Transcript for
Families who have experienced disasters (part four): How to support children and young people after a disaster

Narrator (00:02): 

Welcome to the Emerging Minds Families Podcast. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (00:06): 

Hi, I’m Nadia Rossi and you’re listening to an Emerging Minds Families podcast. We would like to pay respects to the traditional custodians of the land on which this podcast is recorded, the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains. We also pay respects to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, their ancestors, and elders past, present, and emerging from the different First Nations across Australia. 

(00:28): 

In this episode, we’ll be discussing severe storm events. If you feel this topic may bring up difficult feelings for you, perhaps give this week a miss and join us next fortnight. Or you can find resources for support in our show notes. 

(00:42): 

Disasters like floods, storms, bushfire, and drought are becoming more frequent across Australia and can have a lasting impact on the families and children who experience them. This episode is part of a series where we talk with families who have experienced disasters. We are going to hear how they supported themselves, their families and communities, and how they navigate the ongoing recovery process. 

(01:04): 

Today we are speaking with Willow. Willow was 20 years old when her family experienced the 2021 severe storms in the Dandenong Ranges. She’s here to talk about her experience as a young person processing such a major event in her life as well as the impacts it had on her and her family. We will also talk about how adults can help support the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people who experienced disasters. 

(01:28): 

Welcome, Willow. It is great to speak with you today. 

Willow (Guest) (01:31): 

Hi, thank you so much for having me on. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (01:33): 

Willow, can you tell us a bit about who makes up your family? 

Willow (Guest) (01:37): 

I’d love to. So, my family, we’re a cute little family of four. My mum always wanted two children, and she got what she wanted. So my mum, Marcia, she’s a painter and she’s been very creative throughout her whole life. I’ve got a younger brother, Banjo, who’s also equally as creative and equally as much of a pain. And my dad, Jamin, who I sadly lost in March 2021. He was a tattoo artist, and he is kind of the reason that I’ve been speaking up about everything and not keeping it all to myself because I think that people need to know that they’re not alone and I will forever be grateful for him. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (02:16): 

And the event that happened was in October of that year. And so you lost your father relatively close to that major event? 

Willow (Guest) (02:22): 

I lost him in March of 2021, and it was eight months between each event pretty much to the day. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (02:30): 

How do you feel, if you feel comfortable talking about that, but how do you feel that impacted the event that happened, the storm, and what your family went through? 

Willow (Guest) (02:40): 

If anything, I think it lessened the blow of the event because losing a parent, especially so young, is the worst. You can’t describe that sort of pain. And so to lose brick and mortar was, the hardest part was saying goodbye to the visual memory of him in terms of watching him cook dinner or coming home from work and saying hello to the dog. Not having that, being able to stare at an empty doorway anymore and kind of envision all that, that was the hardest part. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (03:09): 

Yeah, it kind of gave you a perspective on tangible things, but also when that tangible thing is gone, the memories that hold in that tangible thing? 

Willow (Guest) (03:18): 

Absolutely, yeah, yeah. I mean, you can look at a photograph as much as you want, but putting yourself and surrounding yourself somewhere that someone once was is I found it very, very comforting. And so to have that kind of wiped out from under me, that was the hardest part. But in terms of actually dealing with the event, we kind of just threw our arms off in the air and went, “What’s next?” 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (03:37): 

When you experienced the storm, who was there with you at the time? Were you all home? 

Willow (Guest) (03:43): 

Yeah, so it was quite a whirlwind of a few minutes that it happened. I woke up at 6:00 AM on the dot to get up for work. Normally, I’m up at 5:30 making breakfast in the kitchen, but for some reason I snoozed my alarm. Snoozing my alarm saved my life that morning. I would’ve been pretty much in a direct line to where the tree hit, so the tree fell and split straight down the middle of the house through our kitchen window, and that’s where I would’ve been, which is pretty freaky to think about, but I try not to as much as I can. 

(04:13): 

And so yeah, the noise in my alarm had vanished after I hit end, got up for the day. And as I lifted my head off the pillow, I just felt this huge rumble and this cracking noise that I couldn’t quite place because I’d never heard anything like it. I looked up at my ceiling and it was just brown. It was just brown, and this brown was coming closer, and I had no idea what to do. So it almost felt scripted at the time, but I just shut my eyes and sat up and braced myself for whatever was about to happen, which I wasn’t sure. And then just silence. As quickly as it was loud, it was just completely quiet. 

