Leading the way… Supporting children and adolescents after disaster

As you may know, I am a member of the Reference Group that established the Phoenix Australia Disaster Mental Health Hub, an important resource that has been created to support communities impacted by disaster by providing high-quality resources and insights into the latest research to support health professionals and frontline workers, their practices, patients and communities. The Hub resources are available at no cost as they are supported by funding from the Australian Government under the Disaster Response – Improving Mental Health Outcomes and Promoting Recovery from Trauma Program.

In support of The Hub’s recent launch, the team has created a webinar series called Leading the Way… to introduce the resources available and undertake a deep dive into some of the critical issues associated with mental health support for those impacted by disaster. The previous four webinars in the series have explored the impacts and implications of multiple disasters on communities, trauma-informed care in health services and the important role of general practice and community health organisations in disaster-affected areas in broader emergency responses, the phenomenon and prevalence of trauma-related anger after disaster, and the importance of social connectedness in the wake of disasters such as the ongoing flooding in Queensland and parts of New South Wales.

The next webinar in the series, Supporting children and adolescents after disaster, will take place on Wednesday 22 June from 3pm – 4pm (AEST). It will explore how to support children and adolescents after disaster, the psychosocial impacts experienced by school-aged children and adolescents, and the implications of those impacts at different phases of recovery and at different developmental stages.

The webinar will be moderated by Phoenix Australia’s Professor Patricia Watson, an international expert in disaster mental health who co-developed the principles of post-disaster psychosocial care that remain the foundation of disaster recovery efforts across the globe. Phoenix Australia’s Head of Clinical Services, Jane Nursey, a clinical neuropsychologist with extensive experience in supporting children and adolescents after disaster, will deliver a presentation of the latest findings into psychosocial impacts of disaster on young people over the short and long term, and what these can look like in different stages of a child’s development.

Following the presentation, they will be joined for a panel discussion by Janette Cook, former Principal of Middle Kinglake Primary School, who led the school community throughout the destruction of the school during the Black Saturday fires and its subsequent rebuild, and Robyn Mansfield, an expert in international humanitarian settlement design, livelihoods, and children’s participation following disaster.

If you would like to register to participate in this webinar, simply click here to secure your place.

If you have any enquiries, please don’t hesitate to reach out to the team at Phoenix Australia here.