Transcript for
2009 Victorian Bushfires: Supporting recovery

Narrator [00:00:02] Welcome to the Emerging Minds podcast. This podcast episode is part of our series about supporting children and families with regards to disasters and community trauma events and was produced as part of the Be You Bushfire Response Programme. The Be You Bushfire Response Programme provides enhanced mental health and wellbeing support across Australia to learning communities impacted by the 2019-2020 Australian bushfires. The programme is delivered in partnership with Early Childhood Australia, Headspace and Emerging Minds.

Natalie Rutstein [00:00:39] Hello, you’re with Natalie Rutstein, Contact Liaison Officer for the Be You Bushfire Response Programme. Today, I’m joined by April Harrison, a University of Melbourne student and also a resident of the Kinglake community in Victoria. Kinglake was a town significantly impacted by the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires. And today she joins me for a discussion about the impact that the bushfires had on her as a child and her community and shares her experiences to guide schools as they navigate their own recovery journeys. Our conversation touches on a variety of themes, from exploring the potential impacts of natural disasters on children and young people, the powerful role that schools and educators can play in healing for communities, and the importance of the youth voice in leading recovery from bushfires. If content in this podcast brings up any difficult emotions for you. Please reach out to someone you can talk to or call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 46 36.

[00:01:44] Hi there, April, and thank you so much for joining us today. I feel very privileged to be having this conversation with you. I’m particularly passionate about giving young people a platform to share their voice. And I also feel like today’s learnings will be crucial in guiding my work in supporting schools impacted by the 2019-2020 bushfires. So, to start us of today would be really great to hear a little bit about you and what encourage you to be part of today’s conversation.

April Harrison [00:02:13] Hello, everybody. Well, my name is April. As I’ve already been introduced, I am from Kinglake and I’m currently studying a Bachelor of Science at the University of Melbourne. I’m here today to talk about my experience with the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires and how my experience can be applied to supporting schools and helping young people who have also been impacted by the most recent fires in Australia. So, my primary school was one of the three that burnt down during the 2009 fires, and my town was one of the worst affected because of the experiences that I went through, not just the fire itself, but the aftermath, such as moving to a temporary school while my school was being rebuilt and then even leaving primary school to attend the high school that had a much greater student population as my primary school only had about 30 students at the time. I’m extremely passionate about helping others and being able to provide a voice for young people and people like myself who’ve had similar experiences to me, who may not be able to reach out or may not know where to find some help. So hopefully what I have to say can help people.

Natalie Rutstein [00:03:29] Amazing April thank you so much. We’re very, very lucky to have your lived experience of the bushfires at that time to be able to guide schools in their very vulnerable stage of recovery at the moment. Looking back, how do you think your experiences of the bushfires showed up for you in that very first year post occurrence, thinking about perhaps your behaviours, your thoughts, your emotions of the times as well as at school, your learning behaviours?

April Harrison [00:03:57] I was only eight years old when I went through the bushfires. It’s quite young that I have like its kind of before and after. So I have quite a good memory of the fires itself and the aftermath as it was a really emotionally high experience for myself. However, the immediate aftermath, I really tried to ignore what had happened and I refused to talk about it. And I wanted to pretend that it hadn’t happened, probably because I wasn’t ready to accept it and I wasn’t prepared to believe that it had happened and that I’d been through this and the trauma. I didn’t want to accept it and I wanted to kind of get on with being a kid. I remember after the fires when school got back up and running, our teachers were amazing and we actually had a temporary school location four days after the fires, which was probably one of the best things that was done for us. I remember people saying that they were really proud of me and I didn’t understand why. And it wasn’t until years later when I think it was either my parents or teachers or an adult from the primary school community that had told me they were proud of me because I looked after my siblings when my dad was protecting our house, because we were actually separated from my mum and one of my brothers on the day. And so we didn’t see my mom and my brother until the day after the fires. So it was quite a strange experience having a family in two different locations, while it was happening.

[00:05:28] But in terms of my feelings afterwards, I really began to struggle with anxiety from that very young age. And I remember being angry and having this internal anger at just the world in general. I think I was frustrated that I wasn’t able to control what was happening around me and that what had happened I couldn’t change and that I couldn’t go back in time and stop it or change how I reacted or what I did on the day. I remember, I think what happened manifested because of the anxiety and it kind of fed off of each other. I was the type of student from a young age that wanted to be the best or be really good. And I think after the fires that was amplified in terms of me wanting to do the right thing and wanting to always be in the right position, I became terrified of missing out on something or failing. And it caused me a lot of stress.

