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ACBS Australia-New Zealand Chapter Responds to the Australian Bushfire Emergency

January 7, 2020

Dear ANZ ACBS community,

We stand united with our entire community grieving the ongoing loss of lives, properties, flora and our precious wildlife, as the bushfire emergency continues across Australia. We share your fear, uncertainty, sadness and anger during this difficult time. We also stand side-by-side with the many members and their families who have been personally and directly affected by the bushfires. Finally, we recognise the wide ranging impact of this disaster more broadly, such as the known impact on the skies and glaciers as far as New Zealand. As a Board, we have been considering how our ANZ ACBS community best be part of the mental health response, as well as more broadly supporting facilitating action in response to the worldwide climate emergency. We know that there are immediate needs and many of our members are wanting to take proactive steps right now.

We have decided, at this time, that there are three ways ANZ ACBS as an organisation can facilitate responding:

  • If any of our Australian rural members hear of further requests for trauma counsellors, in a paid or pro bono capacity, please contact us, and we will help spread the word to mobilise those in our membership who are trained for these responses.
  • We would like to coordinate the provision of supervision and support to our Australian members who are providing services to those impacted by this ongoing, unprecedented natural disaster. We are calling for ANZ ACBS members who are not directly working with people impacted by the bushfire emergency, but who have a willingness, skills and capacity to offer supervision and support to those who are doing this work. We are asking for those people to be able to volunteer at least six hours, over a period of up to one year. If this is you, please email us with the subject line “I can help”. If you are directly involved in service provision to those affected by the bushfires, and you would like to access this supervision/ support service for yourself, please email us with the subject line “Please help me”.
  • In the coming weeks and months, we hope to work with members with expertise and experience in working with trauma associated with natural disasters, working with those affected by the climate emergency and in taking action around the climate emergency to put together CBS informed resources to help provide guidance to members. If you are willing to help us with any of these, please email us.

Let’s stay in touch as a community so that always going forward we can be agents for change. We encourage members to share, via our Facebook group, any actions that you may be taking as an individual in response to the bushfires or the climate emergency more generally; that we may learn from you, and be inspired to step out right alongside you. We also welcome any further suggestions about how we can use our knowledge and skills in behavioural science to help others, and help influence positive change.

Sincerely
Daniel, Tiff, Lisa, Andrew, Farah, Kali, Sarah, Jennifer, Shelley, Karen, Nathan and Claire.
The ANZ ACBS Board of Directors

Australia-New Zealand (ANZ ACBS) Chapter Links

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