told us that they wouldn’t support that model.  We were at a crossroad of whether to follow best practice models and cave into the pressure or do we devise a new model that would actually meet the needs of the community.  

Although we both agreed we wanted to meet the community’s needs we were a little lost in how to actually deliver this to the community. 

After the meeting in Gazette, we thought that it would make sense to coordinate recovery for the entire Gazette fire rather than stopping at the local government boundary.  A proposal was put forward to the two CEO’s. The CEO’s agreed and we started our engagement with land owners in Southern Grampians.

.

Tips

• Before planning your community meetings, consider the limitations and potential issues that may be encountered by using a particular venue or location. 
• Ensure all stakeholders that will be presenting at the meeting have a clear understanding of the purpose and intent of each meeting. 
• Be clear on who is leading the meeting and how the meeting will be conducted. eg Formal meeting with agendas, or informal gatherings and sharing of ideas. 

The van

Sue

We knew that the community wanted us to come to them from the discussions we had during the Following the Fires community sessions.  But how were we going to do that?  We had no money and after many meetings to try and secure some funding we were told that “Sometimes people are more creative when they have no money.” This statement made us angry at the time but in hindsight the advice was right.  We needed to be creative to make this work.  We visited with the local caravan sales shops and spoke to them about buying a second hand caravan or a new caravan.  But we couldn’t come up with the money.  We even spoke to Victoria Police as they had an old caravan that they used to support their operations, but it wasn’t suitable for our needs.  Then Mat had an idea.  We both are volunteers with CFA and he remembered that they had a Mercedes van called an FOV; a field operations vehicle.  This vehicle was housed in Hamilton and was only used once or twice during the year.  We went to Hamilton to have a look.   There was a long bench running down one side with whiteboards and storage. It had two generators that powered a heater/airconditioner, a fridge and all the powerpoints.  There was a kettle and chairs and an awning.  It was perfect!  Mat spoke with the CFA Operations Manager and he suggested to us that we write a proposal and he would seek support from the Assistant Chief Officer for our region.  Our proposal was that we would use the van for recovery efforts and Council would pay for the fuel and we would train CFA volunteers in our region how to use the FOV. We also agreed to be on call and respond the vehicle if requested for an emergency.  The ACO supported the proposal and the deal was done – we had a van!

We wanted the van to be comfortable and inviting so we bought a welcome door mat and some pot plants, delicious coffee, a jaffle maker and lots of tim tam biscuits.  

Now that we had the van we had to carefully plan where the van would stop, for how long and at what times. We knew that if it visited the dairy area too early or too late farmers would be milking and they would not come, we also knew that it was important to visit areas during lunch, morning or afternoon tea times.  These times would provide the community with a  good excuse or motivator to visit the van,  they could grab a coffee and biscuit or a jaffle for lunch.  We also knew we had to select times and locations and establish a weekly routine. We also had the distance to consider as it was 100 kms between the two fires.  The location on the side of the road also had to be safe for cars to park and for us to be safely off the road.

We visited the areas again this time with a focus on selecting the van locations. The only location that we could safely stop the van in Gazette was at the CFA fire Station which also was the epicentre of the disaster.  It had already been a focal point for the community to gather following the fires and there was ample room for parking. We chose a second location for the community at the southern end of the Gazette fire as there simply wasn’t a road that the community could easily travel on to get them conveniently to the Gazette location. That second location was in the centre of the southern end of the Gazette fire on Jelbarts Rd, a narrow dirt road that had been decimated by fire with a road reserve that was wide enough for us to safely set up the van.  

Mat

People would be amazed to hear that we were able to squish eight adults inside a small van on the side of Jelbarts Rd one wintery morning.  When we arrived on the road to set up, the wind picked up and the rain started to fall.  We couldn’t set up the awning or the table and chairs outside.  We took shelter in the van and thought that nobody would attend in this terrible weather.  However, it wasn’t long before an agency representative knocked on the side of the van, we quickly ushered her in and shut the door.  No sooner had the kettle boiled there was another knock on the door. Four more community had arrived and in they squished.  Although it was squashy in the van, the conversations quickly centred around the price of stock feed.  To our surprise the door slid open and in jumped another community member from a nearby farm.  There were now eight inside the van enjoying a hot coffee and laughing at this crazy situation. None of them seemed deterred and were looking forward to seeing us again next week with hopefully better weather. 

Our decision on where to park the van in Garvoc we thought was going to be relatively simple. The road reserve at the intersection of five roads was the centre of the Garvoc fire and it seemed to be a logical place to set up the van.  After a closer inspection this location was not safe and we chose a location a few hundred metres down the road beside a fire dam on the Sisters-Garvoc Rd.  This location we thought would be perfect.

However, realising that Garvoc was made up of many communities and to support their request of coming to them we believed we needed to establish a second location south of the highway.  Our options of finding a suitable location south of the highway were limited as the roads were narrow and the road reserves were lined with trees.  The only suitable location was on Howards Rd, at the southern edge of the fire where the road reserve was wide enough to set up the van and it was extremely well maintained by the land owner.  Having a second location in Garvoc proved to be beneficial for the community.

I recall setting up the van for the very first time on the Sisters-Garvoc Rd, on a freezing cold July afternoon. We nervously fussed about the van with great anticipation that somebody would visit.  It wasn’t long before our first visitor arrived armed with paperwork that she needed assistance to complete.  We made her a cup of tea and offered her a tim tam and it wasn’t long before our next visitor arrived again with paperwork that he needed assistance with. Little did we know although they were neighbouring farmers they had never formally met before.  

By week two our two visitors had turned into 25.  So many people were coming to lunch on the side of the Sisters-Garvoc Rd it wasn’t long that we transitioned from jaffles to a BBQ (which we borrowed).  On some days Mat was cooking for 25 people who were gathered at the van on the side of the road.  Some days it was so cold, that the BBQ couldn’t heat up enough to sizzle the sausages and we had to wrap the BBQ in a blanket.  It took 2hrs to cook the snags!  Poor Mat was on his knees trying to keep the flames burning.  Nobody seemed to mind, some chatted while others just sat and kept to themselves.  On several occasions we also ordered hot meals from a nearby hotel where we served casserole with two vegetables and dessert.  

On other days it was horribly hot and windy.  We lost our awning during one gusty wind and broke two marquees over the year.  We have been bogged, we had been rained on, we got sunburnt, but routinely and consistently we ensured the van was there every week.

I remember looking out the door of the van and seeing two older farmers walking away from the group they were in deep conversation about what I don’t know.  Going about making cups of coffee I glanced back towards the direction that they had headed and saw them embrace each other. It was a magical moment for me to see two men that had been deeply devastated by the fires, who barely knew each other, able to share their support for each other.  Witnessing this, I knew that this would not have happened without the van which made it so rewarding.  This would be the first of many times both Mat and I would witness such wonderful moments of the community coming together to provide support for each other.

At the van:

• relationships began to grow
• friendships were formed
• problems were solved
• frustrations were shared
• tears were shed

Whilst both sites at Garvoc and Jelbarts Rd, were quickly proving to be a massive success, Gazette however was slow to take off. On the first day a very worried fire affected farmer informed us of his concerns for a fellow farmer who had been impacted by the fire.  He only stayed long enough to express his concerns and thanked us for being there for the community. He would end up being our only visitor for six weeks. Many people told us that the van clearly wasn’t working at Gazette and that we should stop going there. 

After five weeks at Gazette with no visitors we had a conversation with each other about how long we should wait for the community to visit the van before we stop going. We then recalled hearing Dr Rob Gordon say that recovery efforts had to be consistent and recovery takes a long time with everyone recovering at their own pace. So we agreed that we would stay for as long as it took, we were pretty adamant at this stage that the van would work at Gazette as well as the other locations it would just be a matter of time.  On week six we sat in the van for two hours, with no visitors then suddenly a ute pulled into the driveway of the fire station.  We tried to contain our excitement and openly welcomed them into the van for a cuppa and a tim tam.  They asked lots of questions and appeared to enjoy our weird sense of humour.  They then became regulars and spread the word within the community that “Those people at the van were all right!”

This worked and we received many visits from people seeking advice which we gratefully provided. 

 The community told us that even though they had not visited much in the past they felt supported and comforted knowing that the van was there.

Mat

One afternoon at the van on the Sisters-Garvoc Rd a farmer who had not previously visited the van arrived in search of advice.  It wasn’t advice from us he was looking for he sought advice from other farmers about how to overcome milk quality issues caused by the fire.  A huddle of dairy farmers, ranging in ages with some having previous experience of being impacted by the Ash Wednesday bushfires, quickly formed.  Advice flowed providing him with several options to explore. He thanked them and left.  In two to three weeks he was back and became a regular weekly visitor who would participate in discussions over lunch.  