[00:06:42] When I was in grade five, I actually was quite a stressed student. You wouldn’t think you would be when I was 10, but I was I suffered quite a lot at a young age. I don’t think my learning in terms of how I was grasping the information was necessarily affected or was affected to a great extent. But definitely my emotional state and my feelings of vulnerability, I think, and I think that definitely happened. This continued through high school and it still affects me today. High school is quite challenging for me, moving from a school, a primary school that only had 30 to 40 students to a school that had 1400 people. I was not used to being around that many people. And I didn’t really know anybody because I was from such a small community and I lived quite a way away from my high school. It was hard. It was hard to connect. And I think my feelings of anxiety and the need to be kind of the perfect student or the perfect child definitely continued throughout high school. And I think it’s still there today. I have a better control of it because I now know how to recognise and understand my feelings and my emotions. But it’s still there.

Natalie Rutstein [00:07:59] Thank you so much for sharing this experience. I think what’s so interesting is that anxiety can be an emotion that perhaps we recognise more or expect more after such a traumatic event. But it’s so interesting to hear how that materialised in anger as well for you and also that sense of wanting to control after having experienced such a disempowering event. So thank you so much for showing how differently those emotions showed up for you and also in your learning behaviours, not just in primary school or in the first one or two years, but right through to high school and even today. I think that’s pretty interesting. You said that you didn’t want to acknowledge that it happened at first and didn’t want to talk about it. Do you remember when you started talking about it and what helped?

April Harrison [00:08:46] After the fires I think I became very closed off with my emotions and me wanting to be vulnerable and talk to people about what had happened. I pretty much refused to talk about the topic, or I tried to change the topic away from the bushfires whenever it was brought up in a conversation, whether that was amongst friends or family or even at school, I kind of just ignored it and didn’t really want to engage one whenever it was occurring. Looking back though, it probably wasn’t till maybe five or six years after the fires that I really began to talk about it and began to work through and tell people that didn’t know the story that went with me on the day, what did actually happen to me and what I felt about it.

[00:09:35] I remember there was one time in high school, I’m pretty sure it was in year 8. We were in the school area of the school and there was a small fire in one of the bathroom blocks and I completely shut down. I started shaking. I was crying and my friends didn’t know what was going on because I hadn’t really talked to them about my experience before. And they were all extremely worried. But I had no control over what was happening because my mind, it it just went into a state of panic. And after that, I began to open up to my friends and kind of tell them about my experience. And I wish I had done it sooner because it was almost like a bit of a weight had been lifted off because I wasn’t carrying around these feelings that nobody would understand. And once my friends knew about it and I told them about it, they were really supportive, and they were checking up on me. And all throughout high school, they were always there for me, which was really, really nice. My mum and my dad also are very important to me in terms of supporting me and being able to talk things out with me. And they always encouraged me and tried to encourage me when I was younger to talk about what was going on so that they could help me. And they always were like, ‘if you don’t tell me what’s wrong, I can’t really help you because I don’t know what’s up’. But once they had, I started talking about it, it definitely helps. Because it gets you not only sharing your experience with others, but I think once you start talking about it, it allows your own brain and your own self to start working through what had happened and start understanding your emotions and what had happened to you. And I think it’s quite important for yourself to start talking about it.

Natalie Rutstein [00:11:20] Hmm. I think that’s such an important point, especially in terms of the work that we’re doing on the programme. You know, we’re supporting schools to have these conversations with young people and children. But it’s important to acknowledge that not everyone is going to be ready to have those conversations and that they might not be ready for some time yet. So I think that really leads quite nicely into my next question. You were a student that didn’t want to talk about or addressed how the fight had impacted you and you mentioned earlier that your school was sadly one that was lost during the Black Saturday bushfires. So it’d be really good to hear if you can remember and reflect on how your school responded to that and what they did, that was really helpful for the whole school community at the time.

April Harrison [00:12:04] The most important thing, as I had previously mentioned, was that we have a temporary location up and running 4 days after the fires had actually occurred. This was probably the most significant and one of the most important things in the immediate aftermath of the bushfires that brought a kind of normalcy to everybody’s lives, even though we weren’t at our school location, at our normal school, obviously, because it wasn’t there anymore. It brought our whole community together and attempted to bring a type of stability into everybody’s lives. My mum today even says that that was the most important thing that happened after the fires because it brought the whole community together and it brought you to other people who had experienced what you experienced or something similar to you. And around people that understood and that went kind of tiptoeing around you. Everybody was feeling emotions, and everybody was supporting each other, and I think that was a really important part of it.

