Audio transcript (edited)

Jacquie Lee: Hi everyone and welcome to today's webinar, Wellbeing for Workers supporting Children and Families after a Disaster. My name is Jacquie Lee and I am a provisional psychologist and practice development officer. I would like to start by acknowledging the Kaurna people, the traditional owners of the Adelaide Plains where I am joining you today. I pay my respects to the different custodians of Australia, and I invite you to acknowledge lands where you're tuning in on today. I would also like to recognise the way that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have cared for the country for the past 60,000 years using methods such as cultural burning. I pay my respect to their culture, and to the elders, past, present and emerging. 

Before we get into our discussion, I have a little housekeeping. Live captions are available for this webinar, if you would like to use them, please follow the link in the chat box. There will be a live Q&A at the end, if you would like to submit a question, you can use the questions box in the webinar dashboard. Today's webinar is being recorded. The recording will be available in about two weeks and you will be able to find it on the AIFS website. 

Guest panellists have compiled a list of related readings and resources for you, which you can find on a handout section of your webinar panel. Lastly, there will be a short feedback survey which will open at the end of the webinar that we would like you to take a couple of minutes to fill out, so that we can continue to deliver the webinars that you want to see. I would also like to recognise the children, young people and adults within families and diverse communities with lived experience of disasters. We recognise the pain and heartache these people have experienced, but also the strengths, that they are drawn to navigate these difficult times, and respect the skills they have developed to contribute lived experience to guide our practice in support of families like theirs. 

We invite you to join us as we commit to deeply listening and responding with integrity to their voices and expertise. Lastly, we have a couple of quick definitions which will be helpful to keep in mind as we go through today's discussion. A disaster is a serious disruption of the functioning of a community or society at any scale due to hazardous events interacting with conditions of exposure, vulnerability and capacity. This includes environmental hazards such as floods, bushfires, cyclones and drought, as well as man-made hazards such as war, violent crime and terrorism. Disasters cause significant destruction and harm to individuals, communities and or the environment. Often resulting in widespread suffering, loss of life, property damage and the disruption of normal functioning. In the context of today's webinar, a worker is an individual with a role that involves or might involve supporting infants, children, parents and families in the context of a disaster. This includes both professionals and volunteers. Today, we will mostly be discussing the experiences relating to environmental disasters, but the insights will gain from our panellists will be used to support individuals in relation to many different types of disasters. 

Now it is my pleasure to introduce our panellists. Michelle Roberts, Tayla Iellamo and Sarnia Ralston. Their bios can be found in the webinar dashboard. Michelle, a quick introductory question for you to start. You have a wealth of experience in supporting professionals, children and families through disasters. What initially drew you to this work?

Michelle Roberts: Hi everyone, and thank you for the intro. Forty years of doing this work, and when I reflect back on how I got on the train and how haven't managed to get off it at any point in time on the way, it began with probably my interest in children and grief. While doing my undergraduate studies as a psychologist, that was my focus. In my first year of teaching at a secondary school, we had the Ash Wednesday bushfires impact the area where I was teaching. And I saw firsthand the impacts that had on my colleagues, the staff, the community, and most of all the students I was teaching. That got my interest in disaster mental health in children and their development and their impacts on the trajectory. When I went to my supervisor and said I wanted to do my thesis in that area, she told me it was a ridiculous thought, and children and trauma wasn't a thing. We were in the early 1980s, thinking about trauma in terms of disasters rather than military -related trauma only, and we haven't quite made the step from adult focus to a child recognition. So, I was caught in what I saw as injustice and wanting to work near an advocate more in that area.

Jacquie Lee: That is incredible. Great to see how far it has come. There is always further to go. We’re very lucky to have you with us today. Tayla, how is your background in occupational therapy informed your approach to maintaining work and well-being in the disaster context?

Tayla Iellamo: I found OT is not as well known for working disaster recovery but I found my background really offers a holistic lens of understanding wellbeing. When I think about myself and my team, I like to consider personal factors. My values and strengths, my physical health, the environment, which for many of us includes working remotely, that is also my home, share with my family. The requirements and the demands of the job. All of these elements can be protective but they can also add stress, especially in the context that we work in.

Jacquie Lee: Thank you for joining us. Look forward to hearing more of that holistic perspective as we go through. Sarnia, welcome. Can you briefly explain what perspective you are bringing to today's conversation?

Sarnia Ralston: Hi everyone. I have a dual perspective in that my family experienced the NSW bushfires back in 2019. From there, moved out of state, into Queensland, up to the far north, which isn't a stranger to many disasters. We then experienced subsequent Cyclone Jasper and the flooding that had the main impact on our family living in beautiful Machans beach. I have that perspective and also the perspective of working in communities for over 20 years now. Supporting children, families and communities.

Jacquie Lee: Thank you for bringing both of those perspectives today. I'm sure you all have lots of valuable insights to share. We would like to begin today by sharing a short video to get us thinking about well-being in the context of disasters. As you watch the video, we invite you to consider what resonates with your own understanding and experiences and what might be new and/or different. Please share your reflections on the chat box.

[VIDEO PLAYS]

Michelle Roberts: When it comes to well-being, it is a shared responsibility. It is about us looking after ourselves, taking steps to look after our own well-being, being proactive about that and are waiting until we are falling over looking for someone to pick us up, but doing all the things that we know that work with mental health. Then, working in the organisation to make sure it is a worker well-being friendly type of organisation that has the structures and philosophy behind it, that helps us to look after ourselves, to look after our peers and our colleagues, and to work in a safe way as an organisation. So, all of all being particularly in the disaster sector is a shared responsibility.

