Bushfire Recovery Special for the Principal and Parent Leaders

A special bushfire recovery edition: helping you, helping children

Mental health support for children and parents in Be You schools and ECE
Back-to-school fact sheets for every state
National Bushfire Recovery Agency
Beyond Blue bushfire trauma resource pack
Bushfire 'social stories' to help children with autism
Identify trauma responses in children from infancy to adolescence
10 years on - how a school community recovered from 2009 bushfires
State by state Ed department recovery links
ACSSO member organisation support
$50,000 CommBank Bushfire Recovery grants for schools
#Caughtyoubeinggreat - a school that lost everything reopens thanks to community.

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From our Chair's message

Almost immediately the last newsletter was sent, we began receiving and identifying additional ways that school communities can reach out and receive support for the most recent and, in some cases, future disasters.
We share this with you now, along with an offer from ACSSO to help connect your school community and parent groups with others in networks of support as we all work on recovery from this season.

Reach out for support

In our most recent newsletter, I said that many of us have had a traumatic school holiday break with natural disasters, and noted that ongoing, meaningful support to our communities was essential.

I called for the Education Minister's extra 'mental health' school funding to be focused on trauma counselling specialists, and that this work be acknowledged as likely to take quite some time.

In our newsletter we also shared a significant local grants program from the Commonwealth Bank aimed at rebuilding lost facilities - in many cases for schools this will be an outbuilding or piece of equipment that was hard-won through fundraising.

More ideas rolling in

Almost immediately the newsletter was sent, we began receiving and identifying additional ways that school communities can reach out and receive support for the most recent and, in some cases, future disasters. This included some good suggestions from the Australian Department of Education, Skills and Employment.

We share this with you now, along with an offer from ACSSO to help connect your school community and parent groups with others in networks of support as we all work on recovery from this season.

Rising from the ashes

And finally, please don't miss our bushfire recovery #caughtyoubeinggreat story in this edition. Bobin Public School lost every building but its library in the NSW fires, check the videos below to see the devastation.

However, with great support from the local community Bobin PS was able to re-open this term. Some Bobin students also lost their homes in the fires, so being able to return to familiar teachers and peers, instead of travelling to a different school, was especially important.

Andrew Bidwell
Chair
Australian Council of State School Organisations

Bushfire Recovery Special edition February 2020

Trauma support for schools and early years

The Australian Government is providing 25 mental health liaison officers to support young people in some schools and early childhood education services with an $8 million bushfire recovery initiative.

The support should be available to students if their school or early learning service is participating in the Beyond Blue, Be You program.

https://www.education.gov.au/support-bushfire-affected-communities

The above page includes advice about managing Child Care Subsidy exemptions and accessing the Community Child Care Fund for early learning services in special circumstances related to the bushfires.

There are also state-by-state downloadable fact sheets capturing a wide range of support services via the Australian Government, here:

https://www.education.gov.au/support-bushfire-affected-communities#Back%20to%20school

And you can see the bigger recovery picture when you go to the National Bushfire Recovery Agency.

Parent wellbeing

It is the nature of parents and carers to want to keep their families safe and limit disruption to their children’s lives. However, in order to help your children, you need to make sure you are looking after yourself.

The Australian Government recommends the below resource pack from Beyond Blue for parents as well as educators and other professionals.

Even if you don't participate in the Be You program, Beyond Blue has released a resource pack to help all schools and early learning services support children, staff and parent communities affected by the bushfires.

The resource pack is built into this web page and focuses on providing information related to mental health and wellbeing for learning communities. Information is sorted into support for immediate, short term, and long term needs.

Introducing the pack, which will be updated regularly as new material is completed, Be You says:

While Be You is not a clinical support service, this resource is a source of information about looking after yourself and others in the days, weeks and months after the bushfires.

We share some of the resource pack ideas below.

Bush Fire Social Story

Early Connections Alliance has developed a Bush Fire Social Story to share with your children.

Social Stories are a social learning tool that supports the safe and meaningful exchange of information between parents, professionals, and people with autism of all ages. You can adapt the social story to your family by downloading the word document.

Age-specific trauma support advice

Emerging Minds is the National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health. The service has curated a series of information sheets to help teachers, parents and other adults to identify and help children with trauma responses.

A series of fact sheets on trauma response in children of different ages:

10 years beyond bushfires in the Strathewen Primary School community

How does a community recover from the devastating impact of a bushfire?

What role can the school and the community play in supporting children, young people and families on the path to recovery?

Staff from Strathewen Primary School share their wisdom and experiences, from setting up a temporary school three days after the fires, to continuing to support their children and families ten years on.

Teachers, children and parents speak about their experiences in this 30 minute video, giving us all insights into the trauma and healing around a school community's disaster.

Assistance in your state and territory

Australian state and territory governments provide advice to schools during disaster periods. If you haven't already done so, look for links provided by Education, Health and Emergency departments. Some examples listed below:

Find your ACSSO members

We also encourage you to reach out to the state school parent bodies for your jurisdiction, listed here:

ACSSO members

Australian Capital Territory

https://www.actparents.org.au/

P&Cs Queensland

https://pandcsqld.com.au/

Tasmanian Association of State School Organisations

https://www.tasso.org.au/

Parents Victoria

https://www.parentsvictoria.asn.au/

Image credit: ABC News Paige Cockburn - full story here

Commonwealth Bank bushfire recovery grants to school communities

The Commonwealth Bank has announced community grants for bushfire affected areas.

Each grant offers up to $50,000, enabling community organisations, schools, sporting clubs and fire brigades to replace facilities lost in the fires.

We’re especially keen for schools to apply as we know that a lot of the damage caused by fires has been to items which the community has spent significant time fundraising and building.

Fast facts:

The total grants fund is expected to exceed $10 million.
Applications are now open until 31 March 2020.
Applications are reviewed fortnightly to keep the money flowing as fast as possible.
Any school or parents group in a bushfire affected area can apply.

Prior to applying, please read the Grant Guidelines, FAQs and Review Matrix.

#CaughtYouBeingGreat -

Bobin PS and community

Bobin Public School is located near Taree on the NSW Mid North Coast.

The school was almost completely destroyed in the 2019 summer bushfires, losing every building apart from its library. The town also suffered the loss of many houses and buildings.

Drawing on assistance from the sector and the community, including the local Lions Club, Bobin PS was able to open its doors to students on the first day of term this year.

The school community worked tirelessly and with determination to ensure their students - many still unable to return home - were able to attend their local school and not be forced to go to other areas.

Definitely a case of #caughtyoubeinggreat !

Click here or scroll down for the 7News videos of Bobin's devastation during and after the fire

Send your #caughtyoubeinggreat stories to comms@acsso.org.au and use the hashtag on Facebook to find other wonderful stories.