Dear Sir/Madam,
Hello to all,
Apologies for another newsletter hot on the tail of last week's, but the recent cyclone disasters in the NT and QLD have resulted in a lot of psychosocial recovery work that DRN members may be able to assist with. The Red Cross have asked for our support for three different operations, which I've listed below. We have DRN members participating in 4 day deployments in Rockhampton as Welfare Wellbeing Officers, and a group of stalwart DRN psychologists phoning returned Red Cross Workers to do wellbeing checks after their deployments in central QLD. A huge thank you to all of you who have already volunteered.
If any additional DRN members have time in the coming weeks to do some independent debriefing over the phone, that would be enormously appreciated. We are also expecting Red Cross workers currently deployed in the Northern Territory to need independent debriefs on their return, so our need for support is quite high at the moment.
I've also added a few additional items of interest in the newsletter, one being a reminder of the support group training in SA in April, and the other being an interesting documentary project involving a group of young Aboriginal men in Ramingining, one of the small communities that has been severely impacted by Cyclone Lam. Support comes in many forms!
Kind regards,
Dr Susie Burke
Public Interest, Environment and Disaster Response