Sarah Eagland: This is such an important work and it is really rewarding work but it can be personally challenging and it is really important that we acknowledge that explicitly, as a team. Without having a well-being project was really helpful, and part of that project was having individual well-being plans. The importance of understanding that for each person, it is unique. It is the responsibility of each person. Sometimes the focus is on things like yoga, but the way we saw well-being is that it is an organisational responsibility, and it is a combination of organisational protective factors but also looking at personal protective factors.

Paul Scott: We know that there is evidence informed, evidence-based with practice initiatives, and we put them on policy documents. They look fantastic on computers and on the screen and on the shelves. But we have to live them. So, how do we encourage our collaborative cohort, our workplaces, in order to do that with one another? So, it is not this the organisation responsibility. It is not just my individual responsibility. It is a collective.

Chris Gostelow: One of the things that is really vital as you focus on self-care. You can prepare yourself beforehand and you may well think about where am I at and how I get this off in the right state, so I can verbally engage appropriately and nonverbally be in the right spot to authentically interact with people affected by disaster. But one of the things that is really important is to monitor yourself, a self-monitoring before, during that involvement as a practitioner. How am I travelling? 

One of the things I will often do, is just to check on myself, because I don't check myself I may be speaking a lot faster than I need to, I may be moving a lot faster, I may not be as available for the people I'm trying to support. So, check on yourself. But I want to talk about the period after. I think the period after, often times has been exhilarating, is exciting in a certain way, to be involved in this work. It is an adrenaline rush stuff a lot of the time. It is very challenging. 

The environment that is overstimulating for everybody, including practitioners. So, that period afterwards, it is really important we possibly can to interact with other practitioners afterwards. Just touch base, see how you're going. What was the experience? What was your experience by comparison? Just having some conversations are really useful part of the whole process. 

The other thing to do is be aware of your physiological needs. I think it is all important, where you can, to try to get? For me it is exercise, I need to move, I have a lot of adrenaline my blood and I need to move a bit. I might go for a walk along the block or I might do something. Something that gives me time out, to almost cleanse myself if you like, to enable me to recover myself, to return myself to my family and where I need to be to be a practice day was helpful and engaging.

Dr Alex De Young: I think is really important to make sure that you have the support and supervision around you so you do have that ability to check in and give advice. In addition, that ability to prioritise your own self-care that you haven't at times. Making sure those regular breaks, taking time off at weekends, doing all the things that you would be recommending the families would be doing as well. Then I think, again, finally, focusing on what other positive, fun, creative ways you are connecting with the children and families to help them.

Sarah Eagland: I found the disaster recovery community is really generous in sharing their experience. My first piece of advice would be to reach out and talk to others who are doing similar work. Listening and getting an understanding of what their needs are, remembering the skills you have. It is not about a whole set of skills that you have to learn, it is actually things you're doing already in your work, and is just tailoring it and making sure that it is responding to the unique need in front of you. 

Training is another area that helps protect well-being. If someone feels they have the skills to competently help in a very complex area, it makes much difference. Professional development was ongoing, that is an important part of our being planned. From an organisation's perspective, it can be the detail of how things likely process, clear roles and responsibilities for people, a balance workload. Viewing caseloads to make sure they are safe. Recognising the additional complexity of this work.

Dr Andrea Baldwin: You need to take care of yourself to take care of others. You need to not burn out, we want you to sustainably care for other people, not at the expense of yourself. We wanted to be a rewarding and nurturing job to do.

[VIDEO ENDS]

Jacquie Lee: Thanks everyone. If you happen to have any trouble viewing the video, I know we have got a little bit of wild weather here, so mine was a bit glitchy, we will share the link after the webinar so you can watch it. And please, do go ahead and share your reflections with us in the chat. I am curious to hear our panellists' reflections as well. Michelle, we saw you at the beginning of the video discussing how work and well-being is a shared responsibility. Could you perhaps elaborate on that for us?

Michelle Roberts: Sure. It is always funny watching yourself on video, isn't it? I think, I should have said that! Even in the video, we talk about the collective and individual responsibility and collective was used by Paul, and a lot of his work has been with emergency response agencies. But I don't want the takeaway message to be the organisation holding the full responsibility. We are starting to realise that if you are a volunteer or self activated person identifying as a leader, you hold responsibility for your own well-being. We do have responsibility to be fit for this work and being fit is as Chris said, physically fit, mentally fit, and preprepared, psychologically prepared. 

We know the work can be tough on ourselves and our families. Let's not forget we are part of a broader ecosystem ourselves. And what we do in the day comes home with us, despite trying really hard to mask it, not to share it, necessarily. It still comes home with us, in some way or another. So, recognising the shared responsibility does not mean we ignore our own responsibilities. Whenever I am doing something like this webinar I go and I look for what is new out there and what is fresh and I came across the other day a Churchill Fellowship report written by a woman named Amy Nicholas, and she had looked at this very question, it was wonderful. 

So, I have been working my way through her report, and we will give you access to the reference for that in the chat, but I want to draw out some of the things her Churchill taught her to share with us around organisational responsibility. She has this question or query from an organisational responsibility, in terms of health and safety and what the legislation says. And in 2022, there was what I would say are ramping up of the legislation, so that all the organisations have a required responsibility to proactively manage exposure to psychosocial hazards. We are used to thinking in terms of physical safety. They have shifted to include psychological and psychosocial safety. I really recommend you read it, it is very thought-provoking. She puts out there that this is her thoughts at this point in time and there may be critiques, thoughts, different considerations or ideas she is open to exploring further with people. But the sorts of things we need to shift from, I think, is to enable the organisations to address and mitigate. So, you enable the individual, address what are perceived and foreseen psychosocial hazards and then, as a collective, look at what other mitigation strategies. We know this work is tough, we know that if you do it, you do it going in with your eyes open. 