The van wasn’t just a place for men to attend, women and children were attended regularly.  Unbeknownst to his mum, one young child experienced eating his first tim tam at the van.  The van was also a  place for celebration.  We celebrated many birthdays with a cake and candles and the community gathered around and sang happy birthday to their new friends.  

more stories here – Morans – old mate with bloody hands – Joey sausage eating competition 

Ben’s first tim tam

Les and the Bavarian rings

Big Ted

DEWLP visited the van – michael davies & simon connected with the people – human connection more than somebody’s name of a piece of paper – committed to seeing it through

Landcare – connected – tree planting – seeds – relationships = outcomes

diversity of people and experiences – arthur was a deep sea diver who worked all over the world – Brad is a chartered accountant – put this in relationships – how to build them and don’t judge a book by its cover – 

Ken – distrusted council at the building – a waste of time and money – upon discovering that we were providing psychological support and guidance – it was very clever (in disguise) – dragons (well travelled, well read)

people selling their properties and moving away following the fires

McHenry and Rentsch relationship fractured and the van brought them together

dispel myths – 

• social capital

Write about our experience with Mick Hooper (no name) on our first encounter with a dairy farmer aged in his 60’s, who had lost his home, sheds, caravan, ute, tractor, agriculture equipment and a large amount of livestock. We turned off the road into his driveway that was until the fire lined with enormous elm trees, as we looked up into the distance we could see the charged remnants of farming equipment and the old stock yards. The burnt house and sheds had been removed and where they once stood were bare patches of dirt. We both looked at each other and without speaking a word, we both thought, what the hell could we possibly do to help this man and his family, they had lost everything. As we neared the parked cars at the top of a drive, we could see a couple of men standing there with a pondering look on their faces. As we drove closer a man who we soon discovered to be the owner approached our vehicle, as we got out of our vehicle Mat began to introduce us as Recovery officers from Council, we were quickly met with, “and you can fuck off” Mat tried to explain ways in which we could provide assistance with process’s such as building permits, he said, “I won’t be Fucken building till I get my bloody business back up and running, the house is the least of my problems. After offering to leave our details we were once again politely told where we could go, and we did. 

However having an appreciation that he was not taking aim at us personally and understanding that he was suffering from severe trauma we did not dismiss him totally and marked him on our list to re-visit. It would be very easy to simply say he rejected any assistance from Council and never make contact again, which you may easily justify to yourself if you applied a process and statistics approach to your recovery strategy. We on the other hand knew that he needed assistance, however was just not ready for it yet.   (to be continued)

Grants – aren’t what they appear to be reimbursements

Insurance – 

Many people make the assumption that everybody has some level of insurance but it is not always the case.  Whilst it is easy from the outside to be judgemental towards those that don’t have insurance there are many reasons why some people are not.  For some people affected by these fires it was not because of naivety that they did not have insurance, it was due to circumstances such as ill health and unemployment that meant that things like insurance had to be sacrificed to simply survive. 

Some people who thought that they were fully insured quickly discovered that their policy was different to what they had been told and in fact they were under insured. These people were suddenly faced with added trauma and would now need to rethink how to best use what was available to them.  Some would share with us how painful and onerous it was to claim on their insurance where they were required to document and itemise all their losses.

Class Action

One of the biggests causes of stress to the community was the early initiation of the class action legal process.  Both the Garvoc and Gazette fire affected communities were set upon quickly by lawyers as initially the ignition for both fires seemed to start from electrical infrastructure failure.  Lawyers were on the ground within the first week signing people up to a class action.  Many of the community felt pressured to make a decision on whether to participate in the class action.  For some it was already difficult, in the early stages after the fire, to process information, this added another layer of complexity that they did not need nor want.  Many farmers expressed their anger to us about this occurring on top of all the other information they had to process and make decisions about.  The class action process went on for years, for those that opted into the class action, were required to attend meetings, but one of the most painful parts of the process was documenting their loss in detail.  For lawyers this was simply seen as a process to be completed but for the participants it meant that they had to relive the pain and suffering of their loss. 

We noticed that this was starting to cause division within the community’s.  It created confusion and caused neighbours to question 

• issues broader than the fire – came for a chat 
• general stresses were discussed – 
• share ideas – how 
• relationships built with other agencies
• Historical feuds between farming families
• linked with swh and colac area health – counsellors would call us to get stuff fixed

The model deeply embedded in the community and was the driver of their recovery including timelines and outcomes.  As opposed to traditional models of recovery where community recovery committees are established this model truly listened and allowed the community to direct their recovery objectives according to their timelines rather than being compliant with state or local government time frames.  This model also allowed the team to engage with all the community rather than just those who participate in traditional committee structured meetings. The team even pushed back to state government on several occasions due to the communication and feedback they were receiving from the fire affected communities.

express their frustrations and concerns.  They were genuinely listened too.  Set the tone for the entire recovery effort. 

before disaster/emergency	during disaster emergency	after disaster emergency
normal person going about their normal business you have a past you may have health issuesyou may have mental health issueslife might be good	BANGyou are involved in an incidentcould be short and quick or prolonged	you immediately have jobs to do and you focus on thatyou are labeled as a “fire victimyou are processed you are required to fit with government timelinesyou need to conform otherwise you will miss outcommunity say ÿou should be fine now – the fire was such a long time agothe expectation is that you must recover quicklyyou lose your identityYou have people wanting to help you humility in having to ask or receive helpyou loose your privacy – suddenly everybody believes they have access to your spacenobody outside the fire understands what it is like

EMV Community Debrief

good – provided the community with opportunity to have their say, thought it was independently run process and they felt they were able to air their views on a variety of topics including Telstra, powercor, blue gum plantations, CFA, DELWP, Agvic

The turnaround time after the community provided their information and receiving the final outcome was a very long and slow process. When the formal debrief report was completed, there was to method of delivery to the impacted communities other than a link on the EMV website. It would be of benefit for the communities to be presented with a hardcopy of the report combined with a presentation of the learnings and thank them for their feedback. This would complete the communication loop and provide many members of the community with some closure and ways that would allow them as a community to contribute to some of the recommended improvements. 

Context

Age, religion, workforce, men, women, socio-economic differences, children, family violence, etc

What we do know that is important is that we must listen to our communities, and I mean that it the very plural sense, in that there are many, many communities within a community. There are communities, defined by geographical location, by industry, by religion, by gender, by age group, by sporting / social groups, the list goes on. What is important is that we don’t fall into the trap of classifying or grouping them into one basket, and think that we can deliver a Relief & Recovery model of one size fits all. We must take the time to listen to their needs and provide a service that they require and need. Sure you could go out and deliver a service based on what you think the community will want or need, based on your own perspective but all that will enable you to do is to tick a box and say you have undertaken Relief and Recovery, but you would have done very little to support your communities. 

Understand your community – what makes it tick

Why men don’t ask for help

Everyone has a past

Nobody wakes up in the morning and thinks they are going to experience the worst day of their lives.

Our experience

Emergencies happen to real people

The van visited Gazette every Tuesday from 12-3.  Every Tuesday we drove 60kms to Gazette and set up the van outside the Gazette Fire Station.  On our first visit we were excited to get one visitor.  Then for the next six weeks we got no one.  I remember sitting in the van in winter week after week with the wind buffeting the van and rain hitting the van horizontally and nobody was visiting us.  But we were confident that they would.  Rob Gordon had told us that if you do something, be consistent, if you are consistent they will come.  I even said those words out loud when driving to Gazette on week six, “Dr Rob said, if we are consistent and it’s right they will come.” And he was right!  On week six we set up the van as usual and hoped that somebody would come and they did!  And they continued to come.  

Complexity

Crossing LGA

The two fires crossed three local government areas with some residents even owning parcels of land across two local government areas making it important for those Councils to work together when making decisions. Moyne should be congratulated on their quick decision to provide what was needed to the affected communities. This quick decision enabled recovery efforts to begin immediately rather than having to wait for a commitment from the state or federal governments regarding funding.

Ash Wednesday 1983

prior experience of disaster etc

add maps to demonstrate size of fires and distance between the two

Garvoc was impacted during the Ash Wednesday Fires in 1983.  These were the most devastating fires the state of Victoria had seen.

on 16 February 1983 Within twelve hours, more than 180 fires fanned by winds of up to 110 km/h (68 mph) caused widespread destruction across the states of Victoria and South Australia.^[4] Years of severe drought and extreme weather combined to create one of Australia’s worst fire days in a century.^[5] The fires became the deadliest bushfire in Australian history until the Black Saturday bushfires in 2009.

In Victoria, 47 people died – 9 died in Framlingham/Ballengeich area

CFA trauma from ash Wednesday and then again these fires

Brad as a young 13/14 year old with a farmer dad – during Ash Wednesday

Mick and Angus talking about Ash Wednesday for the first time – not friends but talking about what happened to them.

Loss of Identity

Loss of identity for survivors adds to the complexity – who are they now?? In some cases you will not know the survivors prior to an emergency so you don’t know who is not travelling well.  Thats why peer to peer gatherings are so important – they know how somebody before the disaster behaved and can gauge their behaviour after.