(04:51): 

I felt things in my hair, but I wasn’t sure what it was. And I started picking plaster up. I looked up and all I saw was just this branch staring back at me. And I think obviously I didn’t measure it, but it was about a foot from my head. It was just my mother and I home. My brother was at a friend’s house luckily because his bed’s under a supporting beam that got cracked into. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (05:09): 

And after the storm, were you able to stay together as a family? Were you able to find somewhere to stay? 

Willow (Guest) (05:15): 

So the second that the tree fell, the house was deemed unlivable, uninhabitable I think they used. So we have to split up. There was no one that could house all three of us and my dog. So my mum couch-surfed. I think she stayed at three different people’s houses in that, it was from October to February. My brother stayed with his best friend. We were very grateful that they had the room for him. And for the first, I think about month, I lived in a motel and it was awful. After that, I was very, very grateful that a friend of mine took me in and had a spare room for me, and I slept on the couch for months. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (05:53): 

How do you feel that impacted the recovery process with the three of you being separated? 

Willow (Guest) (05:59): 

It was hard. It was definitely hard. I think that my younger brother had to learn independence very, very quickly. He’s always been good at relying on himself, but to not have the fallback of his mum at every waking moment was hard. I think mum struggled a lot as well. No mother wants to be away from her kids. And then on top of that, we were grieving. We were navigating a whole new world that we’d never had to deal with or never thought that we would have to deal with. And so to have that on top of it all, it definitely didn’t help. And then Covid as well, we had Covid going on. And so we were isolating. I was about to have a surgery, and so I had to isolate from not only the people in the house, but I couldn’t see my family. So yeah, it was a bit of a whirlwind those few months. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (06:46): 

As an older sibling, did you feel like you needed to help with the recovery efforts of your family? 

Willow (Guest) (06:52): 

Yeah, I think I’ve kind of always been pretty level-headed when it comes to situations like that. Obviously probably the biggest disaster I’d suffered was a flat tyre on the way to work, but I’d been pretty logical about everything. And then seeing mum panic and seeing my brother lost during that event after he’d come back home, I realised that I had no choice or I thought that I had no choice, but just step in, especially being with dad gone, I feel like I need to fill the shoes of that kind of role of someone that people can look to and be relied upon. And I think it helped my process as well with the recovery because I had a purpose. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (07:35): 

And was this when you came back together, that was there a point where you were able to all house together again? 

Willow (Guest) (07:41): 

So part where I felt that I needed to step up the most was when it had just happened. It was raining, so we had old family photos and we had dad’s clothing and memories and our filing cabinet that we all had to take a corner and lift up and move out of the house. You just don’t think about that sort of stuff. And so that was kind of a very quick interaction. Someone has to do it. I’ll be the delegator. I still get called a control freak, but it worked. So I’ll take control freak if things are getting done. 

(08:11): 

And then when we kind of were apart, it was hard to organise for all of us to meet up and spend time as a family and bond still and grieve all together. And then when we moved into our house, we were very grateful that the insurance found us a place to live a proper rental. I think it actually hindered in a way because for however many months we were used to living alone and used to not communicating how we felt about this thing with other people. And I think it actually caused more of a rift than anything else. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (08:41): 

Yeah, I guess because it’s another transition, I suppose. You’re going through so many different transitions. 

Willow (Guest) (08:46): 

Absolutely. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (08:47): 

I’ve spoken with parents in this series who have gone through a major event disaster with their families and have spoken with their parents about the immediate thoughts they had after the event and the actions that they took. I’m really interested in a young person’s perspective on that. So can you tell me a bit about what goes through a young person’s mind after a disaster? 

Willow (Guest) (09:07): 

So yeah, immediately after 30 seconds after it happened, I thought to myself, “I’ve just lost both my parents in one year.” I knew mum was home and I knew whatever had happened had done some serious damage. And when I looked out the window, all I could see was leaves and sticks and debris and what used to be my family home. And then it just wasn’t. And so the only thing that was going through my head was my mum. And then almost with comedic timing, she called. I’ve had my ringtones Barbie Girl since I was 12, 13. And so hearing Barbie Girl during all that was kind of a way to de-stress. And so that was my immediate thought was, “Okay, my mum’s okay. Everything else, it is what it is. Do what you can with what you got.” 