We know it is important, as Sarah said in the video, to have the training, the awareness of your own vulnerabilities and strengths, and organisational weaknesses, strengths, and vulnerabilities as well. Yes, it is a collective in every term we can think of in this work .

Jacquie Lee: Absolutely, thank Michelle. We will explore each of those elements a bit later in this webinar. Sarnia, what resonated with you the most as a parent?

Sarnia Ralston: I think from the clip, you and also this whole conversation, it really shows how organisations are valuing the whole worker. And how, taking into consideration that it is not just a self-indulgent act to take on self-care, but essential to show up both for work and then at home as well. So, the whole clip just really stands out in how far we have come, and as Michelle said earlier, looking back at her early research days, we have come so far and the organisational commitment to acknowledge a parent in their own right, with their children in their own right... It just models that beautiful ecosystem we know is wrapped around our children. But our organisational approaches need to be the same because we are all part of families, communities, and societies. So, really good.

Jacquie Lee: On that note, I know we talk a lot in our work about taking a child-centred and family focused approach. How does that concept connect ? like, what does that mean when it comes to workers well-being in that ecosystem you just spoke about?

Sarnia Ralston: We know that children are deeply affected by the events around them, by the adults around them. And they look to the adults for that acknowledgement of their experience, their ability to regulate, co-regulate. So, we are all a part of this ecosystem, we can't compartmentalise it - 'this is my work role and now I will come home as a parent'. It is all really overflowing. Also, if we are experiencing and living in the places and spaces of disaster while we are supporting communities impacted, more so because they are watching our reactions as an adult in their ecosystem. So, having a child-centred and family focused approach, it really makes sense in that when we can show up for ourselves and our family, we feel supported. And our organisations are part of that support. 

Again, coming back to the children, we are a protective factor for our children when we model our experiences of how we respond in disaster, in work, coming home. Even if that comes to the point of saying, "Mum has had a really tough day and I need a moment to just unwind from that." And model that, you know, we need to keep it real. It is not all masking and hiding for our children, that is not a protective factor. The protective factor is showing how we can regulate and how we can come back to show up for ourselves in order to show up for our children, our families, and our communities.

Jacquie Lee: Absolutely. Thanks, Sarnia. Tayla, what stuck out to you in the video as both and mental health practitioner and team leader?

Tayla Iellamo: I think similar to Michelle, what really stood out to me was that well-being is a shared responsibility and there is a need for me to take responsibility for my own well-being and actually do the things I suggest families do in these cases and really practice what I preach to support my own well-being and mental health. Continue to build my own awareness of things I know will negatively affect me as well. 

There is also the responsibility of organisation to look after workers and provide the supports. With the bushfires, the manager said, "Well-being is your job." That is your responsibility to do that as part of your everyday work. For me, now, as a leader, I have a responsibility to my team and also to advocate on their behalf what things will support their well-being and what things could also affect theirs. It is really that dual responsibility.

Jacquie Lee: Absolutely. Before we continue, I was wondering, shall, if you could briefly explain the concept of 'cascading disasters' and why they are important to consider when we are talking about worker well-being?

Michelle Roberts: Cascading disasters is a relatively new term. The whole world of working in disasters is a rapidly evolving one with changes in concepts seen as we have more frequent and more severe disasters impacting on ourselves and our communities. It is really interesting, when I stopped and had a think about what we are using 'cascading disasters' as, terminology is important and often mean different things to different people. The actual definition I came upon was that it refers to multiple hazards or disasters that occur sequentially. And that immediately gave me the image of dominoes. The first, second, third, fourth, fifth. It leads to a chain reaction, or cascade of unfortunate events and I felt like I was channelling Lemony Snickett with his books, but it is a domino effect. They are interconnected - one event affects another and another. When I thought about a practice example for that, I was thinking about the floods that many of our areas, our geographic areas and communities have experienced, especially over the last four years, in rapid succession. 

A flood can lead to a housing crisis, it can lead to displacement of families and people within communities, it leads to a loss of social support, resources they would have had if they had not been displaced, and the opportunity to recover with others within the community that have had that shared experience. So, it influences the secondary effect. It can actually lead to isolation and poorer mental health outcomes which leads to financial stress, which escalates the likelihood to family violence and exposure to violence for children. Then I think about the consequences for the developing child. And then I think about then that leads to sleep deprivation, learning problems at school, and then they are on a track of another, of one that has needs that they did not have before. 

So, from the one natural climate-related hazard, we have a scaffold or a domino effect to really changing so many factors within the child's life, their ecosystem, the support around them, their developmental trajectory goes from here to here. That is what we are talking about when we think about the cascading effects. It is easy to also interchange that with the compounding effects. So, when I talk about our use of language, I don't think that is really clear in the literature yet. They often use interchangeably, one thing makes worse another and another. Of course, we know facts or statistics like from UNICEF and Royal Far West's research, a child born in 2020 in Australia will experience four times more heatwaves, three times more droughts, 1.5 times more bushfires than me who was born in 1960, in their lifetime. Just the rapidity of their exposure is a factor to be considered in this. For workers, we also experience it directly if we live within the area where these things are happening but also it means there is no pause for us. It is on, and on, and on. Same group, different disaster, different disaster, different group. It gets us running all the time and that makes it very hard to maintain the level of self-care we need to.

Jacquie Lee: Absolutely. Thanks, Michelle. That leads us quite nicely into the next section, sort of looking at what organisations can do in their part of that shared responsibility around well-being. Tayla, in the video we saw your colleague, Sarah, discussing some of the ways Royal Far West supports workers well-being. What have you found most effective when it comes to supporting your own team in disaster recovery work?