Spontaneous volunteers

Community that want to help by starting up a non for profit and then get bored and walk away

Following a disaster, there are many people in the community that feel the need and necessity to provide support and help disaster affected people. Whilst most often their intentions are well intended, they do produce a lot of hard work and effort on your part to coordinate them. They are driven by their vision of helping people and what they believe will be a just a small gesture, quickly becomes something alot bigger than what they perhaps intended. They start to receive media exposure about the wonderful support they are providing and they quickly become overwhelmed with the publicity and then the demand for their services. This then has to be managed and somewhat controlled by the Recovery Manager. 

Regreen for fire aid 

landcare 

Blazeaid –  fantastic but adds pressure – and acknowledge that other groups support Blazeaid but give no credit for their support.

Mental Health

Context

Makwana states that, “After emergencies people are more likely to suffer from a range of mental health problems. Emotional instability, stress reactions, anxiety, trauma and other psychological symptoms are observed commonly after the disaster and other traumatic experiences. These psychological effects have a massive impact on the concerned individual and also on communities.”

Hackbarth et al. state that disasters may put the victims in a state of despair and shock. This traumatic experience disrupts the fully-functioning life of the victims and brings loss for individuals, families and communities. Families experiencing natural disasters faced a loss of their identity by losing the work they have been engaged. Also, there is a lack of hope and a disturbance of their roles in the respective community post-disaster.

Having this knowledge enabled us to understand the challenges that the community would be confronted with following these fires. Based on this research we knew that there would be an increase in the need for mental health support post emergency.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) further supported our belief by determining that a wide range of mental health problems increase as the result of emergencies as indicated in Table 1.

Not only can emergencies have a profound effect on body and mind, but as Gordon’s research shows it also affects a person’s social system.   Following an emergency, people go through a debonding or social disconnection phase. Gordon states that, “Emergencies create widespread social disruption, which easily translates into degraded quality of life and undermines the social fabric of the affected community.   

Ommeren et al found that by encouraging normal activities with active participation in the community, community stress could be reduced. And people should be encouraged to engage in tangible, purposeful activities of common interests.  Strengthening community bonds would also help to reduce the effects the disaster would have on people’s mental health.  

Mental Health Stats

Combined with the above evidence that mental health deteriorates post disaster and the negative impacts emergencies have on social bonds, the below statistics in relation to mental health pre disaster provide a grim overview of the communities mental health status.   Suicide in South West Victoria is growing.  Research by the University of Melbourne using data from the Victorian Suicide Register (2009-2014) revealed that:

• Deaths from suicide in the Great South Coast region doubled between 2009-2014 with

• 65% of suicides were people working on farms
• 84% of Great South Coast suicides were middle aged men aged between 35 and 63 years
• 44% who died were being treated for physical illness and pain or injury
• 25% of men who died by suicide were perpetrators of partner violence.

Combing the data of suicide statistics in the region pre disaster with the evidence of an increase in the need for mental health support post disaster and with most of the affected farmers male and over the age of 45, we knew we had to provide a model that would engage them but also be inclusive of women and children. Through initial engagement, we quickly learnt that farming men also lived up to some of the stereotypical clichés in that they were too proud to talk about mental health, and that they were strong and invincible on the outside. Initially we phoned all of the survivors and a common response was, “I’m ok.  There are others that have been more affected than me.”  From this consistent response, we knew that they were not going to respond to telephone calls asking them about how they were going. And we knew that during early discussions that they would not actively engage with social workers or psychologists, who they would often refer to as, ”quacks”.  

One state based agency had a flyer that contained the words “financial counselling” and with just the word “counselling” many farmers discounted the service because they were of the opinion that they didn’t need to be counselled!

Further concerning statistics were that:

• 54% of people with mental illness do not access any treatment
• suicide is the leading cause of death for Australians aged 25-44 and the second leading cause of death for young people aged 15-24
• Men are at greatest risk of suicide but least likely to seek help. In 2011 men accounted for over three quarters (76%) of deaths from suicide
• An estimated 72% of males don’t seek help for mental disorders
• One in seven Australians will experience depression in their lifetime
• The World Health Organisation estimates that depression will be the number one health concern in both the developed and developing nations by 2030

Our community based strategy

Armed with the research and statistics, combined with discussions with the community we knew that we had to have a model that encouraged not only male farmers but women and children to come together regularly, informally and at a convenient location.  The model needed to fit with their farming lifestyle and be flexible and be a place where they felt they could express their opinions and views without judgement.  

Knowing that “It has been recognised both in Australia and internationally that psychosocial support in emergencies is best delivered as a community-based activity, rather than within a medical health system.”  we had discussions with the community about what types of community based activities they would engage in.  They all said they were not interested in attending formal committee style activities, or other large events that required them to dress up and be paraded around town at inconvenient times. 

What they did want is for us to come to them, as Ken Rees stated, “People wouldn’t drive to a hall or into town.” It needed to be informal, a place that didn’t require farmers to change their clothes.  It needed to be at a convenient location and time (not during milking) and provide them a purpose to visit.  We decided that the best method to meet their needs would be with a van.

A van would enable us to visit multiple locations across the two fires each week at a consistent time and literally pull up on the side of the road. Initially the van provided a transactional service where forms and information were dispensed and advice and information shared.  These regular interactions is where relationships were established and trust was built.  As time progressed the length of time people would spend at the van increased and we witnessed people meeting for the first time and having a conversation over a cup of coffee.  To further enhance the social bonding that was occurring and to encourage opportunities for longer discussions we started to provide meals at each location.  By providing a meal it established a weekly routine where they looked forward to coming each week.  

Brad Porter, a farmer who regularly visited the van said, “Why I visit the van is that it was a good meeting place, it was a great meeting place.  It was important for the community to have the van, the importance of the van can’t be underestimated.   It brings people together, it’s a place to meet and greet and chat, and also eat, it just gives you time out and something to look forward too.  You can vent your anger and frustrations out with others, we are all in it together and as a community the van brings people together and I think that’s really important .  It’s helped bring our community together, it’s also been a wonderful resource centre to be able to access information on how to do what and how to access what, how to get help where and when.  The most important thing is checking up on your neighbours, if your neighbour is not there well why isn’t your neighbour there.  It’s a very non intrusive way of just checking up on your neighbours and ensuring that they are ok – from a mental health perspective it’s just been fantastic. I love going down there.”

There were many in depth and emotional conversations had at the van, some were conducted as very private discussions during a walk up the road, and others occurred amongst peers.  Many of these conversations conducted between peers created a foundation for social bonding and care for each to develop.  The Sphere Hand book outlines that, “Strengthening community psychosocial support and self-help creates a protective environment, allowing those affected to help each other towards social and emotional recovery. Focused individual, family or group interventions are important, but do not necessarily have to be provided by mental health professionals. They can also be provided by trained and supervised lay people.”

As time went on relationships continued to develop both at the van as well as outside the van.  The van had provided the opportunity for friendships to be developed to a point where they could support each other as part of their day to day lives.  There were many occasions where the challenges of recovery were overwhelming and because of the van, they could rely on each other for support.  Mrs Porter attributes much of the survival of her community to the van and the comfortable approach it brings. “Initially I thought it was a hocus pocus idea as I’ve worked in community and rural health for 25 years.  But the engagement of the van has been absolutely incredible.”  

Why it worked

A resident affected by the devastating fires and a regular at the van said, “The van provided immediate access to information and disguised itself as a mental health support service to those who needed it.  The van literally saved lives.”

Farmer Michael Hopper, who regularly attended the van said, “That when you go to the van you found out that other farmers had similar problems and were going through the same things you were going through.  It was just good to talk to them and discuss things with them. Sometimes we had the same worries and other times it was just a day out.  A coffee and a talk.  It was a good place to get rid of your stress.”

A community based activity is not new, Keets, et al, describes community-based mental health services, typically consist of a multidisciplinary, multi-service therapeutic care network that can provide a broad spectrum of flexible interventions tailored to the needs of users, which will ultimately allow people to recover in their home environment with support from their social network.  Although psychosocial support delivered as a community based activity is not new in general mental health services it is rarely practised, post disaster. But what the van highlights is that this model of outreach could be used in any community and provide benefits.

The van provided an informal safe place where friends and neighbours could check up on their mates.  If somebody wasn’t at the van, why weren’t they?

The van:

• Allowed peers to check in with each other in a non-intrusive manner;
• Provided a safe place to share experiences;
• Provided respite;
• Connected people;
• Was informal and nonthreatening;
• Engaged with a demographic that is notoriously difficult to engage with, without excluding women and children;
• Improved the mental health of the impacted community by building new routines, provided an opportunity to have a chat, encouraged them to undertake activities that made them feel happy; it created a new environment where they felt safe and comfortable – something to look forward too;
• Created a trusted environment where people felt comfortable to seek further mental health support;
• Connected people with further support services 
• Provided a means for us to monitor/evaluate the health and wellbeing of attendees and organise interventions when required
• Built resilience within an affected community
• Was consistent.  It met at the same four locations on the same day and time for over 40 weeks
• Facilitated the opportunities for micro projects to occur

National suicide prevention implementation strategy 2020-2025 states that, “…non-clinical, community-based, home-like environments with services staffed by a combination of peers and community support workers, where they feel safe, supported and genuinely understood, would best help them through a crisis and promote recovery.”