[00:13:09] So my school was extremely small and the community because of that was very close. As is evident in the days afterwards, everybody supported each other quite immensely. Our teachers were also significantly impacted by the fires, but they were the rocks of our school. They’re still today, a group of the most incredible women that I know, and I say will be my last forever today. I still because I still have siblings at the school, I’m still heavily involved with the teachers and the school community, which I am really happy and quite proud about, that I’m still able to contribute and give my thanks and my support for the school. It was so amazing to me after the fires and in terms of the teachers themselves, they were so busy providing emotional support to everybody else that I think they neglected themselves a little bit in terms of, they kind of just had each other. And I think an important thing for schools after the fires is to not only provide support for the families and the students, but also provide support for the teachers and the people that are giving care to everybody else because they need it, too. Even though they seem and they are really strong. I think it’s very important to also give the teachers as much support as the students and families and everybody.

[00:14:29] In terms of once classes were started, it was definitely different to our Strathewen normal classes, because in the beginning I think it was just I remember it being quite relaxed, which you would expect after a traumatic event. We were still at school, but there wasn’t heavy pressure on the academic. And I think in the beginning it was just getting the community back together and giving everybody a sense of normalcy. But if someone in class was having a hard time wanting to talk or the class was restless or somebody was quiet, the teachers would do what was needed. They would take that child or a group of kids out to have a chat, or we would stop work and we’d listen to the teacher, read a book or even play a quiet game. They supported us in every way possible I believe; it was really important. I remember within probably the first weeks back at the school, we were all sitting on the carpet and we were listening to a book and I was sitting under a table. And I think it was one of those restless days with the whole class kind of on edge. But just sitting down together and being quiet and listening to the teacher read, I think it’s really helpful in terms of calming the students down and just allowing them to be quiet and peaceful.

[00:15:52] But then if children were upset and they wanted to run around, they could do that. And if the class was wanting to play a game, the teachers could do that. They supported the class based on what they thought was needed and what they were gauging from the class environment, which I think is really good and a really important thing that you need to support the students and the classroom in terms of what is happening at that time. So it might be hard to adjust that routines or tasks, but if they are adjusted and slightly changed or the environment is shifted a little bit, it might really help students better deal with the trauma that’s happened because they’ve had a massive change in their lives. And it would be hard to go back to an environment that’s stagnant and the same when they’re feeling all these new emotions. So I think shifting environments is important and can be really beneficial.

Natalie Rutstein [00:16:51] Yeah, I think you highlight some really cool themes there. I think one of them is around try and get back to some sense of normalcy afterwards and what children have been used to, to give them that safety and security again. But as you said, it’s so important to be responsive to the needs that are presenting themselves at the time and not to be scared of being flexible and changing the focus, if that’s what the needs are. I think they’re such crucial insights. Thank you so much for sharing them. As you know, I’m currently supporting schools across East Gippsland and my colleagues are supporting other communities across Australia. And at this point we are 10 to 12 months post the bushfires at the end of last year. So it’d be really helpful to hear from you around what guidance you would give to schools now in supporting young people both in primary and secondary schools at this point in the timeline? We can start with some guidance for primary schools, if you’d like.

April Harrison [00:17:46] Yeah, I think that an important piece of guidance or support for schools would be making sure to ask the kids questions and checking with how they’re feeling and let them express their emotions. So for students who don’t want to talk about the topic, because I was somebody who didn’t want to, making the topic seem normal and releasing any pressure on the students or on the topic to have you talk about it I think is really important. But being aware of student’s emotions, especially because young children are quite resilient, I think is definitely an important thing. Group activities I remember are also quite beneficial as they allow students to feel connected to each other. The traumatic event that had happened, I think, definitely brings a sense of isolation into people’s lives, even though you are surrounded by people who have the same experience as you because you went through that experience with your family or just very rapid and it can be very isolating. So I think group activities allow connection between the students and the teachers and allow the students to feel more open with each other and more able to express how they’re feeling with other people.