(09:51): 

I think I did look at it through a youthful lens because my mum was in hysterics, obviously. I mean, she was screaming, crying, “Our house! Our house!” Once I got her out of the house because she was locked in, the tree had blocked one entry to her bedroom and her door had been… It had concaved on the other. And so I had to get the door of the hinges and I pulled her out. She was crying. All I thought was, “I wonder what it’s done. Let’s go and have a look.” And she’s like, “Willow, no. This is dangerous. There’s dust particles everywhere.” And I kind of wasn’t thinking about the immediate risks. I was just like, “It’s happened.” It was good to have a person going, “Well, hang on, take a step back. Something could fall. There’s glass everywhere.” 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (10:33): 

Great to have a parent’s voice there at the time and being like, “Let’s assess the situation before…” 

Willow (Guest) (10:39): 

Yeah, “Turn the camera off and let’s have a look at what’s actually happened.” 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (10:43): 

What do you feel is needed for young people when you think about the days, weeks, and months after a disaster? 

Willow (Guest) (10:50): 

I think that’s a very important question, and it’s one that has a plethora of answers because everyone is different. I can only speak to myself. But two main things are kind of two things that don’t go in hand in hand, which are routine, but also empathy and understanding that you might not be doing your best, and it’s hard to find that line of, “Okay, we’ll give you a little bit of slack, but if you go too far, it’s going to be so hard to pick yourself back up and kind of move on.” So I think routine is very, very important just as much as empathy and understanding is. 

(11:25): 

After the tree fell, I was obviously in quite a state. I took 30 days off of work. And then on the day, my boss called me and he said, “How long do you reckon you’re going to need?” And I was like, “Look, maybe just a little bit more time.” And he goes, “Okay, cool.” That night I got an email and he’d fired me. And so my confidence was shot. I just lost my dad. I just lost my house. I was sleeping on a couch. And so all of that kind of played into my head and I didn’t have a routine for about two years. I had no job. I woke up just to kind of go back to bed again, and it just crushed my confidence not having a routine. So getting back into the workforce, I felt very, very low of myself in that regard. I didn’t feel good enough to work. And I mean now it’s been what? Two years and I’m slowly getting back into full-time, but it’s still such a struggle every day. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (12:16): 

And in this long-term kind of where we’re at now, what do you think has supported your wellbeing and your mental health after the event? 

Willow (Guest) (12:26): 

Being open has helped, having people to communicate with that don’t want to fix everything all the time. And I know that kind of sounds counterintuitive, but it’s good to just sit and just spill your thoughts. Not everyone has an answer or not everyone can fully understand, but if they’re there to listen, that is such a help. All you have to do is nod and say, “I’m so sorry.” Sometimes that does it. That was just communicating. I think if you bottle it up, and I am one to bottle it up normally, but I find the more that I kind of let people in, the more I feel inclined to heal rather than just bottling it up thinking that I can heal and then it’ll explode at a later date. And it has sometimes, but I have a very good support system around me that help me from time to time when I need it. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (13:14): 

It’s such great messaging for parents to just be like, sometimes it’s just about listening. 

Willow (Guest) (13:19): 

Yeah, when I was isolating and when Covid was happening, when we were all living apart, I would just put my phone in front of me and just hit record and I would just spill. My phone’s not going to give me any advice, but sometimes I just felt so much better after getting stuff off my chest. And I think obviously I couldn’t see my therapist or I didn’t have any of that creative outreach for mental health. That was very important. But I think mental health and creativity go hand in hand as well, and I think that’s an important thing. Just let yourself create. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (13:49): 

Have you been creating since? 

Willow (Guest) (13:52): 

Well, my dad was a tattoo artist, so I’ve picked that up a little bit and I design here and there. But again, my confidence has been kind of knocked down a few pegs since it all happened. So I do try and I feel myself when I try, but maybe one day. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (14:08): 

That has also been some messaging that I’ve had in this series of that the recovery process is ongoing, so it does take a long time. And longer than I think people realise it takes a long time to build yourself back up again. 

Willow (Guest) (14:23): 

I mean, we’ve been in our house now, we live here all as a family, we’re all together. And I think it’s been harder now than it was a few months ago because now everything… The dust has settled literally. There’s only your head space to deal with. And we still have, obviously we still have the demolished property on our hands that we need to organise, but that’s another mental thing. None of us want to let it go because that’s the last kind of soil that my dad touched. Why walk away from it? But we have to because there’s nothing left apart from sticks. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (14:55): 

I know we’ve touched on what has supported you or has been supporting you, but is there anything, any supports that have helped your family as a whole in the recovery process? 