Most importantly we provided the space that enabled social bonding to occur, in a neutral environment that allowed community friendships and trust with one another to develop. A once segregated community was now coming together to support each other; resilience was being built. It wasn’t just in one location it was across all four locations and quite remarkably, relationships developed between community members from all the fires, because of the social bonding that occurred at social gatherings that were coordinated by us. 

Whilst many people attended the van for many reasons a common outcome was that they were provided with psychosocial support from their peers.

Integrated support systems

In 2016 South West Primary Care Partnership (SWPCP) was funded by State Government, initially in response to the dairy milk downturn.  SWPCP formed the Farmer Outreach Program with membership from dairy industry, state government and mental health providers.  Following the fires, this group’s focus broadened to include fire affected dairy farmers.  On discovering the existence of this group we expressed interest to be involved.  We were then able to share knowledge and establish links with health services in the region to identify pathways for community needing further mental health support.

South West Healthcare is the primary mental health provider in the South West.  We met regularly with the mental health outreach team and discussed pathways for support.  They were always on the end of the phone if we had concerns or questions about a conversation that we had been part of.  

There was an open invitation for mental health professionals to come to the van, and at times they would attend in an attempt to build trust and establish connections with the community. We encouraged the community members to engage with the mental health outreach team, however there was still some stigma attached to talking to a “shrink” or a professional about your problems. Many of the survivors would engage in small talk and be polite, and although we knew deep down they were hurting, when asked by a mental health professional, how they were travelling, the standard answer would be rolled off their tongue, “Yeah nah all good here”, or, “I’m going well”. Talking to someone about how you were feeling was something that members of these communities where not experienced with and asking for help or talking about your problems was not the accepted or done thing. 

Due to the relationship that we had with the community if they did feel that they needed to speak to a mental health professional they trusted us to suggest pathways and support them on their journey and sometimes due to our relationship with SWH we could expediate the intake process..  We also referred people to read credible online mental health support material from agencies such as Beyond Blue and Lifeline.  

Guidelines

We used the Inter-Agency Standing Committee Guidelines on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Emergency Settings to guide our approach to mental health.  It was a multilayered approach that transferred information up and down the layers as needed.

Figure 1. Intervention pyramid for mental health and psychosocial support in emergencies. Each layer is described below

Integrated support systems across the four layers ensure that there is no fragmentation of services. The van filled both the Community and Family support and the focused layers, non-specialised supports levels with South West Healthcare providing the specialised services.

• Allowed peers to check in with each other in a non-intrusive manner;
• We listened without judgement;
• Provided a safe place to share experiences;
• Provided respite;
• Connected people;
• Was informal and nonthreatening;
• Engaged with a demographic that is notoriously difficult to engage with;
• Improved the mental health of the impacted community by building new routines, provided an opportunity to have a chat, encouraged them to undertake activities that made them feel happy; it created a new environment where they felt safe and comfortable – something to look forward too;
• Created a trusted environment where people felt comfortable to seek further mental health support;
• Connected people with further support services 
• Provided a means for us to monitor/evaluate the health and wellbeing of attendees and organise interventions when required
• Built resilience within an affected community
• Consistent.  It met at the same four locations on the same day and time for over 40 weeks
• Facilitated the opportunities for micro projects to occur

Most importantly we provided linkages that enabled social bonding to occur, in a neutral environment that allowed community friendships and trust with one another to develop. A once segregated community was now coming together to support each other. It wasn’t just in one location it was in all four locations and quite remarkably, relationships developed between community members from Hawkesdale and Garvoc, because of the social bonding that occurred at social gatherings that were coordinated by us. 

The Statistics

Over 700 people visited the van with an average of 20.4 each week. The statistics below provide further details:

Van Statistics		Total
Individuals who visit the van	71 (Garvoc)33 (Gazette)	104 people
Gender	Males 20 (Gazette)Females 13 (Gazette)Males 43 (Garvoc)Females 28 (Garvoc)	Males 63Females 41

	Weekly	Total (40 weeks)
Sausages cooked at the van	48	1,920 sausages
Kilometres driven by the van	213.4 kms	8,536 kms
Fuel to fill up the van	40 litres	1600 litres
Tim Tams eaten at the van	48 tim tams	1,920 tim tams
Hot drinks served at the van	36 hot drinks	1,440 hot drinks
Connections	416 connections	14,976

Communication and building of trust has proven outcomes for the community.  The following communication statistics outline our commitment to conversation.

Communication	Weekly	Totals (40 weeks)
Weekly SMS/Texting	160 messages sent weekly	6,400 texts320 hours (mostly after hours)
Newsletter distribution	280 per month	2800
Telephone conversations	12 calls weekly (on average)	480 calls80 hours of conversations
Home visits	4 per week	160 visits
Non-judgemental conversations at the van	10 hours	400 hours

The van was extremely successful in engaging with men between the age of 35 to 63 years which is a critical age group that are at a higher risk of suicide.

Age of males who visit the van		Total
Males (35-63yoa)	16 (Gazette)23 (Garvoc)	39
Males (+63yoa)	3 (Gazette)13 (Garvoc)	15
Males (<35 yoa)	7 (Garvoc)1 (Gazette)	8

It is consistent with the National suicide prevention implementation strategy 2020-2025: which states that “There should be a range of options to support people in suicidal distress.” It further states that “There has been consistent feedback from people who have lived through a suicide crisis that non-clinical, community-based, home-like environments with services staffed by a combination of peers and community support workers, where they feel safe, supported and genuinely understood, would best help them through a crisis and promote recovery.”

The concept of a non-clinical community based model is further supported by the Australian Psychological Society’s Psychological First Aid Booklet where it states “It has been recognised both in Australia and internationally that psychosocial support in emergencies is best delivered as a community-based activity, rather than within a medical health system.”  Victoria’s Suicide Prevention Framework further supports place-based or community-based models by saying “Place-based approaches to suicide prevention are effective in reducing suicides.”

• Strong communities, relationships, contributing lives with purpose and hope, community and personal resilience gives people reasons for living.
• Place based approaches to suicide prevention are effective in reducing suicide

Generally, the disasters are measured by the cost of social and economic damage, but there is no comparison to the emotional sufferings a person undergoes post-disaster.

Emergencies are not only mental health tragedies, but also powerful catalysts for achieving sustainable mental health care in affected communities.

Emergencies present unique opportunities for better care of all people with mental health needs.

: after emergencies, 

Global progress on mental health reform will happen more quickly if, in every crisis, strategic efforts are made to convert short-term interest in mental health problems into momentum for mental health reform.

This would benefit not only people’s mental health, but also the functioning and resilience of societies recovering from emergencies. R

Strengthening community psychosocial support and self-help creates a protective environment, allowing those affected to help each other towards social and emotional recovery. Focused individual, family or group interventions are important, but do not necessarily have to be provided by mental health professionals. They can also be provided by trained and supervised lay people.

High quality community-based mental health care: 1) protects human rights; 2) has a public health focus; 3) supports service users in their recovery journey; 4) makes use of effective interventions based on evidence and client goals; 5) promotes a wide network of support in the community, and; 6) makes use of peer expertise in service design and delivery.

“There has been consistent feedback from people who have lived through a suicidal crisis that non clinical, community based, home like environments with services staffed by a combination of peers and community support workers, where they feel safe, supported and genuinely understood, would best help them through a crisis and promote recovery.”

Challenging the traditional delivery pathways

There are three traditional methods of providing psychosocial support post disaster. They are:

1. An agency such as the Red Cross goes door to door
2. A service/LGA/agency contacts everyone via phone
3. Self-referral to a GP or mental health service provider

1. An agency going door to door

The LGA conducting recovery would engage an agency such as the Red Cross or Victorian Council of Churches Emergency Ministries go door to door.  During the conversation they would identify who needed further support and a referral would be made to a mental health provider.  

Pros

• Tick a box

Cons

• No relationship with the person asking how you are means that the response provided is going to be generic, “I’m fine thanks”. 
• By going door to door you are not encouraging people to get together as a group that has had a shared experience
• Referrals are made but it is still up to the person on whether they follow through with the referral.  Most in our case didn’t.

2. A service/LGA/agency contacts everyone via phone

Pros

• You can get through a lot of calls
• Tick a box
• If there is a relationship with the caller the outcome was slightly better but it was unlikely that the person would accept any formal mental health support.

Cons

• Unless there is a prior relationship with the caller, again the response is going to be “I’m fine thanks.”
• Referrals are made but it is still up to the person on whether they follow through with the referral.  Most in our case didn’t.

3. Self-referral 

The demographic of the fire affected communities were predominately older aged men who worked in the farming/agricultural industry and fell in the highest suicide risk demographic (expand).  We knew early on that they would not utilise or engage with traditional methods to get help for mental health support especially self-referring themselves to a formal service.  Most wouldn’t even make appointments with the GP to discuss a health issue, let alone a mental health issue.

