7 OCTOBER 2020

FEATURED PROJECT
Building Community Resilience to Bushfires

The catastrophic 2019-20 bushfire season impacted the environment, communities and stretched resources like never before. New South Wales was the worst-hit state, affecting more than five million hectares, destroying more than 2,000 homes and businesses and forcing thousands to seek shelter elsewhere.

Bushfire response agencies, volunteer recovery organisations and the construction industry are now assisting communities to demolish, remove and rebuild homes and infrastructure destroyed in the fires. A team of interdisciplinary researchers from UOW have joined forces to understand how communities, and the industries and agencies that support them, can build greater bushfire resilience through short and long-term coping capacities. 

We spoke with Dr Tillmann Böhme and Dr Matthew Daly to learn more.

Online Seminar: Climate, disaster and mental health

This year alone, our region has seen drought, bushfire and flood and now the world is experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic. Climate scientists warn that climate change is contributing to an increase in natural disasters and eco-anxiety has become a very real problem.

So what impact does climate change and ongoing disaster have on mental health, and what can we do to recover, heal and build resilience?

UOW Global Challenges is hosting an online panel discussion during Climate Change Week (October 19-23) and Mental Health Month (October). The seminar will focus on climate, disaster and mental health and feature a panel of experts including Professor Sharon Robinson, Samantha Avitaia, Dr Joshua Whittaker, Dr Anthony McKnight and Professor Lorna Moxham.

Seminar: Climate, disaster and mental health
Wednesday 21 October 2020, 12.30 PM

Find out more and register at the link below.

The Stand: Our black summer

Story by India Glyde

It was a horror bushfire season, the worst on record. But as bushfires engulfed the South Coast, in the early days of 2020, the staff at the University of Wollongong’s Batemans Bay and Bega campuses rose to the challenge.

In Bega, in particular, the border closures have placed additional pressure on students, including those who study in Mallacoota, just over the Victorian border, which was also decimated by the New Year’s Eve bushfires.

Samantha Avitaia, UOW Bega Campus Manager says the close-knit community is looking for the sunshine among the clouds, and supporting each other as best as they can.

“We have realised what a special community we live in. Even if it’s just a smile, a listening ear. We all know each other, we all see each other at the supermarket, and our kids go to school together. We are really proud of our little community. It is a beautiful place to live.”

Disaster and Crisis all-team Zoom meeting - 14 October

The Global Challenges team has scheduled our second cross-team meeting for all disaster and crisis research teams to come together and share updates.

Disaster and Crisis All-Team meeting
Wednesday 14 October 2020 10:00 AM

Please contact narndt@uow.edu.au for the link to join and please ensure that at least one researcher from each team is available to join the meeting.

Online tools available to teams

We want to ensure we are taking a collaborative and cohesive approach to research in vulnerable communities and have therefore created a number of online tools to share information, ideas and resources across teams. 

We have set up a special initiative Webex Group and OneDrive folder. To gain access please email globalchallenges@uow.edu.au.

Publications

Geia, L., Baird, K., Bail, K., Barclay, L., Moxham, L., et al. (in press 2020). A unified call to action from Australian Nursing and Midwifery leaders: ensuring that Black Lives Matter. Contemporary Nurse. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1080/10376178.2020.1809107 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10376178.2020.1809107

Fernandez, R., Lord, H., Halcomb, E., Moxham, L., Middleton, R., Alananzeh, I., & Ellwood, L. (in press 2020). Implications for COVID-19: a systematic review of nurses’ experiences of working in acute care hospital settings during a respiratory pandemic. International Journal of Nursing Studies. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2020.103637 
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7206441/

Under review:

Moxham, L., Fernandez, R., Lord, H., Halcomb, E., & Middleton, R. (2020). Life during lockdown: coping strategies used by preregistration nursing students during COVID-19. Nurse Education in Practice.

Hobbs, C., Moxham, L., Lord, H., Almasi, E., Middleton, R., Halcomb, E., & Fernandez, R. (2020). It’s just not that easy! Challenges faced by nurses and midwives in adhering to social distancing during COVID-19. Journal of Clinical Nursing.

Middleton, R., Fernandez, R., Moxham, L., Tapsell, A., Halcomb, E., Lord, H., Alomari, A., & Hunt, L. (2020). The impact of generation on psychological wellbeing, and social and learning behaviours among nursing students during COVID-19. Journal of Nursing Education.

For more information and project support email Tasch Arndt (above), Research Officer Building Resilient Communities Challenge at narndt@uow.edu.au. For the full team's contact information our website.

If you have an update to share about your project in the next newsletter please email globalchallenges@uow.edu.au.