Willow (Guest) (15:07): 

I don’t think that we could have done what we did as a family and we could have been as logical about everything without places like Windermere. So we had a lady from Windermere Foundation. I didn’t even know things like this existed. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (15:22): 

Can you tell me what Windermere is? 

Willow (Guest) (15:24): 

Yeah, so Windermere was, I believe, it was a storm recovery foundation or something along the lines. I’m not sure exactly of the title. But they’re just these magic humans who come out, sit you down, use words that I know that sound like Latin terms from an old scroll. They actually sound like English and they explain things about insurance, maybe things that we didn’t think we needed that they can help us resource. It was almost just like someone got into our heads and organised it and cleared away all the dust and said, “This is what we can do to help.” And we felt definitely like a load had been taken off. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (16:01): 

I wanted to ask, are there any supports or resources that you think are missing for families who have experienced disasters? 

Willow (Guest) (16:08): 

I’m not sure so much that they’re missing as though they’re not spoken about. Windermere obviously existed. It didn’t come out of St. Ann when we needed them. They’ve been there for however long. But I didn’t even know things like that existed. So I think we need to have a place that we can gather our resources. I think Facebook’s incredible and people talk about the community outreach, I think that’s very important, but we need more websites where these resources that are available, especially like you guys even, to be [inaudible 00:16:38] outline, “Here’s 10 different websites that organise this sort of thing. Here’s therapists that practise in disaster relief,” things like that that just aren’t sought after or aren’t advertised enough, I think that is missing. And it would’ve been a lot more helpful to know that we weren’t alone if there was places that we could look and deal with it as a community. 

(16:59): 

My council especially, they’ve got a pretty good resource list sorted. So Yarra Ranges Council obviously were amongst the trees, so they’re very well-versed in everything that happens, but I think the local councils as a whole could be doing more to advertise the resources that they’re offering. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (17:18): 

What do you think parents and communities can do to support young people after disasters? 

Willow (Guest) (17:24): 

That’s a good question because a lot of young people I feel are very recluse and they keep to themselves during the recovery process because it’s easier. I think that language is a big thing. If you could find the way that they’re going to communicate the best to you, obviously, again, everyone is different, but if you can find language that they kind of resonate with, that young people resonate with, you’ll be able to speak it to them and they’ll be able to tell you how they’re feeling. But not everyone is going to want to be sitting in a room with slime and some kinetic sand talking about how the tree affected them. A lot of people is very different. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (17:59): 

Is there stuff that communities and councils can do or that your council did to help? 

Willow (Guest) (18:06): 

I was reached out to for a creative project with the council, and so they helped me immensely share my story. And by sharing my story, I felt like I’d taken my power back over what had happened. I think councils and communities, it is so important to offer up safe spaces where things like that can be told, stories can be told in one way or another or have days at the library that are advertised. Meetups, groups. We had a lot of groups for disaster relief. And it was just a circle, tea and coffee. People just sat and shared their stories. And so places like that need to be more advertised, I think, because again, they do them. Councils host meetings and they host nights. I’d never heard about them until months after the tree happened or someone had let me know, or I’d get a phone call saying, “Oh, hi, we noticed that you suffered a disaster. We’ve got something on tonight. Would you like to come?” I’d never even heard about it, and so I think outreach is a big one. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (19:05): 

I wanted to talk about first responders in a disaster. I just wanted to know, Willow, what advice you would have to first responders when they encounter children or young people straight after or immediately after a disaster? 

Willow (Guest) (19:18): 

For our situations specifically, we reached out and begged and pleaded for someone to come and fix something because water was getting straight into the house and it was getting into a room that my dad had built and it was kind of destroying everything. No, ill-will, but they were very blunt and very straight to the point of, “No, we can’t do that because it’s raining.” We’re like, “Oh, obviously. Totally understand that.” But empathy I think is a big thing, and obviously the first responders are in that line of work because they have so much compassion, but I think when you’re quick to it and you’ve got a big job to do, that can get lost and get. 