In order to design an effective community led recovery model you really need to understand your community, you need to understand the context.  Understanding the context is essential to developing any recovery plan.  To get to know the community, we decided on the following approach: 

1. We would have conversations with the community (face to face on their property or at their home);
2. We would meet with the local and state based agencies that worked in the affected areas;
3. We would research the history of the townships affected;
4. We would look at any current issues other than the fire that might be causing concern within the affected areas.
5. We would read research papers on other community led approaches and engaging with communities post disasters

We didn’t assume:

• That because they farmed the same product they would therefore need the same support;
• That because they lived in the same vicinity or geographical boundary or township that they would need the same information; and
• That because they were the chairperson of the local community group that their opinion was more important than other quieter community members.

Through our research, what we did discover is that:

1. Conversations with the community

• There were divisions within the communities that meant that if you held a function or event at a particular location you would divide the community;
• There were long held religious beliefs within the communities; 
• Many generations of families had farmed in the areas and long held disputes still caused friction; 
• Individuals needs fluctuated daily
• Most people were in a state of shock where their ability to process information was limited
• Having lawyers on the ground to form a class action days after the fire caused anger and confusion 
• People have their own history and life experiences
• Famers wouldn’t travel far from their farms
• Farmers are resourceful and independent and found it difficult to ask for help
• Some were insured, under insured or had no insurance 

2. Meetings with local and state based agencies

• Suicide in the South West is growing, particularly with middle aged men and those working on farms;
• Farmers are traditionally isolated and work alone and some can be difficult to engage with  
• Still affecting dairy farmers was the drop in the milk prices to an all-time low in 2017

3. History of the Townships Affected

• Many people who had lost their homes during the South West Fires had also lost their homes during the Ash Wednesday Fires in 1983;
• There had been deaths caused by Ash Wednesday
• Many had not spoken a word about the Ash Wednesday Fires; until they did so at the van

4. Current Issues:

• Existing wind farms were controversial with some community believing they were causing health related issues
• The proposal for three additional wind farms caused division and anger within the communities
• Local pubs had closed down reducing locations for community to gather

6. Research papers on other community led approaches and methods of engaging with communities post disasters

• Social strategies that encourage active participation in the community reduce stress
• Survivors with strong social networks experience faster recoveries
• Psychosocial support is best delivered as a community-based activity rather than within a medical health system

The van

Conclusion

Too many people focus on rebuilding post disaster.  It is easy to see, and easy to count.  You can take photos in front of new buildings cut ribbons and plant gardens.  The broader community see those achievements and believe that it’s all going well.  The success of a great mental health model post disaster is more difficult to represent but we know just how important it is – we know the van worked because it saved lives.

On one Monday afternoon whilst Sue and I were working from our office at about three o’clock in the afternoon, I received a phone call on my mobile, nothing unusual about that, except the words that came through the phone are words that I will never forget. I answered the phone in my usual happily excited voice, “Good afternoon this is Mat” I then received the reply, “Hi Mat, you know how you said I could call you if I ever needed anything, well I need you, I am not feeling good and I don’t want to be here anymore”. After a long discussion and lots of reassurance, he agreed that I would arrange some professional support for him and that he would visit me at the van the following day. The following day at the van we had a long walk and talk and he confirmed he had a telephone appointment with a social worker.  Following on, he continued to speak with me on a weekly basis and we both valued the conversations we shared. He would often thank me for saving his life, and thank me for understanding without judgement. As a farmer he said he was a custom to working on his own most days, and had not ever asked for help in the past and said he would never have sought help if he had not attended the van.

In total there were 3 separate occasions where we experienced calls or visits to the van from the community experiencing suicidal intentions.  Critics of the van suggested we were not trained to perform suicidal intervention and we should be leaving this for the professionals to deal with.  As stated earlier we never proclaimed to be health professionals, and we would always encourage that professional assistance be sought, but the consistent theme that emerged from the communities was they were not going to call a stranger on a “hotline” and tell them how they were feeling. They said just by talking to us, allowed them an opportunity to openly process their thoughts and be reassured that they were “normal” and had experienced a significant trauma.  Not to mention that those who did follow up with a mental health service had to wait over 6 weeks to get an appointment.

A key aspect of working within the community, is learning to understand them, not just through listening to their spoken words but understanding the words that aren’t spoken. It would have been quite easy for us to undertake our roles with an attitude that ticks boxes and is based on numbers and reporting. However to truly succeed we knew we had to commit ourselves to the job, real people needed support and we were prepared to provide that for them. In order to do that we established relationships with every single person that had been directly affected by the disaster. 

Many people still ask us how to engage with communities and our answer is simple.  Go to them and listen.

We never pretended to be people that we weren’t, our relationships were genuine and our personalities were on full display and our attempts at humour were shared and enjoyed openly, and equally we would shed tears with them and provide them with a shoulder to cry on. As a man I am not ashamed to say that there were many days where tears flowed freely, with the community and in private.

 We were never considered or treated by anyone as the people from Council, we were always Sue and Mat. We were the people that provided guidance, without personal opinion, we provided trusted support, we provided a  listening ear that was always happy to listen without judgement. 

So why did they talk to us? there wasn’t anything special about us, just two ordinary people with basic mental health first aid training and what turned out to be some very useful and diverse life experience that included, disaster, mental health, care and kindness. 

One of the common frustrations of the fire affected farming communities, were the ignorant comments from outside of the fire area. On a daily basis they would be confronted with comments that would hurt them deeply, because the wider community lacked an understanding and appreciation of what they were dealing with. As recovery workers we would also hear similar comments and had many people including staff members ask us what we could be possibly doing out there. 

Comments included, “ The Grass is green and the fences are up what else could there be to do” 

“It’s been months since the fire, why haven’t you built a new house yet”.

“What’s the big deal about losing livestock, surely insurance would cover that, why don’t you just go to the market and buy some new ones”.

“You’re going to do alright out of this in the end” 

“Must be nice to have a new shed” (actually really loved my old one)

“Not a bad job, just sitting out on the side of the road drinking coffee every day”

“They should be recovered now, it’s been months, they just need to get on with it”

But not all community based activities are going to give you the same outcome as the van.  For example large events won’t work.  Large events put pressure of the survivors with the broader community

So what? Why did that matter?

Traditional  The team also discovered that traditional methods of mental health delivery are based on self referral, door to door visits and phone  check ins.  The demographic of the fire affected communities were predominately older aged men who worked in the farming/agricultural industry and fell in the highest suicide risk demographic (expand).  The team knew early on that they would not utilise or engage with traditional methods to get help for mental health support.  Therefore, the team identified opportunities to support affected communities by bringing them together.  This method is further supported by agencies acknowledging that psycho-social support is best delivered as a community based activity.  

We also knew that debonding (expand – what is it etc) occurs within communities following disasters and communities tend to build barriers around themselves. This strategy by bringing communities together reduced the opportunity for deboding to occur and strengthened the community rather than fracturing it.  We also knew that communities with strong social bongs recover faster.

A key aspect of working within the community, is learning to understand them, not just through listening to their spoken words but understanding the words that aren’t spoken. It would have been quite easy for us to undertake our roles with an attitude that ticks boxes and is based on numbers and reporting. However to truly succeed we knew we had to commit ourselves to the job, real people needed support and we were prepared to provide that for them. In order to do that we established relationships with every single person that had been directly affected by the disaster. We quickly learnt that farming men lived up to some of the stereotypical cliches in that they were too proud to talk about mental health, and that they were strong and invincible on the outside. We knew that they were not going to respond to telephone calls asking them about how they were going or actively engage with social workers or psychologists, who they would often refer to as,”quacks”. In the initial stages of the van, the men would proudly say they were going ok, and yeah things were hard, but that was farming and life in general, things weren’t meant to be easy. As each week went by, we would learn more and more about each and everyone of them. We built rapport and trust, they all uniquely in their own way discovered that what they shared with us was held in confidence and never shared with anyone else.  

We never pretended to be people that we weren’t, our relationships were genuine and our personalities were on full display and our attempts at humour were shared and enjoyed openly, and equally we would shed tears with them and provide them with a shoulder to cry on. As a man I am not ashamed to say that there were many days where tears flowed freely, with the community and in private.

 We were never considered or treated by anyone as the people from Council, we were always Sue and Mat. We were the people that provided guidance, without personal opinion, we provided trusted support, we provided a  listening ear that was always happy to listen without judgement. Most importantly we provided linkages that enabled social bonding to occur, in a neutral environment that allowed community friendships and trust with one another to develop. A once segregated community was now coming together to support each other. It wasn’t just in one location it was in all four locations and quite remarkably, relationships developed between community members from Hawkesdale and Garvoc, because of the social bonding that occurred at social gatherings that were coordinated by us. 

Social workers were invited to the van, and at times would attend for consecutive weeks in a row, in an attempt to build trust and establish connections with the community. We encouraged the community members to engage with the social workers, however there was still some stigma attached to talking to a “shrink” or a professional about your problems. Many of them would engage in small talk and be polite, and although we knew deep down they were hurting, when asked by a social worker, how they were travelling, the standard answer would be rolled off the tongue, “yeah nah all good here”, or, “I’m going well”. Talking to someone about how you were feeling was something that members of these communities where not experienced with and asking for help or talking about your problems was not the accepted or done thing. 