Tayla Iellamo: Sarah spoke about some of the effective strategies working at both the individual and organisational level. She spoke about us inventing a staff well-being tool, that this is something staff can complete when they join the team and again every six months. It's quite simple but really powerful and is in the resources. I find it is a really helpful tool to build a workers self-awareness and really open up conversations between the worker and leader because it gets you to identify, what are your early stress warning signs? So that you can identify it before it gets to the really pointy end. I guess just an example of how it has been really helpful, I did have a team member that identified in their plan when they are starting to fall behind on their admin tasks and starting to withdraw, which for this person is quite a lovely person, it was a red flag or one of those signs. So when I noticed that had started to happen and noticed in meetings we were able to check in, refer to her plan and make adjustments early on. It was really taking a proactive approach. I have learnt that in these contexts, in disaster context, people tend to take on multiple roles, sometimes your scope can sort of be a bit blurred. 

You know, sometimes health clinicians can become caseworkers, teachers, local government workers become incidental counsellors, and community leaders become crisis responders. We found that role clarity is really essential and where possible, having very clear processes for people to follow in a crisis because you find that those real executive functioning skills, when you are in those stressful times, are harder to access and are affected. Sarah also spoke about training which has been a key initiative. 

For me personally, there is nothing worse than feeling like you don't have the skills needed to show up and do your role. There are lots of free training and webinars out there for specific disaster work like ADA or Working Mind. There are training packages that don't cost any money or you can build your knowledge. This work does require flexibility. We have found having more broad theoretical frameworks for the team, working with children and schools, helpful, like trauma informed practice or the five essential elements of media and mass trauma because they are not prescriptive, but they can ensure your interventions that you are using the schools and families are guided by research. The interventions that promote a sense of safety, promote calming, self-efficacy, connectedness and hope.

Jacquie Lee: Thank you, Tayla. Sarnia, a lot of organisations span entire states and teams of people living and working in affected and unaffected areas. What challenges have you found in these situations and how can these kinds of organisations to support those staff members who are impacted by a disaster?

Sarnia Ralston: Great question, and it is so important because the reality is that many organisations span across states and territories and also nationally. We know that within one state, an area could be impacted by a bush fire or flood or cyclone, something going on, and the other part of the state is functioning as normal. So, when we create systems within our organisation but also promote that across our communities, as Tayla mentioned, we really help people understand their role in the broader part of supporting and checking in and responding. When people are having vastly different experiences, I feel it is really important to understand the context in which our teams are working in our organisations. So, having really strong systems and policies in place that are looking more so at prevention focus, and a supporting focus. How do we be really proactive in a policy and not reactive? That really comes down to clear communication and understanding the context in which our teams work. 

The geographics of where our teams work. And also, recognising across those diverse areas, when disaster or experiences have occurred. Again, clear communication, flexible workloads, knowing our teams, regular well-being check ins, and also across broader organisation perspectives. I saw it first hand and a lot of people in the far North, who commented that when Southeast Queensland was experiencing a threat of cyclone, how the comms coming out of Brisbane was fantastic. It is something that we should be experiencing. Not to say our company did not, they went above and beyond. When Cyclone Jasper was in the far north, the support was fantastic, booking a hotel and so on. If you need to pause and reporting and so on because of the event happening in south-west Queensland, let us know. Wouldn't it be great if that happened when we had potential experiences up north are working remotely and talking to people remote. It is about talking to communication and that consistent approach.

Jacquie Lee: Thank you, Sarnia. Moving on to think about how individuals can look after their well-being. In the video, Chris emphasised the importance of self-care through every phase of a disaster. Starting off with you, Sarnia, how do you look after your well-being in the lead up to a disaster and how is your family factor into this?

Sarnia Ralston: I definitely learned the hard way because I was in denial of first-time experience disaster. Just brush it off, it won't happen to us, we will be fine. Having learned from that, talking with my children and my family, many incredible organisations and the work you are doing, the prevention and preparedness is essential. We know now some really core foundations that we can take in steps for our family each year. We have a pack that we can prepare. Everybody plays a part. Even the littlest in our family has a part to play. 

I feel it is really important, particularly for children, and preparing for disaster, that when they have a role to play, they have a sense of control. They feel they play a really significant contribution into the preparedness. Again, as adults, we as adults are modelling that response and how regulated we are showing up. It is really an organised, structured, relaxed, enjoyable process to work out what we are going to pack, who was responsible for the guinea pigs, who is going to pack the dog food. All of these little things that really can't be last-minute things. So, that reinforces that preparedness is a shared responsibility, and when we keep our children at the centre of that, they can play such a significant role. As Michelle said, they will potentially experience a lot more disaster than any of us have in our lifetime. So,it is really important to start that from a positive, strength-based approach.

Jacquie Lee: Absolutely, thank you, Sarnia. Michelle, what have you found to be effective in maintaining well-being during a disaster?

Michelle Roberts: During disaster is a really interesting stage. In my reading that I made reference to, I came across a really useful quote, and it is very short. "The expectation that we can be immersed in suffering a loss daily and not be touched by it as unrealistic as expecting to walk through water and not get wet." That really resonated strongly with me because we walk alongside the people we are looking to support; we share in their exposures. 