(19:53): 

Obviously, I don’t work in the first responder, so I can’t speak to experience, but from what I have seen at my dad’s accident and with the tree, they do use big words and they do tend to get the job done or make it safe. But our whole lives have just been flipped on their heads. Speak to me with a little bit of understanding. And I think that they’ve had a very bad day at work maybe. We’ve just had a very bad start to the next few months of our lives or years or the rest of my lifetime in the case of my dad’s accident. And so I would just say pause before you explain. Not everything can be fixed like we spoke about before. Sometimes you just need to listen. I think that’s very important. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (20:35): 

What I’m hearing from you a lot is the language that grown-ups and adults are using, and to really think about it. 

Willow (Guest) (20:42): 

The reason that I go to the dentist that I go to is not because they hurt any less, but because she tells me how much it’s going to hurt before she does it, and so that’s why I go back. I don’t go there because she pulls the tooth out more gently. I go there because she lets me know it’s going to hurt before she does it rather than just doing it. And I think that can be kind of taken away to the first responders that you’re going to do what you’re going to do, just give me a heads-up that it’s going to suck or that you can’t do it, or just things like that. I think, yeah, just explain to me what’s going on. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (21:14): 

Communicating, and communicating on a level that young people can absorb. 

Willow (Guest) (21:18): 

Yeah, communication is key. And I think that’s the most cheesiest, but the most honest saying. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (21:23): 

It’s such a common line that I’ve had through these whole series, is communication, communication from first responders, communication with community, communication within the family. It all comes back to the language that we are choosing to use. 

Willow (Guest) (21:36): 

One line that I don’t agree with is time heals all wounds. I don’t think time heals any of the wounds that you get over the course of your life. I think that you just develop the tools to deal with them. Like when you go to the gym, the weight doesn’t get lighter, you just get stronger. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (21:52): 

Willow, I wanted to get some advice from you. To the children and young people who’ve experienced disasters, what advice would you have for them as they try and find their way through that difficult time? 

Willow (Guest) (22:05): 

Yeah. I think that it’s very important to be grateful of what you have. Try and move forward and pick up the pieces that you have and be grateful of that every day. And let people in. Communicate how you’re feeling, communicate what you need even if it’s just a hot meal or a shower or a pair of clothes or a suitcase. I carry around the most of my belongings are in a Coles bag until someone pulled me up on it and I just said, “I don’t have anything else.” You don’t know how heavy everything is that you’re carrying until someone goes, let me give you a hand, and then you just realise that it’s so much easier to speak about it. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (22:38): 

I would love to be able to leave the parents and the adults that are listening to this podcast with some advice from you about what children and young people need to feel comfort and support during and after disasters. 

Willow (Guest) (22:53): 

I think you don’t have to fix everything. Some things are out of your control, but if you’ve got two ears, then you’ve got two ears to listen and you’ve got two ears to sit there and to nod. Let someone tell their story to you and let the little ones ramble, even if it’s about nothing to do with the disaster, maybe they do need to get something off their chest. I think just be kind to them and give them a little bit of a break, but also be kind to yourselves. You can’t fix what you can’t fix. There’s no use putting more pressure on yourself, and then on the people around you. Just focus on what you can control. 

(23:29): 

Everyone tries to put on their adult hat when something like that happens, but if you have young children in your family, you got to let them know that it’s your first time living life as well. You’re their parent, but it’s still your first time in this world. And if you express that to them, they’re going to understand. We’re not robots. We know that you have emotions that you need to deal with as well as we do. Deal with them together. Deal with them as a family. Don’t isolate each other. Obviously, we’re going to have separate views on disaster, but you still need to grow together and you still need to recover together, so be a part of each other’s recovery. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (24:01): 

That’s an amazing message to leave on. Thank you so much, Willow. 

Willow (Guest) (24:05): 

Thank you. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (24:05): 

Thank you for sharing your experiences and your ongoing journey with us and our audience today. 

Willow (Guest) (24:13): 

Thank you so much for having me. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (24:15): 

And thank you to our listeners for joining us. If you would like to keep up to date with our latest conversations, we’d love it if you’d like and subscribed to our Emerging Minds Families Podcast channel. You can also find us on Instagram at @emergingmindsau or on Facebook at Emerging Minds Families. You have been listening to an Emerging Minds Families podcast. If anything spoken about today has been distressing for you or you find yourself struggling, please reach out for help. You can call Lifeline on 131114, or more resources for support can be found in our show notes. 

Narrator (24:49): 

Visit our website at www.emergingminds.com.au/families for a wide range of free information and resources to help support child and family mental health. Emerging Minds leads the National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health. The centre is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health under the National Support for Child and Youth Mental Health Program.