GATEWAY Health’s Community Recovery and Resilience (CRAR) team has learnt more about farming over the past four years than in all of their years working in the community health sector.
In recent years, Jarryd Williams, the Program Manager for Gateway Health’s disaster recovery focused program, has helped coordinate a team of recovery specialists through bushfire, flood and landslip recovery whilst also implementing the Building Ovens Murray Ag Sector Resilience Program.
“In disaster recovery you get to walk beside someone who has lost everything and is in complete despair, to the moment when they have recovered and back on their feet and moving forward,” Jarryd told the recent Alliance of Rural and Regional Community Health (ARRCH) conference at Creswick.
“Over the past three and a half years, the team and I have had to learn a great deal about farming.
"We’ve done counselling sessions while ponies and calves are being born, we’ve chased cattle and other things we never anticipated that we would do.”
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But being on-farm is an essential part of the service.
“Farming communities and remote communities don’t want to travel two hours to see someone – they want you to be there.
"You being there validates their experience and shows them respect and enables them to open up.
“It’s not like metropolitan areas where people go to services requesting support.
"Regional and remote communities are used to doing it themselves – they are incredibly resilient and incredibly tough.
"By going there, we shift the dynamic.
“It’s about respect and solidarity – showing people you are there and fighting for them and we’re here to help and we’re going to do it side-by-side.
"It helps to build communities back together.”
The recovery support teams provide an essential point of contact for people trying to reclaim their lives.
being on the ground the team also notice that disaster shines a light on inequity.
“What it did for the upper Murray was show that the system is not supporting the communities that need it,” Jarryd said.
“We were able to work with local governments and Emergency Recovery Victoria on infrastructure that addressed some of that disparity, such as working with Community Business Connect to improve phone reception in the Nariel Valley, allowing people to receive emergency alerts, and helping rural fire brigades update their equipment.
“Recovery from a major disaster is more than just rebuilding a house."
Disasters also impact on others not directly touched by the event.
“We’ve done a lot of work with companies that did clean-ups, retail people who had listened to stories of trauma,” Jarryd said.
“Part of disaster recovery work is looking after the wider community.”
Jarryd told the inaugural ARRCH conference at Creswick that many people remain without permanent accommodation after the fires and floods in the Upper Murray and Shepparton regions, and many say they are “waiting for the next disaster”.
“Every time there is a storm or hint of smoke, people are on the phone to my team.
"Victoria has been through so much in four years, bushfires, floods, COVID-19, storms, earthquakes.
"It’s compounded trauma.
"What we need to do next is be prepared.”
ARRCH and Gateway Health are advocating for embedding core disaster recovery teams in regional areas.
“As well as keeping the knowledge and trust we have gained over the past four years, we have teams that can do risk mitigation and preparation work,” Jarryd said.
“Research shows that if you spend more on risk mitigation and preparation, the amount spent on recovery is significantly less.
"Those core workers can respond on the spot and provide immediate experienced disaster recovery assistance, which saves lives and results in more positive recovery.”
Jacki Eckert, Gateway Health’s Executive Director of Population Health said climate change was shifting the way communities and organisations need to think and prepare.
“We have developed and tested a trauma-informed model of recovery support across Victoria,' Jacki said.
"It allows a local response from trusted organisations when there is a small or a large disaster, builds preparedness between disasters and actively assists in a coordinated recovery response.
“Embedding core teams of experienced staff means people are supported for as long as they need support, not for as long as the funding lasts.
"When short term funding finishes, our experience and relationships are at risk of being lost and it would be difficult to meet community expectation of help and support.
“Local knowledge means we can continue to work across communities between disasters to build resilience and an effective recovery response.”
Current funding for disaster recovery support will cease at the end of June 2024.
ARRCH is working with government departments, local government and Community Health First to advocate for the State Government to expand the program by embedding a permanent recovery workforce.