[00:19:11] And one of the most important things is definitely getting a temporary school location or even a temporary community meeting place up and running as it brings the community back together and I think is extremely beneficial. It doesn’t have to be a school learning environment. It can be a community house or a hall type place where you can have some activity set up. But I think that is a really beneficial step as it allows everybody to come together and brings that sense of community normalcy and stability into people’s lives that have been so changed from the event. And the final piece of advice is acknowledging that what has happened is serious and traumatic. I let them know that all their reactions that they’re feeling, whether it’s anger, sadness, fear, it’s completely ok and very, very normal. And that whatever they’re feeling, they’re allowed to feel it and not to feel scared of their emotions, just acknowledge that they’re there and that in time they will kind of settle.

[00:20:18] In terms of high school, I think being understanding of how a traumatic event like the bushfires has affected the students emotional and mental state and how the academic performance might be affected and might change is also really important as the traumatic event that is occurred is completely unpredictable and no one’s going to know how they’re going to respond until they’re responding to it. So I think that having an understanding of how students may change or be affected is very important and that everybody’s responses are going to be different and people need to be allowed to work through their emotions in their own way as one way isn’t going to work for everybody.

[00:21:07] I think in terms of creating, following on from that point, creating a group at school that can function as almost like an urban support type group could be quite beneficial for students. As though they might not want to talk about their experiences as some people don’t like to, it allows them to be comfortable and surrounded by people who have had a similar experience. And I think that even if they listen to other people’s stories or, you know, they quietly sitting and reading a book or playing a game or something. While they’re in this group, they don’t have to feel pressure to do anything, it’s just a group where they can be themselves and look through their emotions in their own time. I think that’s quite an important thing and could be beneficial for students. I know high school students, myself, it’s hard to talk about your emotions sometimes. We don’t know how people are going to respond, but if you have a group that is willing to be open and supportive, it is will definitely be beneficial in terms of knowing that the group is going to be open to and supportive of however you are feeling.

[00:22:20] Continuing on from the academic performance standpoint, I think offering extra support and possibly time for assessments is also extremely important for high school students. There’s such, there’s so much pressure around academic success and assessments importance in high school. But I think after a traumatic experience like the bushfire’s, that part of their life is not quite on their minds. They’re going to be thinking about their family, their friends, their home, how they experienced it. And it’s likely that that part of their life is going to be neglected, not because they want to do it on purpose, but because they’ve got so much of the stuff that’s going on. So I think that time and support for assessments and trusting in schools definitely needs to be assessed and looked at after a traumatic experience so that students can still succeed in how they want to succeed, but also be supported and work through their emotions. And one of the most important things, I think, is letting students know that it’s ok to be feeling any way that they’re feeling and what they are feeling is normal. Like the primary school students, I was severely affected by the fires and I still struggle with several mental health issues today. And I did feel like there was no one who understood me. But after I did open up to my friends in year 8 and I opened up to some teachers, I felt more accepted and I felt more understood. And it made me feel that my feelings were valid. So even if you don’t think that what you’re feeling is correct or right, I say that any emotions about any emotions you are feeling are true and that you’re allowed to feel them and that it’s completely normal.

Natalie Rutstein [00:24:09] Thanks so much, people. I think we underestimate how healing it can be to simply have our emotions and our experiences normalised and validated as real and normal, especially at that phase of high school when talking about how we’re feeling is more difficult and we’re scared to be vulnerable based on how others will respond to us. I really love that point you made about creating an open support group. And there’s a lot of evidence now around the healing nature of peer support. And I think given the significance of peers, especially during high school, I think that could be so successful in providing support, sometimes even more successful than perhaps an educator trying to provide that support themselves. So thank you so much for sharing that insight. Do you remember or are you still in touch with friends who were impacted and responded differently or found other things that were helpful from school or the community in general?

April Harrison [00:25:01] I yes, I have my family friends, actually. We’re still very close. And they were severely affected by the fires themselves. And I think, I think it affects everybody differently, even in my family. I’m the eldest of seven children, five who were alive at the time. But from the five of us, even though we had had a similar experience that you could say the same experience, we all respond completely differently. So my sister, who’s the second eldest nowadays, she is kind of takes things as it comes and she moves through life, you know, day by day and is quite free from, I think, the emotional trauma, whereas I am very different from her, obviously around like summer it’s very stressful. And the anniversary gets to her like it does to everyone. But in terms of day-to-day life, she is more resilient, I think, and it affects her differently. Whereas me and sometimes my younger brother, we’re very different with it. We get very stressed and very anxious and uptight and we need to have control. People respond differently and we reach for different things to provide comfort and support for ourselves. So some people went into wanting to create groups or a community centre, which is what Strathewen did, They did have a community centre, which I think was really good after the fires. Other people, I think went to creative outlets like writing and art, which I think is also really, really good way to work through your emotions, is very therapeutic. And then there’s some people who didn’t want to talk about it and you only recently have started talking about it. So everybody works through their emotions differently and I think reaches for different methods or different activities or options and resources to help them deal with the events that they’ve been through.

