Overcoming bushfire trauma – how you and your organisations can help address the mental impact people are experiencing

The trauma wreaked by the terrible bush fires will have a long-lasting effect on people impacted directly and indirectly. Shock, fear and devastation often lead to anxiety, sleeplessness, anger, irritability and/or a hollowed-out feeling of grief. Quest for Life is doing what we can to help. 

Helping communities feel emotionally and mentally supported right now is essential.

Quest needs you or your organisation to help us respond to the need for our services across NSW and Victoria.

Quest for Life has vast experience in working with individuals and communities living with the trauma of natural disasters. We are already providing our Bushfire Recovery services to local Southern Highlands communities and are ready to extend our services across NSW and Victoria with your support.

We’re asking you or your organisation to help us extend our services to reach the people who are feeling traumatised, triggered, stressed, anxious and/or grieving what they have lost, experienced or witnessed. 

We will need thousands of dollars more to extend our services across NSW and Victoria, but every cent donated goes directly to the provision of services. 

Mental Health ramifications

When psychological needs are not addressed early-on after the trauma, the ramifications for the long-term mental health of many community members will be seriously impaired. When a significant number of individuals in a community are so affected, the function and future of the whole community can be compromised following a disaster.  

Right now, community members’ cortisol and adrenaline levels are high due to the longevity of the threat they’ve experienced – the ‘alert’ or sympathetic nervous system is switched ‘on’. 

When cortisol levels are high – as they surely are for many people now – then:

• people are more irritable, anxious and short-tempered
• it interferes with sleep and digestion
• memory and concentration are affected
• people become distracted, numb....and increasingly grumpy. 

This has the potential to increase illicit drug and alcohol abuse, which contributes to domestic violence, road rage, accidents and upset kids - many of whom are already feeling anxious. 

What is needed

If we provide support and education to people and communities in trauma or with high levels of anxiety in the next few days and weeks, they will reduce stress levels and the ‘calm and soothe’, parasympathetic nervous system switches ‘on’ to counteract and settle cortisol and adrenaline. 

When stress levels are reduced, people:

• feel less angry, anxious, alone and agitated
• sleep better
• make better decisions
• are less likely to react - and are more responsive instead
• feel more connected to other people
• memory, focus and concentration improve. 

Bushfire Recovery Services

Quest for Life is providing:

• Participation on a 5-day Healing Your Life or Moving Beyond Trauma program
• Workshops on recovery and resilience for communities 
• Support groups where people share experiences and gain strength from each other
• Deep relaxation sessions
• Counselling 
• Massage therapy

Programs to restore resilience and calm

In Quest programs, we educate people about re-balancing their sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. The parasympathetic nervous system is responsible for restoring resilience and calm after a traumatic event such as the bush fires. 

Our professional team of psychologists, counsellors, massage therapists, exercise and nutrition specialists teach practical skills that people can take home with them to restore their bodies and minds.

We want to extend these programs to communities in New South Wales and Victoria that need this service either immediately or in the months to come. We need your help to do this. 

To start the ball rolling, we have already received generous funding from a private individual to offer these workshops, but we will need many more thousands of dollars to extend the reach to many more areas of NSW and Victoria than we are able to with our current funding.

If your organisation is seeking a way to help in the long-term recovery of these people and their communities, every dollar you donate will go directly to funding a participant for one of these services.

Please contact our General Manager, Mary-Jane Wardrop or phone 02 4883 6599 to discuss how you can help.  

MORE DETAILED INFORMATION ON PROGRAMS OFFERED TO FIRE-IMPACTED PEOPLE

5-day residential programs at our Bundanoon Centre

These programs have helped thousands of people to recover from their challenging emotions and trauma in all situations: natural disasters, death, disease, loss, divorce, depression, and anxiety.  

Healing Your Life

Healing Your Life offers an effective and holistic approach to working through challenging emotions in a confidential and safe environment. Over the 5-days in our Centre, our participants live in, experiencing a variety of evidence-based approaches to re-establishing their health and wellbeing. Our professional facilitators, peaceful grounds and nurturing meals complement these approaches.  

Moving Beyond Trauma

Moving Beyond Trauma is particularly for those who have been impacted by trauma and who’ve developed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The program is delivered in a confidential, quiet and supportive environment and teaches people to heal the past and bring relief to their troubled bodies, minds and spirits. This program has assisted survivors from natural disasters, serious accidents, sexual assault, domestic violence, childhood trauma, bullying, crime, torture, war, and seeing/hearing/witnessing a crisis or catastrophe. 

1-day Living Mindfully workshops 

These workshops provide a concentrated dose of how people can recover from the experience of trauma and meet their challenges in a more meaningful and impactful way.

These are our current workshops that you may be interested in: 

• 8 February Living Mindfully: Change Your Brain – Change Your Life – Parramatta
• 14 March Living Mindfully: With Post-Trauma Symptoms – Wollongong
• 4 April Living Mindfully: With Cancer & Illness – Central Coast
• 16 May Living Mindfully: Happiness is an Inside Job – Penrith
• 20 June Living Mindfully: With Mental Anguish – Canberra

View all our Living Mindfully workshops

Workshops are free for people who have experienced the trauma of the fires. We need your help to fund many more free workshops for people in many more communities. 

In addition to helping with funding, you may want further information about our programs. Please call Candice or Helen on 1300 941 488 or view our website questforlife.com.au

Thank you for your consideration of the ways you can directly help our communities recover physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually from the bush fires.