Phoenix Australia > Bushfire Recovery Project

CONSULTATION SERVICES | CASE STUDY

Bushfire Recovery Project

Our Bushfire Recovery Project was awarded the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience’s Resilient Australia Victorian Mental Health and Wellbeing Award.

With generous funding from the Federal and Victorian Departments of Health, we launched the Bushfire Recovery Project, delivering free online and face-to-face trauma training workshops and mentoring to frontline workers and community leaders in bushfire-affected regions.

The workshops provided best practice, trauma-informed training to help frontline workers and community leaders to support community members’ recovery from the bushfires, as well as supporting their own resilience and wellbeing. You can find out more about these workshops (Trauma-informed Care [TIC], Psychological First Aid [PFA], Supporting Individuals after Disaster [SID], Skills fOr Life Adjustment and Resilience [SOLAR] recovery program, and Trauma-focussed Cognitive Behavioural Therapy training [TF-CBT]) on our Education & Training page.

“How you engage with the community is important. The Trauma-informed Care training that Phoenix Australia delivers helps you draw boundaries around dealing with people while still helping them. It gives strategies for how to do that and helps put previous experience into a framework. It’s given me the ability to make recommendations for the whole unit.”
Lindsay, SES Volunteer in South Australia

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Phoenix Australia fast-tracked a five-year plan to convert our face-to-face TIC and PFA training to online training.

We ensured that essential content was accessible to those across the country in spite of the effects of public health restrictions. In addition to Zoom training, we offered flexible, fully online training which could be completed at a pace that suited individuals or their organisation.

“The combination of COVID-19 restrictions and the scale of the bushfire impact saw a great need for easily accessible, online services.”
Alexandra Howard, Director of Disaster and Public Health Emergencies at Phoenix Australia.

Though the Bushfire Recovery Project was designed to build the resilience of communities impacted by the 2019/20 Black Summer Bushfires, it has additionally supported these communities with disasters taking place before and after those fires. This includes the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Saturday bushfires of 2009. These communities are the direct beneficiaries of the project, with access to training and resources that help them to help others in the community. 

Since launching, approximately 3500 frontline workers and community leaders now have access to free, expert-led and best practice training. In June of 2022, the Victorian Bushfire Recovery Project was the recipient of the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience’s Resilient Australia Victorian Mental Health and Wellbeing Award.

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Phoenix Australia acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and pays respect to all Elders, past and present. We acknowledge continuing connection of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to land, water and communities—places of age-old ceremonies, of celebration and renewal—and their unique contribution in the life of these lands.

We are committed to fostering an environment in which the relationship between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and their fellow Australians is characterised by a deep mutual respect, leading to positive change in our nation’s culture and capacity.

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Phoenix Australia are experts in trauma-related mental health and wellbeing. For 25 years, we have been Australia’s National Centre of Excellence in Posttraumatic Mental Health and internationally recognised leaders in our field. We are committed to driving forward the mental health agenda both at home and abroad.

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