Natalie Rutstein [00:27:10] I think that’s a really significant point as well. Some of the work that we’re doing with schools is highlighting how different variables and different factors impact on response and recovery, as you’ve shown there within your family itself and how different the responses have been. I think that goes back to your earlier point around being responsive to the child that’s in front of you and how they’re responding and not to go in with any preconceived ideas of how someone might respond and that those responses can take time to emerge as well. So I think those points are really, really valid and important to keep in mind. The other thing that I really wanted to invite you to share is around how you’ve used your lived experience to really make an impact April around a resource that you’ve been creating and hoping to disseminate for young people surrounding recovery. So we get to hear about that. And what inspired you to create this resource?

April Harrison [00:28:03] So I’m currently working on a resource booklet that is aimed at young people. There was a gap in resources and support or information that is made by young people or comes from the place of a young person who’s had an experience for other young people. A lot of the resources were created by adults, which is good. However, young people respond differently to events. So I was invited, along with a few other people from my town, to create a resource for young people by young people who had similar experiences. The main aim of our booklet is to help young adolescents deal with trauma and disasters by sharing coping skills and experiences and letting them know that they’re not alone. So and what they’re feeling and going through is normal. We hope we can provide a humble and connected view and experience and information regarding traumatic events by including our own personal experiences and our opinions on what is beneficial and what can be beneficial, because there’s many things that can be beneficial. I’ve been heavily involved in the coping skills section and it’s quite long. It’s a few pages long. There’re multiple different skills and activities people can reach to for coping. And I think it’s really important to acknowledge that everybody has their own version and their own way, that they work through their emotions.

[00:29:40] So as a team, we’ve all experienced bushfire disaster and we’ve all grown up building resilience to come back and cope with the events and the effects that have come as a result. Having this experience has allowed us to directly connect with people and help our intended audience as it’s aimed at young people in young adolescents who’ve had traumatic experiences. There’s a definite emphasis on emotional acceptance and connectivity throughout the booklet and also an emphasis on promoting community strength. The booklet is also hopefully functioning as a workshop that is to be run by young people in communities and schools themselves. So instead of having a teacher or an adult come in and run the workshop, we’re hoping that a young member of the community or the school can step up and run the workshops themselves, allowing students to form a greater connection as they’ll be talking with somebody that in their age gap. And I think that is going to bring a more connected sense and they might obtain more or retain more information and might find it more beneficial. So we’re hoping that this booklet is released early next year and it can function in communities and schools and that it really helps people.

Natalie Rutstein [00:31:06] I have absolutely no doubt that it will. I think that what you’ve created is inspiring and really brave. You’re using your own experiences and your vulnerability to help others and make an impact. And I suspect that the process of that also continues to be part of your own healing journey as well so thank you so much for sharing that. As we wrap up today’s conversation, it’d be really good to end on perhaps a couple of key messages that you’d like to share with our listeners around what educators, schools and communities can take away based on your own experiences.

April Harrison [00:31:42] So I think the most important factor is definitely knowing that each person is different and remember, everyone’s going to respond in their own way. And I think being open to people’s experiences and being opened to supporting them in different ways is definitely one of the most important things to do after a traumatic event in terms of school and school communities. And I think, again, the most beneficial thing for me in my community was having a temporary school location. So that’s also one of the most important things and most beneficial things. I think we had it bring a sense of stability into back into everybody’s lives that had been so rattled and so changed so rapidly. I think it was quite beneficial and allowed people to be surrounded and feel comfortable being around people that have had similar experiences to them. So I think that’s also an important component and making sure that the people who are providing support are also supported so teachers, parents, you know, people coming in that making sure that they are also supported with the support that they’re providing.

Natalie Rutstein [00:32:49] Amazing, thank you so much April. I’ve certainly learnt so many things from our conversation today, and I’m sure that so many other listeners will do the same. So thank you for joining me today and having this really, really important conversation.

April Harrison [00:33:03] Thank you for having me.

Narrator [00:33:06] Visit our website at www.emergingminds.com.au to access a range of resources to assist your practise. Brought to you by the National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health, led by Emerging Minds, the National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health under the National Support for Child and Youth Mental Health Programme.