Sarnia, her references to the preparedness means being physically prepared but also psychologically prepared. You can do that for a person about to experience disaster, you can do that as a worker about to support others who have been through the experience, or you can do it as both because we are often in both roles, and most of us have a lived experience as well as work in this space. During is fascinating. I reflect on the first time I looked at role clarity. 1996, for most of you who weren't born, that was the Port Arthur massacre. It was the first shocking massacre, people perpetrated event, that happened to that time, that I know. There was one police officer named Matthew Richmond and his reflections were so powerful, to his day I remember his face and name, never saw him again. But it really sat with me that he was asked about leading people into what was a chaotic, unpredictable dangerous situation to save life and limb, as is their duty, and to identify the perpetrator, and managed to stop the harm that was being done. They were as informed as they could be but it was an important situation. That is a very special during stressor, that you are so activated within yourself that you have a really heightened response that is going to keep you safe as possible. 

Tayla spoke about our alterations to executive functioning when in that state. The pinpoint laser vision you got searching for a threat. If you can put yourself in a role of having to face the challenge as well as the responsibility of helping, you need to be thinking how you can be prepared mentally. What am I likely to face, how do I prepare for that? If A happens what am I going to do, if B happens what am I going to do? I've been in that situation not as a police officer but as a mental health professional. I have stood near a body of a child that has been hit by a bus while the rest of the kids are still on the bus and the mother comes and sees what happened. It is the most stressful thing, it is terrific. I need to think about my vulnerabilities, my strengths, and from that experience, I learned that I'm a good person in a crisis but, boy, I have to work hard afterwards because there is a lot to unpack about that experience. 

If you don't do that work, you don't work in the space again. It is such a recipe for unfolding yourself that you don't want to do. The during is really important. We often get caught in the after phase or the before phase but it is also quite possible that all of us have a role, whether we are a teacher, a school crossing person, a volunteer in the community, that will be engaged in the during as well.

Jacquie Lee: I think about a disaster like a drought where the during is... So prolonged. Thank you.

Michelle Roberts: Can I directly say to that, that is a different sort of preparation because it is a marathon, not a sprint. If you don't see how you're going to be there in the long-term, if that is your role, you are going to burn out. If you engage with all of your interpersonal connections while you are in the drought space, supporting people and families, but your funding runs out or your organisation decides that it is too much to ask you to be there for the three years of the drought, then they move you to another role, you have to prepare yourself and know as much as you can beforehand, how long you are there for, what was your role, and knowing that you have done all you can in that circumstance and be ready to disengage.

Jacquie Lee: Absolutely. It sounds like there is maybe something in there about being kind to yourself are not being ashamed of needing to disengage, to make that call.

Michelle Roberts: Yes.

Jacquie Lee: Tayla, what about after a disaster? What have you found that support your well-being in this line of work?

Tayla Iellamo: The work I did working with communities after a disaster, this involves long hours away from home. When I'm in community, I found the boundaries for me are everything in real important. After each day, I do have a small ritual, I take off my badge and my uniform, and that to me signals it is the end of my work day. My work day is done. We do travel as a team and we try to hold each other accountable by not letting our work bleed into our personal time as well. On that, in terms of team, another thing that might not seem like it might relate to well-being, but having a re-supportive team culture, I take that as a key responsibility... Of mine. We have worked with each other for so long and we know each other's stress signs and everybody support needs and we are very open in terms of our communication with each other around that. It is really up to know that people have your back. I can simply look at someone and they know what they look means.

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In these times is not just about venting, which is important and has its place, but more around making meaning of the work you are doing, similar to what Michelle reflected on. In processing it so you are not carrying it alone. We need that, both the formal supervision and structures but we also need the in I want to come to work knowing that there is someone that cares that I actually show up and do the job and do that work. Formal peer support.

Jacquie Lee: Thanks, Tayla, some great ideas, insights in there. I am curious, Sarnia and Michelle, do you have any rituals of your own? I wonder as well if our audience have any rituals they might like to share in the I find that team is so important in that. chat. Because I have definitely heard...

Sarnia Ralston: Just being really grounded, and mindful of knowing how your body feels in a regulated, calm state. And being able to recognise when it is not. Mine is definitely running and cooking, those really slow things where I can earth and ground and go outside and have a walk if possible. In 100%, self-care, turn off social media and media. It is a great thing to do, at times. Even though you need to stay in the loop, you can find yourself obsessing, what is happening now? What's the update? Just switch off.

Michelle Roberts: I would like to say when I was doing this work seven days a week, having a bath was the best third space - a processing space, a transition space for me. And there was this sort of metaphor or symbolism of that of washing away the day and then coming out refreshed and meeting the family all ready for whatever the next task is. But fundamental to my own well-being, I think, is to make time to pause, reflect and digest. I use that term as understanding and making meaning, as Tayla indicated, of what the experience has been but also to link in with that parasympathetic nervous system activation rather than the fight or flight we are often in when we are alone and doing the work. It is a very conscious transition to slow it all down, take a breath, think about it and pop it aside and move into the next phase of the day.

Jacquie Lee: Sarnia, you mentioned earlier having conversations with your kids in that preparedness stage. Thinking about all of the phases of disaster, particularly afterwards, what kinds of conversations can disaster support workers have with their children and loved ones to support their well-being? And what is important for workers to keep in mind during those conversations?

Sarnia Ralston: I think just ? not forgetting that our children and families pick up so much more than our words, and that we need to be open and honest from an age-appropriate lens. Like Tayla said, not sharing every detail but acknowledging something is happening. Giving children space to ask questions or share the experience on what they are seeing and what they are seeing from us. Being open and honest, saying things like, "I have got some important work to do right now and it is making me feel a bit tired..." Whatever that might sound like for you and your child's development stage. You know, "post-disaster, things might be a little bit different for a while but we have a plan, we are all safe, and all together, what would help you to feel safe?" 

