Bushfire Response Program

What the Bushfire Response Program offers

The Be You Bushfire Response Program recognises the mental health impacts of the Black Summer bushfires across Australia in 2019–2020, and the role of learning communities in supporting recovery from trauma.

The Program has developed the following resources for all learning communities to empower communities to lead their own recovery and build resilience for the future.

Support and guidance

The Program offers schools and early learning services access to resources to help understand the impacts of disaster, and how to support recovery and resilience.

Be You Sessions and Events

The Bushfire Response Program webinars help educators support children and young people after a natural disaster or community trauma.

You can view recordings of these webinars here:

To check for upcoming events, visit In Focus webinars on the Be You Sessions and Events page.

Emerging Minds Community Trauma Toolkit

Trauma support and guidance for learning communities is based on the Emerging Minds Community Trauma Toolkit, a toolkit designed for educators working with children and families in areas affected by natural disaster or community trauma.

Be You Fact Sheets

Learning communities may also find the Be You Fact Sheets on grief, trauma and critical incidents helpful.

Bushfire Response Resource Pack

The Bushfire Response Resource Pack provides information supporting mental health and wellbeing for early learning services and schools affected by bushfires.

It has been compiled to offer educators high-quality information that may be useful for providing support, responding to the needs of everyone in your learning community, and practising self-care.

The resource pack includes information for parents, families, children, young people and community members.

Be You Professional Learning

Responding Together

Critical incidents can affect everyone in the learning community.

The Responding Together domain includes three Professional Learning modules on how learning communities can prepare for critical incidents, respond in times of crisis and support recovery following a natural disaster.

Recognise: Understand the potential impact of critical incidents.
Respond: A collaborative response to critical incidents.
Natural disasters: A practical framework and useful strategies for supporting resilence and recovery in learning communities followoing a natural disaster or other traumatic event.

Learn more about Responding Together.

Stories from learning communities

Read about the impact the Bushfire Response Program has had in Be You Learning Communities.

Educator wellbeing

Educator wellbeing is a key part of a mentally healthy learning community. The Educator wellbeing page offers a range of resources to help you manage your wellbeing and help build a mentally healthy workplace.

Here, you’ll find educator wellbeing tools that can help you reflect on your stressors, promote help-seeking behaviour, and support your wellbeing and that of your colleagues.Your wellbeing is important. There is a wide range of online apps and resources that you can use to support your mental health and wellbeing.