Beyond Blue’s Be You Bushfire Response Program is the joint winner of the AIDR 2021 Resilient Australia National Mental Health and Wellbeing Award announced yesterday in Melbourne.
The Resilient Australia Awards, hosted by the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience (AIDR) and sponsored by the Australian Government in partnership with the states and territories, celebrate and promote initiatives which foster community resilience to disasters and emergencies.
The Be You Bushfire Response Program, developed in response to the Black Summer fires, provides mental health support to early learning services and schools affected by bushfires.
Led by Beyond Blue in partnership with Early Childhood Australia, headspace and Emerging Minds, the program supported more than 480 learning communities affected by the 2019/2020 fires.
The program offered specialist trauma support and guidance, recovery planning and service mapping to address the ongoing mental health impacts of the bushfires and cumulative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, floods and drought.
Beyond Blue Chief Community Officer Patrice O’Brien said it was an honor to be in the company of such fantastic nominees.
“Everyone has shown an incredible level of innovation and compassion across the country supporting those doing it tough,” Ms O’Brien said.
“We are immensely proud of the work by all organisations involved in delivering the Bushfire Response Program: headspace, Early Childhood Australia and Emerging Minds.
“And we are continually deeply moved by the resilience shown by each learning community we work with. It was an absolute privilege to walk beside these educators. Not only are they pillars of the community supporting children and families during these challenging times, but very often they were also managing their own recovery.”