As an adult, remembering for our children that their experience of safety is different to what an adult might conceptualise. They need to feel safe in order to be safe. From our adult mind we often think that a child is safe if we put structures and systems in place, but that does not necessarily help them to feel safe. So, hearing from their voice around what helps them to feel safe, we have a beautiful kit we use at NAPCAN and share with communities and it just really elicits the voices of children in their own individual experience. I just always try and remember that kids, my kids, take emotional cues from us so when we are calm and clear they feel more secure. And also, check in with our other loved ones around us. Our partner or family, you know, our extended ecosystem. And checking in and letting them know what is going on for us in whatever is appropriate as a way of communicating that. And checking in on how they are going as well, just strengthening our community, our internal and external communities, can really support us in our conversations.

Jacquie Lee: Absolutely, thank you, Sarnia. We have come to the Live Q&A portion of today's webinar. If you have a question that you would like to submit to the panel, we will be doing a recorded Q&A after this as well. So, please add that via the question function. I've got a question here around looking after First Nations workers' well-being. It says, "How much work has been put into looking after First Nations workers given that a lot of us have lived experience and we are still working in community when we are clocked off the timesheet?" Michelle, I don't know if you have come across much in that ? on that topic in the research that you have done?

Michelle Roberts: I have come across some readings and I would not say it is an area of my expertise at this point in time. I would suggest, if this is an area you want to find out more about then Williams is doing some beautiful work in that space. My own work with colleagues at our First Nations people, and Jacquie proposed a questionnaire on multicultural workers and potentially marginalise workers, and I reflected on that and I thought it was quite an interesting question from the perspective that I would expect as a manager, leader, or colleague that I would have a good understanding of the strengths and vulnerabilities that my colleagues bring to the workspace all those people I manage bring to the workspace. And that might be the exposures they have had previously, including the intergenerational exposures, experience of colonisation, refugee status, all of those things I think I would want to be part of, as Royal Far West and Tayla and Sarah in the video say, to strengthen vulnerabilities of how you can mitigate the risk and all of that? But it is all done in consultation with the workers as part of the organisation. It is not specific to our Indigenous colleagues and workers but I think they are good fundamental principles to consider.

Jacquie Lee: Thanks, Michelle. Tayla, I am wondering, how can a multidisciplinary approach support disaster workers well-being?

Tayla Iellamo: I find multidisciplinary work helpful for the well-being of the team itself not just community. It brings diversity of skills and a shared load. No one profession can meet the needs of communities after a disaster. When you work with different disciplines, you are less isolated in trying to carry the emotional and practical demands. You have also got others to consult with, to lean on, to reflect, to learn from. Plus, you are not stretched too thin. I have found that working in communities where we do have educators and family services and counsellors and community leaders all coming together and collaborating, it means you have a shared understanding, reduces the duplication, which is one of the greatest areas. For communities. Shared emotional labour, and actually better collective care as well. It means that people can trust each other, they can reflect together, and it is that shared responsibility to, I guess, build resilience, not just as a team or community, but individuals as well.

Jacquie Lee: Thanks, Tayla, that makes sense. Michelle, you mentioned you have been working in this area for 40 years, what have you found helpful in maintaining your own sense of hopefulness and during a disaster and how as I benefited your work with children and families?

Michelle Roberts: Gosh, isn't it a funny time in the geopolitical space to be thinking about hopefulness? I was thinking about the need to actually get my hopefulness all out of the cupboard and give it a polish because it is really a bit tarnished at the moment... But I think being able to have longevity in this role is about everything that has been said today. You know, self-care, the systems we work in, if there is an experience of dissonance between how I do the work and need to do the work and how might organisation expects me to do the work, I don't do the work with that organisation. 

I can't tolerate the mismatch of my values in that space, I can tolerate it for a short period, but I know it does me harm. We have not spoken about moral injury but it is a relatively new concept we are getting more information about. Again, something starting with military and move to general population and there was a wonderful article in 'The Conversation' this week talking about moral injury in teachers. And I really found I could identify with the discussion of that piece, so another thing I recommend you talk about. I have been better and worse at my self-care. And I have often been a leader in doing the work in this area, so I have not necessarily had immediate peers around me to provide me with the feedback of, "You are losing it Michelle, pull back." Or, "I can see how tired you are, you are running on empty, stop now." I have had to rely on my family to do that all my trusted friends who will grab me by my jacket and say, "Look at yourself, what is going on here?!" 

Sometimes you need that. We really get so into the pattern. In saying that, I have walked through the water with everyone and I know I am pretty wet in lots of areas. I do not think you can do hard work like this without feeling and showing the marks of that work and that can be a positive and can be a struggle at times, so it is actually exactly what my lovely colleagues on the panel have been saying, "You walk the talk." You tell people to do this in your advice, why aren't you doing it for yourself? And yet, the hardest time to do the self-care is when you most need to do it. You always make it part of your regular practice so it is a habit rather than something additional you have to do. That is what I have learnt in that time.

Jacquie Lee: Absolutely. That is great advice for any context, right? Not just disasters. For those watching, there is a definition of moral injury in the handouts section as well, if you are not familiar with the term. Thank you so much to Michelle, Tayla, and Sarnia for joining us today. That hour has just flown by. I feel like we could do several webinars just on this topic. It has been a pleasure hearing from you all. Thank you everyone for joining us today. And to those who are watching the recording. And thank you to the AIFS communication team, child and family evidence evaluation team for their hard work and pulling today's event together. You can subscribe to the newsletter is to be notified about the recording when it is available and a reminder, there will be a feedback survey that pops up after this event concludes and we would really appreciate your feedback and ideas for future events. 