So why did they talk to us? there wasn’t anything special about us, just two ordinary people with basic mental health first aid training and what turned out to be some very useful and diverse life experience that included, disaster, mental health, care and kindness. 

There were many in depth and emotional conversations had at the van, some were conducted as very private discussions during a walk up the road, and others were discussed amongst their peers.  At all times we reminded them that we were not professional councilors and we would encourage them to seek support from the professionals and would be there to support them on any level that they required. On most occasions conversations ended at the van with us saying that if they needed anything, they were welcome to give us a call or send us a message. 

On one Monday afternoon whilst Sue and I were working from our office at about three o’clock in the afternoon, I received a phone call on my mobile, nothing unusual about that, except the words that came through the phone are words that I will never forget. I answered the phone in my usual happily excited voice, “Good afternoon this is Mat” I then received the reply, “Hi Mat, you know how you said I could call you if i ever needed anything, well I need you, I am not feeling good and I don’t want to be here any more”. After a long discussion and lots of reassurance, he agreed that I would arrange some professional support for him and that he would visit me at the van the following day. The following day at the van we had a long walk and talk and he confirmed he had a telephone appointment with a social worker.  Following on, he continued to speak with me on a weekly basis and we both valued the conversations we shared. He would often thank me for saving his life, and thank me for understanding without judgement. As a farmer he said he was a custom to working on his own most days, and had not ever asked for help in the past and said he would never have sought help if he had not attended the van.  

In total there were 3 separate occasions where we experienced calls or visits to the van from the community experiencing suicidal intentions. Critics of the van suggested we were not trained to perform suidical intervention and we should be leaving this for the professionals to deal with. As stated earlier we never proclaimed to be health professionals, and we would always encourage that professional assistance be sought, but the consistent theme that emerged from the communities was they were not going to call a stranger on a “hotline” and tell them how they were feeling. They said just by talking to us, allowed them an opportunity to openly process their thoughts and be reassured that they were “normal” and had experienced a significant trauma. 

With the increase in demand for mental support from us, we ensured that we increased our knowledge of mental health, reading a large amount of literature from organisations such as Beyond Blue, and meeting with local Mental Health clinicians to ensure that we provided the correct advice and referrals.  

One of the common frustrations of the fire affected farming communities, were the ignorant comments from outside of the fire area. On a daily basis they would be confronted with comments that would hurt them deeply, because the wider community lacked an understanding and appreciation of what they were dealing with. As recovery workers we would also hear similar comments and had many people including staff members ask us what we could be possibly doing out there. 

Comments included, “ The Grass is green and the fences are up what else could there be to do” 

“It’s been months since the fire, why haven’t you built a new house yet”.

“What’s the big deal about losing livestock, surely insurance would cover that, why don’t you just go to the market and buy some new ones”.

“You’re going to do alright out of this in the end” 

“Must be nice to have a new shed” (actually really loved my old one)

“Not a bad job, just sitting out on the side of the road drinking coffee every day”

“They should be recovered now, it’s been months, they just need to get on with it”

Tips

• Link with mental health agencies
• Use resources from Beyond Blue
• Don’t be afraid if somebody starts crying
• Listen, listen, listen
• Be careful how you market support agencies
• Develop on the ground community based options where people who have a shared experience can gather.

Communicate

John Mcconnell sharing what he did after Ash Wednesday with Brad  about cell counts and cows recovering after trauma

Different delivery mechanisms and how it is important to understand your community before only communicating via the easiest method; ie online

 Connections were established at the forefront by the team members taking the time to listen and engage directly with the fire affected communities.  This earned trust and established connections that would provide the foundation that allowed community to feel comfortable to engage with the team members and the Vantastic model.

Communications were initially developed under the IAP2 structure with a foundation embedded in the AIDR recovery principles. However, messaging mechanisms were adapted by the team under the guidance of Dr Rob Gordon and were changed to always meet the needs of the communities. 

Grants, bendigo bank grants, Blazeaid, fencing issues, phone lines, utility companies still charging when the house had been destroyed, 

Meeting after meeting – teleconferences all day

Communication – trust, care, compassion, people in trauma cannot comprehend / take in information 

Verbally – Written – Getting through the other guff –

Tips:

• Understanding the community is critical in order to communicate with them.
• Don’t assume everybody can read
• Don’t assume everybody that can read can actually comprehend your message at the time. 
• Be repetitive – be consistent 
• Don’t think that by just communicating  via social channels you are getting your message across
• Have photos of key recovery managers/coordinators – always easier to talk to people when you know what they look like

Newsletters

To ensure the recovery newsletters had a community feel we wanted to brand them with drawings from the community rather than from Council. So we contacted two schools close to the fires (Panmure Primary School and Hawkesdale P-12) to participate in a competition. We asked the children to draw what they thought recovery looked like.  The competition was open to all the children from the schools and the best two drawings would be used to brand the recovery newsletters.

The entries were amazing and two drawings were chosen for the recovery newsletter.  But designing a newsletter is the easy part, we actually wanted people to read it and for it to include information that was useful.  

Unopened mail

After visiting with many different farmers we noticed that many had unopened mail on their kitchen tables. Some even spoke about not being able to focus on the mail and said they would get to it another day. Information including our recovery newsletters were being sent to each household via mail to provide information on grants and other assistance that was being offered and if mail was being left unopened – lots of useful information would be lost.  

Following disasters people find it difficult to process information.  This is due to the cortisol being released from their brain.  The cortisol enables people to keep going; put one step in front of the other.  However, this state reduces the ability of people to comprehend things.  Sometimes you might have to repeat an instruction multiple times or you might have to tell somebody who to call and for some the mail was a huge obstacle that they couldn’t find the energy to overcome.  

So to encourage people to open letters we changed the size and colour of the envelopes.  We found that by changing the colour and size of envelopes the mail was actually getting opened.  People were excited to receive a pink envelope and couldn’t wait to see what was inside. As people got used to receiving a coloured or large envelope they began to look forward to it and would open it.   And once the envelope was open with multiple versions of newsletters on their kitchen tables they could easily distinguish the editions because they had different coloured banding at the top rather than them all looking the same and people being annoyed and unable to find the latest copy and then not reading any of them. 

We also encouraged people to write their own stories for the newsletter. Their stories helped others and provided them with another opportunity to talk about what happened.

The colour of the newsletter was changed each edition, again this assisted the community to identify a new newsletter or we could say “look in the blue newsletter”.  Our newsletters were also branded with children’s drawings of recovery from local schools and contained content written by the fire affected communities.  They most importantly contained useful information and contacts were always on the back page of each edition.  

 The communities relied on traditional methods of mail/post and telephone rather than social media channels.  However, communities post trauma rarely open mail and we found many cases of weeks of unopened mail on kitchen tables.  The team created ways to create interest in their mail by changing the colour and size of the envelopes and newsletters.  This method was very successful with people looking forward to receiving a coloured envelope in the mail.  (c) We considered all our affected communities vulnerable and ensured that our communication suited their needs by being agile, flexible and adaptable and open to receiving feedback.

Texting

Through conversations at the van we learnt that texting had to be strategically timed otherwise they would be ignored.  Ours were sent immediately after the weather report on Channel 7.  

In the early stages of recovery, we would send out text messages to the community during the day, there wasn’t much thought put into the timing of sending a text message. Most of our messages would go out mid morning or mid afternoon. There wasn’t a lot of response to the text messages, we used a computer generated program to compose the messages. 

After having many conversations at the van, there was one that would be more important than we ever could have imagined. It was the conversation about the weather, a fairly common and important topic when you are amongst farmers. But this was a conversation not so much about the weather, but the weather presenter, with many of the farming men saying the most important part of the nightly news bulletin, was the weather segment and seeing the weather presenter on Channel 7, Jane Bunn. They all bantered that this was the only time they routinely sat down and paid attention… What better way to engage with your audience via text message. We trialled the approach, without informing any of the community. The message was composed and ready to be sent, as soon as Jane Bunn concluded the weather, we would send the text message. Bang it worked, we had the most successful engagement ever. We now had the perfect time to send text messages to our male segment of the community.  Successful engagement with the female segment of the community was significantly more successful, when we changed from sending computer generated text messages, to messages sent from our mobile numbers.   

Body language, being genuine, forget the formalities, be real. 

Biggest communication skill is to listen 

Online 

It’s really easy for us to produce material and post it online whether it is via a webpage or through the use of social media including Facebook, Twitter, Whats App, or Instagram. We should ensure that we use these platforms to get our messages into the community, what we shouldn’t do however is use this mechanism as our primary engagement method. Online content should be used as part of a suite of communication methods.  It’s important to understand and establish the right communication method with your communities. In our situation, we certainly used online platforms of Facebook, Twitter and Council’s web page as a means of disseminating information. What we quickly learnt was that the majority of the directly affected communities did not access online information, as their primary reference point. Many said they were too busy to go online and did not normally visit the Council’s website or use social media, the ones that did normally use social media, said they did not seek official information post disaster from social media.  