Finally, our next webinar with CFCA will not be until August, but AIFS is launching an on-demand program featuring the most popular webinar some produced in collaboration with Emerging Minds. This initiative comes with collaboration with people in the sector who so they can sometimes struggle to find time for professional development, including webinars. Please keep an eye out in your inbox for the program and for more information on how to register and watch this on demand offering. Just a reminder as well, if you're watching live, we would do a follow-up Q&A with our panellists after this that will be recorded and added onto the webinar recording. So, please do keep an eye out for that in your inbox because there are so many more questions to go through. 

Thank you, everyone, for joining us. Take care and we look forward to seeing you again at our next webinar with CFCA in August.

Extended Q&A

Jacquie Lee: Hi everyone, and welcome back to the extended Q&A for our webinar wellbeing for Workers Supporting Children and Families After a Disaster. I'd like to welcome back our panelists, Sonia Ralston, Tayla Iellamo and Michelle Roberts. Thanks for joining us. Sonia, I'll start off with you. We know that from research that social support and connection are some of the biggest protective factors for mental health and wellbeing, especially during times of stress. But we also often hear that people are hesitant to reach out for support when they know that others in their networks are also going through tough times. What approaches and resources might help individuals to overcome this hesitancy?

Sarnia Ralston: Thanks, Jacquie. I'm definitely aware of the the hesitancy and reluctance to reach out for supports, and I think from a worker perspective, but also bringing my own perspective in, an understanding of why is it that people aren't wanting willing to wanting to reach out for support? and when we can understand the reasons and potential reasons why it can help us in our approaches and the way that we frame our supports. So I know firsthand I myself did not want to appear vulnerable. I felt like I had a role to play where I needed to be available and present and skilled and confident in what I was offering community. So therefore, if I sought help or appeared vulnerable, it somehow, in my mind, impacted my credibility in the space of supporting people. So having stepping back from that, and as a worker trying to understand why somebody might not be wanting to connect and and seek support. 

When we understand that vulnerability, we can really reframe the way that we tune in and offer supports. There was research done I believe in Queensland around, why is it that people aren't seeking support? And often the research found that and this wasn't in disaster support. It was, I believe, a QFCC's Families Research Support. But looking at, when people feel that they're judged or vulnerable, they are less likely to reach out for support. But those same people reported that if somebody had have noticed and tuned in to what they needed and come from a framing perspective of, hey, I've noticed, this experience is happening for you. Can I offer up this? Can I offer up supports, etc.? they were more likely and willing to take on that help. So I think if we walk beside people and just be really mindful that we might be the professionals in a space of, offering help and support. But to look around us, to our colleagues, our teams, our organizations and other organizations and just check in. How are you? I noticed you're a part of this experience as well. And is there anything we can do from our organization to help you in and your organization and, and really normalize help seeking and help accepting? And, that can be a really great step to breaking down barriers.

Jacquie Lee: Yeah. Thanks, Sarnia. That's fantastic advice. in the video, Chris mentioned the importance of self-monitoring for wellbeing. Tayla, I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this as an OT and what strategies might be helpful for workers.

Tayla Iellamo: Thanks, Jacquie. and thinking back to that video, I do really resonate with Chris, and I find I also need to move my body to stay balanced. But as a OT, I think about wellbeing and I find a helpful frame to think about wellbeing in terms of nervous system regulation and using that lens, or using the window of tolerance concept as well. So it's not just about coping. Like Chris said, it's about asking where am I functioning within my window? And potentially how wide is my window at this time where I'm about to go in and respond? Am I overwhelmed? Am I shut down, or am I actually able to function meaningfully and move through those stresses that I might come across? 

Chris spoke about having times to to check in with yourself. And one of the things that we suggest to educators in schools is to support students with a morning check in. This could be a 0 to 5 rating. It could be a thumbs up and thumbs down. And we did that as a as a panel when we first started this. So this is something as workers, we may also find helpful to check in with ourselves. But to build some self-monitoring skills, it might be helpful to think about it in terms of the three phases. So some proactive things you can do might be accessing training, accessing mentoring or accessing that, that peer support and that mentoring and supervision aim to be reflective, to really enable you to tune in to your responses. And where in your body do you feel activated. And I find it less about naming a mood or a feeling and more about okay, yes, I feel my heart racing or I found my voice went shaky or my neck muscles feel tight. Or maybe I started to feel myself react unconsciously rather than responding. But then maybe during the work, whether it's whether that's in disaster recovery or responding in a crisis, I find simple in the moment strategies really helpful. Things like building in a pause before you're about to respond. Things like being aware of your breathing and really ensuring that your exhales are shorter than your inhale, potentially reducing some of the sensory input around you when possible. Things like noise reducing earplugs are great at this. Things like squeezing your hands together or squeezing your fists. Ensuring sleep is prioritized. And that's a non-negotiable of protecting your sleep. Even having, you know, a fidget or something like I've got blu-tack at the moment, so keeping a fidget on you, on your keys, on your lanyard, or even just in your pocket so you can access these things and that'll really support you in the moment. But then afterwards, it's I find it's mostly about processing, acknowledging the impact of that event or the work, allowing time to debrief and reconnect with your family or reconnect with your team members as well. So, like Chris was saying in the video, it's it isn't just about whether you're coping, but how your, your body and brain are actually managing that stress.

Jacquie Lee: Yeah. Thanks, Tayla. we love practical strategies in these kinds of webinars. you, you mentioned there, making sure you're I think you said making sure your exhalations are shorter than your inhalations, but I wasn't sure if you meant the other way around. I've heard,

Tayla Iellamo:  Longer exhalations. Longer. Great. Yes, yes. Okay, I got that wrong. So breathing in for 3 or 4 and breathing out for 7.