Whilst online communication was not the primary method of engagement with the directly affected communities, it was an important source of information for those not directly affected, family and friends of those directly affected and other emergency management agencies.  

To not assume that just because you put a link online that you have provided people with information.  Following disasters people find it difficult to comprehend what they are reading sometimes unable to follow simple instructions. Linking to a larger government organisation is confusing and unless they land on a page that is relevant, they won’t re-visit.

Links have to take people straight to the information they are seeking. Also don’t assume that everybody has access to the internet and likes to read information online or can print at home.

Contact numbers or making appointments

People will give up if they have to leave a message to make an appointment

They have no time to spend on their phones, so when they do make the time to finally make that phone call and after spending time on hold only to be told sorry i can’t help you or that they will have to make further enquiries via phone with another agency, only to be given the runaround or told that they now have to complete xyz forms before they will be considered. 

Photos – Recovery stationery

put a face to the name – people are more likely to call/talk to somebody they know their face

Photo of us on the flyer – months later it was still in kitchens on notice boards – pivotal in providing care for people

Forms

Some people struggled with completing even the most straightforward forms post the fires.  

Tips:

• Offer to help people complete forms
• When designing forms make them super easy to complete
• Don’t only offer forms online, make them available as hard copies as well

Phone calls

By 22 March we had contacted everybody that we had phone numbers for

5 April – 

After contacting as many people as we could following the fires we found that many people weren’t travelling too well.  We knew that Red Cross had a service where they would call people following disasters and provide them with psycho-social support over the phone, so we engaged them to make followup calls.  What we found is that most said that they were ok and that others were worse off than them.  Red Cross also identified a few people who they believed should be followed up in person.  These people were then referred to South West Health Care for follow up.  The follow consisted of a phone call, where the person would be asked how they were going.  Most would reply that they are ok and there are others were worse off than them.  This cycle of phone conversations never actually resulted in a person getting the support that they needed and some were falling through the cracks.

To overcome this cycle and to actually understand how people were we visited each and every one of the fire affected people and sat down and had a conversation with them – face to face.  

We had people constantly thanking us for caring – 

people contacted us because we were real people 

personal visits 

Photos of the recovery team – put a face to the name – people are more likely to call/talk to somebody they know their face

Coordinate

Relationships – before during and after

Chapter 7 – coordination – Everyone is suddenly an expert in EM and every department wants to do their own thing. 

working with other agencies/non for profits/volunteer groups – everybody wants to help and start up something; for example, the Deakin University group – more trouble than its worth.

Coordination of information

Crisisworks 

Crisisworks is a web based data recording tool that most Council’s within Victoria use to capture data pertaining to emergencies.  We had both committed to using the system during any emergency.  However, whilst at the ICC on the night of the fires we found the pace of the event too fast to capture information online. This coupled with the limited wifi connection we resorted to writing notes in our log books.  However, on the Monday we set all the staff up to record each conversation within the recovery section of Crisisworks so we could develop a case file on each family. This data collection will prove essential as we moved into recovery.

Collaborate with other agencies:

• Foodshare
• Agriculture Victoria
• Schools in the area

Recovery managers operational meeting – formed to get things done

Bendigo Bank – and donations

Capacity

/ Foodshare – the importance of acknowledging their hard work and appreciating that this was just not any other job. There was a lot of emotion involved and this provided the contractors and their staff to not only be recgonised and thanked for their efforts, it gave them a great opportunity to talk about their experiences and the impact that the work they performed had on them. A majority of the contractors had numerous interactions and discussions with the fire affected community and would often see the raw emotion and heartache first hand. 

Building relationships increases capacity 

Importance of training and exercising your EM staff.  Provide examples of our training and exercising and how it paid off

• An emergency effects everyone’s core business – don’t forget the pay staff, the rates department, the cleaner, they all have a role and they all been affected 

 Evidence of capacity building of the community is that they shared knowledge and supported each other in their recovery journey (which they are still on).  
(c) (c) All agencies had an open invitation to attend the van and provide information to the community or just be there to answer questions or show support.  Early on the team identified a gap with the operational recovery pillars and established a small operational committee of agencies to focus on meeting the immediate needs of the communities there were being identified through the van.  This resulted in timely and effective measures being enacted.  The team also worked closely with South West Healthcare (the mental heath provider for the region) and developed new pathways for people to access more intensive mental health support.

Ladies lunches

We had quite a cross section of people visit the van but the majority were male farmers.  Many wives/partners worked off farm and couldn’t always make it to the van.  To ensure the wives/partners of the farmers were given an opportunity to meet with their peers and talk about what happened, we decided to hold a four ladies lunches.  Ladies would be picked up from their doors in a mini bus, driven to lunch and dropped back home. Formal invitations were sent out and we had 15 ladies from Garvoc attend the first luncheon.  Some ladies hadn’t seen each other for years with others unsure of how to visit friends and neighbours who had lost more than them.  It took immense courage for some ladies to come to the luncheons but once the conversations started it was great to watch the relationships begin to mend, others to build and new relationships started.

Garvoc  (Aug) 15 peopleGazette (Nov) 11 peopleGarvoc (Mar) 12 peopleGazette (Mar) 9 people

Wednesday is Jim Day – 

Several months after the fires were were approached by a regular visitor to the van and asked whether we would help her publish a children’s book she had written about her experiences as a child during Ash Wednesday.

Tree planting [photo]

Pizza nights

Fire Dam Regatta [photo]

Christmas dinner [photo]

One of the most significant outcomes of the van was it’s driver of social connection and bringing the community together. What better way to celebrate the joy of christmas after such a devastating year, than to enjoy christmas dinner on the side of the road with your new friends and that is exactly what we did. We hired a large marquee, engaged a caterer and the community did the rest. The community arranged the mowing of the roadside grassed area, the decorations and lots of festive spirit. Complete with a Christmas tree and a visit from Santa, over 46 community members joined in the fun of a very successful community gathering, that not only provided a very fun and entertaining night, but importantly the comments from the community that said that this was the first time in over 40 years that they felt like they were a real community again. 

What does success look like? –    Vantastic – the model

all about the van – stats – benefits etc

Ladies lunches, pizza nights, regatta, Tree planting, christmas dinner, children’s book

The van is known by the community as a safe, trusted non-judgemental, caring place where neighbours are able to non-intrusively check up on each other.  Statistics in the attached document outline the van’s success.

The van provides consistency and respite for individuals who have chosen not to engage with formal mental health services.  The Moyne Shire Recovery Team however, continues to encourage and support the community to engage with dedicated mental health services.  A further strengthened collaboration with South West Healthcare has increased the intake of members of the community engaging with formal mental health services.  This development will only improve with the ongoing trusted outreach model provided by Moyne Shire.  Whilst many benefit from the psycho social support being provided by Moyne Shire, the collaborative approach now taken further enhances individuals to feel safe to engage with local professional mental health services.  Learnings gained from such a collaboration will lead to improved pathways for mental health and suicide prevention in the South West. 

The van is a new model for Victorian’s post a disaster.  It is a non-clinical, safe, supported community based model that it is consistent with the National suicide prevention implementation strategy 2020-2025: which states that “There should be a range of options to support people in suicidal distress.”  It further states that “There has been consistent feedback from people who have lived through a suicide crisis that non-clinical, community-based, home-like environments with services staffed by a combination of peers and community support workers, where they feel safe, supported and genuinely understood, would best help them through a crisis and promote recovery.”

The concept of a non-clinical community based model is further supported by the Australian Psychological Society’s Psychological First Aid Booklet where it states “It has been recognised both in Australia and internationally that psychosocial support in emergencies is best delivered as a community-based activity, rather than within a medical health system.”

Victoria’s Suicide Prevention Framework further supports place-based or community-based models by saying “Place-based approaches to suicide prevention are effective in reducing suicides.”

Council through the van, has identified a suitable place to build a BBQ shelter that will continue a place based approach that will eventually be community led.  The BBQ shelter to be built on the Sisters-Garvoc Rd will enable the community to continue to meet well after the van has ceased.  However, this project is in its infancy as the community is only now able to consider such recovery resilient activities.  Without the extension of funding this community project will most likely fail.

The van has been visiting the community for over 40 weeks and the attendance rates have not reduced. The importance of the van to support mental issues in the community is evidenced in the attached video where the community outline their response to the van.