Jacquie Lee: Amazing. Thank you. Sorry. I just wanted to double check. Okay. Thanks. You also mentioned that, like, some classroom strategies in there, which, transitions quite nicely to my next question for Michelle. we talked in the main webinar conversation about some ways Royal Far West has supported workers wellbeing. But I know that you have a lot of experience working in the education space. And so I wondered what you've found. Works well for supporting, workers wellbeing in the disaster context in that particular sector.

Michelle Roberts: Yeah, it's such a good question, and I'd like to say I've got the perfect algorithm to hand over here, but I, I really do think that we always need to come into a context in this work and appraise the situation. What's happened, what's been the experience. So I look at this from two perspectives. One, I've spent time working as a school psychologist and going into schools across the state and providing support for the workers and how I look after myself and my team when we do that. I, you know, have some tips that I would say be prepared. You know, make sure that before you go into the context, you know, the where, what, why and how, and you have gone down mental pathways yourself off. What am I likely to hear? What am I likely to see? What do I think are the friction points within the school community that will be raised, and how can I best help with that? 

School communities are like any community. They have their own culture, and they can be different from the school five seconds down the road. And so, I need to be able to get a handle on what am I walking into that's protective for me. It also means I'm more effective in my work for that school community as well. I need to be physically organized. I don't know if I'm going to be there for ten minutes, ten hours a week, a month, whatever. And so I need to make sure that I feel like I am, I've got the equipment I need. 

I've got the tools I need, you know, am I going to be sitting on the floor with the preppies and doing some play therapy around? What's been going on? Am I going to be sitting with a principal who is so overwhelmed that they're hugging me and I've got their nose all over my shoulder as a consequence, you know. And, you know, you just don't know where the day's going to go with those circumstances. And so the way I am prepared for it is how I'm dressed, that I've got snacks with me so I can look after my own physiological needs, that I know that I'll need toilet breaks, that I will need to tell everyone else that I can't do the cognitive assessment I was going to do that day because I'm responding to a critical incident in a school. All of those sort of practical things. And I need to know what my role is. And am I going in there to hear the story first off, and back up the leadership in their response? Am I going in to work with the families? Am I looking after a grade because I have a teacher background? It's not unusual for the teacher to say, I don't know how to do this, and I'm just going to step out for a minute. Can you talk to the kids about this? And I need to be able to change my mindset really quickly for that from a perspective of being an educator. Or I might be a school chaplain supporting the staff, or I might be the school psychologist for that school or the guidance officer. I am part of that community, as well as being looked to as someone who can provide the support, I already can tick off that. I know certain aspects about the school and what's happened and how it's unfolding, and where the vulnerabilities are. 

The strengths are we have to acknowledge the vulnerabilities, but we want to work from the strengths base all the time. And my own self-care, and that is everything that we've already spoken about. I try and be practical. I try to be targeted. I try to look after myself. I model and walk the talk of self-care for my colleagues. I support leadership where they need it, and I encourage the, sense of control to bring back structure and control to what is a chaotic situation in the beginning that's controlling myself. It's assisting others in their own self control of their physiological and psychological responses. But it's also bringing back predictability to the school routine so that people feel assured that there is a step forward. We've got a plan, we're enacting the plan, and we're safe, both psychologically and in physical reality. Tayla, you do a lot of work in schools, too. Did you want to add anything?

Tayla Iellamo: Yeah. Thanks, Michelle. I was thinking, as you were talking around that, that the predictability routine and how core it is for teachers to feel a sense of control over their day, but also ensuring that their classrooms can get back to having routine as quickly as possible. But the other thing that sort of jumped out to me, as you were, you were talking was for educators and school leaders really to be kind to themselves and sort of reduce the pressure on themselves and even reduce their expectation, because you've got a class of students that has also been affected by a disaster. And what we what we know in the immediate aftermath of disaster when we're returning to school, is that students ability to learn is affected. It's going to be impacted. They're going to struggle to pay attention. You're probably going to see behaviors in students that weren't presenting with those behaviors before. So, what we really need to do is increase the wellbeing supports and just at that time reduce the demands on learning, which for teachers can just be a helpful reframe of not feeling the pressure of trying to get back to the curriculum straight away. Because in those moments, the yeah, the students ability to learn is really affected. So be gentle on yourselves as well.

Michelle Roberts: That's fantastic. And I want to pick up on that from the perspective that just as the kids have trouble with their learning because they're processing the experience, they're potentially hypervigilant, it's hard to focus and attend. So are the educators in the same situation. And it's been a long standing bugbear for me that the tension of the system is that we need to get schools up and running again after a disaster quickly. And I think that comes at a cost to the teachers who haven't had time to do the rest and digest that we've been talking about of their own experience, knowing that their own families are safe or their needs are being met processing what's happened, let alone then how am I going to guide my class through this experience and deliver the curriculum as well, you know. And so there's all these competing demands, and I know that in other countries, they often clearly give educators a block of time to do their own business around this. Then they have professional learning for the educators around their responses and their students and school community responses. And then they come back to school as teachers. So I don't know how we juggle the wider system thing of having kids safe at school in a disaster and parents having the time to do the busy work that needs to happen after a disaster and look after the mental health and wellbeing of our educators in that context.

Jacquie Lee: Thanks, Michelle, and thanks, Tayla. some great insights and also some interesting reflections. I feel like we could do a whole webinar just on that, that one topic. Thank you to both of you and to Sarnia, who had to duck out to her next meeting. Thank you for joining us. Thank you to everyone who's watching. Don't forget to look out for that email on the CFCA on-demand webinar program, which will, depending on when you're watching this, may already have hit your inboxes or will be coming through in the next week. And we look forward to seeing you again at our next webinar with CFCA in August. Thanks, everyone. Take care.