Council is aware of the following emerging issues that will have an impact on the mental health of the community:

• Powercor & Insurance Class Action continue to have a negative impact on the community.  
• ESV report outlining whether they will pursue prosecution over the failure of Powercor infrastructure that ignited the Garvoc Fire.  A negative result will have severe impacts to the community.
• No homes have been rebuilt in either Moyne Shire or Southern Grampians Shire Council areas.  This is a clear sign that the community have not been ready to move forward in their recovery journey and are still processing what renewal looks like.
• Winter can also have a negative impact on a person’s mood.  Symptoms include:
  • lack of energy
  • sleeping too much
  • finding it hard to wake up in the morning
  • feeling very tired all the time
  • overeating and craving carbohydrates
  • gaining weight
  • losing interest in normal activities
  • reduction in social activities 

• Financial stress continues to impact farming families. This is supported by the number of farmers seeking financial support via the Warrnambool Office of the Rural Financial Counselling Service.  The number of farmers seeking support is also continuing to rise.
• Leaders of the community have emerged however, are not yet in a position to take full leadership of the community.
• People working on farms and skilled trades accounted for 65% of suicides in the Great South Coast between 2009-2014.
• Uncertainty of dairy milk price

Visitation to the van remains high with over 22 people attending at our most recent visit to Garvoc on Thursday 9 May in 6C temperatures and rain.  

Outcomes of the van

What happens to a community when they are impacted by a disaster?
The disaster social process theory

The disaster social process theory outlines different stages that people who have experienced disasters/emergencies fit into.  Two stages that cause damage to a community post disaster are the de-bonding and fusion stages.  The de-bonding stage is where communities tend to form barriers around themselves.  They tend to shut out people with legitimate roles and are intolerable of outsiders.  The fusion state is where social fault lines reassert themselves and cleavage planes emerge between conflicting groups.  Anger and depression emerges and people look for someone to blame.  

Knowing these stages, our plan was to try and limit those effects.  But how did we go about it?

We immersed ourselves into the community and spent weeks listening to survivors and learning about their individual needs.  This is all about understanding the context.  Because if you don’t understand the context you will not be able to provide what the survivors need.  By spending this time with them some common themes emerged; they needed to remain close to their farms; they wouldn’t drive into town to ask questions or request information and they overwhelmingly believed that the services should come to them at a time that suited them.  

So what did we do?

We capitalised on the de-bonding stage, where people have an intense need for social connection, by drawing the community out from their homes to participate in a weekly event, in an environment that was relaxed, safe and importantly a place to stop and share a meal.

This strategy challenged the more traditional outreach models where services/agencies travel from home to home.  We believe that the traditional model further adds to the development of cleavage planes where rumours thrive and anger emerges.

Because of the frequency of the event, the fusion stage where misunderstandings, conflict and discord was minimised.  The survivors were not pressured into rebuilding or to meet government timelines, they were supported through their journey to not reach a “new normal” but to a place of renewal.

The frequency and consistency of the van built new routines, (add further information about the importance of routines)

Social Capital

Write something about social capital and Daniel Aldrich

Van Statistics

Van Statistics	Weekly	Totals (36 weeks)
People who visit the van	20.4 (on average)	714 contacts
Individuals who visit the van	71 (Garvoc)33 (Gazette)	104 people
Connections	416 connections	14,976
Gender	Males 20 (Gazette)Females 13 (Gazette)Males 43 (Garvoc)Females 28 (Garvoc)	Males 63Females 41
Sausages cooked at the van	48	1,728 sausages
Kilometres driven by the van	213.4 kms	7682.4 kms
Fuel to fill up the van	40 litres	1440 litres
Tim Tams eaten at the van	48 tim tams	1,728 tim tams
Hot drinks served at the van	36 hot drinks	1,404 hot drinks

Communication and building of trust has proven outcomes for the community.  The following communication statistics outline our commitment to conversation.

Communication		Totals (36 weeks)
Weekly SMS/Texting	160 messages sent weekly	5,760 texts288 hours (mostly after hours)
Newsletter distribution	280 per month	2800
Telephone conversations	6 calls weekly (on average)	216 calls54 hours of conversations
Home visits	4 per week	144 visits
Non-judgemental conversations at the van	10 hours	360 hours (21,600 minutes)

In addition to the van, we understand the farming dynamic where some women work off farm, or remain isolated on farm, so we have been able to include them in the recovery process by offering ladies lunches and pizza nights. Children have also been affected directly, and continue to vicariously be affected by these fires and have been included in the following events:

Events
Blazeaid Farewell	MacarthurCobden	122300
Ladies lunches	Garvoc  (Aug) 15 peopleGazette (Nov) 11 peopleGarvoc (Mar) 12 peopleGazette (Mar) 9 people	47 people
Pizza nights	Gazette (Oct) 22 peopleGazette (Feb) 30 people	52 people
Regatta at the Sisters-Garvoc Fire Dam	41 people	41 people
Tree Planting at the Fire Dam, Garvoc	32 people	32 people (70 trees planted)
Christmas at Sisters-Garvoc Rd	68 people	68 people7 children

Community Engagement

Hamper distribution	Mother’ day – 68 hampersFather’s day – 68 hampersChristmas – 68 hampers	204 hampers
Easter Egg distribution	1000+ easter eggs
Tickets to Easter on the Hill (Flagstaff Hill)	150 tickets
FoodShare Hampers	30 hampers (over 4 months)

Micro Projects

Events
Wednesday is Jim Day	We will be publishing a book written by a survivor of both Ash Wednesday and the South West Fires.
BBQ Shelter Project at Sisters-Garvoc Road
Community Bushfire Plan

Linkages

8 agencies visited the van and provided key information to fire affected community:

Agencies
DELWP	Forest Fire Management
Landcare	Agriculture Victoria
CFA	DHHS
South West Healthcare	Red Cross
St John of God – Mental Health	Terang Action Group
Blazeaid	SWILG (Outreach Workers)

The Recovery Team has worked with and connected community members to the following agencies:

Agencies
Bendigo Bank	Colac Area Health
VCC – Emergency Ministry	Salvation Army
Lions	Rotary
FoodShare	SWH PCP
ReGreen 4 Fire Aid	Warrnambool City Council
Crisisworks	Looking over the farm gate
EMV

Micro projects: Wednesday is Jim Day; Regatta, Christmas dinner

The majority of the fire affected farming community who visit the van regularly are males between the age of 35 to 63 years which is a critical age group that are at a higher risk of suicide.  Some of these men have experienced previous trauma including Ash Wednesday, the dairy down turn and the effects of previous dry seasons.

Age of males who visit the van
Males (35-63yoa)	16 (Gazette)23 (Garvoc)	39
Males (+63yoa)	3 (Gazette)13 (Garvoc)	15
Males (<35 yoa)	7 (Garvoc)1 (Gazette)	8

Mopping up

The emotional toll on Recovery Practitioners – The ups and downs and deal it with that 

Taking care of staff – 

we bought them vouchers and thanked them for undertaking a role that is not their normal role – if you don’t do that you reduce your capacity for staff to volunteer for future emergencies and its the right thing to do.

It’s incredibly important for leaders and staff alike from any organisation that undertakes work within disasters, to remember that they too are people.  People with past experiences; people with real feelings and emotion and there is no amount of training or planning that can prepare you for the things that you will see, hear and smell. Some of the experiences will be encountered by many for the first time and for others, they will be triggers that recall memories from past experiences. It’s paramount that support is provided to all staff during every stage post disaster and should be continued to be offered well into the future. 

Sometimes it’s easier said than done, from the very beginning we had been operating at 150 percent, working long hours, getting very minimal sleep, placing ourselves under enormous pressure to not only perform our core functional roles to the highest standard possible, but to also lead a team and guide them through situations that they had only ever heard about or experienced through training and exercising.  

The importance of an After Action Review 

Returning to normal duties – Tips for staff and Management 

Two years on

Michael when moving into his new house he is anger and pissed off.  People say you are lucky to have a new house but all he really wanted was his own home with all its stuff.  Perhaps he would have been excited if they had planned to build a new house but in fact they were really happy with the home they had.  They have planted a new garden but in reality they will never see the garden fully established – like their old garden.

mental health

• having big events is ok – for the broader community to feel like they are doing something however, understand that these types of events don’t help the impacted community

scraps

It was therefore paramount that you have a MOCC Coordinator that has excellent leadership ability, is a team player, can problem solve, has an excellent understanding of crisisworks, and especially important is that they are kind and caring and can work under pressure. 

The MOCC coordinator is the controller of the engine room and plays an important role in managing the MOCC support staff and oversight of daily operations and tasks that have been assigned from the MERO and MRM.They are responsible for the resources and logistical management of the MOCC including managing staff hours and rosters and should have a good practical understanding of Council’s systems and procedures. They should be an integral part of the Emergency Leadership team and should work closely with the MERO and MRM or via their deputies in prioritising and assigning the action of tasks. If tasks are required to be undertaken by the MOCC support staff this should be coordinated with the MOCC coordinator and all actions logged in crisisworks. 

Why is life paramount during response but not during recovery?

The team followed the AIDR Community recovery principles and was very much focussed on community led recovery.  Research was undertaken by the team on how other LGA’s managed recovery and our findings demonstrated that most LGA’s form Community Recovery Committees that included members of agencies, local government, state government with maybe 2 community members representing the affected community.  This was presented as a model to the community and all four communities rejected that model.  They wanted a model that was adaptive, flexible and met their needs locally.

large focus on infrastructure and built assets and not community

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-18/garvoc-bushfire-recovery-van/10910194?nw=0