Full Transcript for Scarlett - Community participation

um, participation's absolutely fantastic, especially, um, before an event even happens. But what about those who don't necessarily have the capacity to dive all in? Alex: Yeah, and we, we won't, or some days people will feel like they can dive all in and fully participate in community, and other days they won't. For other people, there'll be more long-standing issues or challenges that they have that be- it is harder to engage and participate in community. Alex: And I think then it's thinking of really creatively about what participation looks like. That doesn't mean you're kind of physically turning up to the CFA to volunteer. It could be looking through advocacy, um, options, or it could be, um, educating yourself about disaster preparedness and then talking to loved ones about that, or it could be through online channels that you could be looking at participation. Alex: But I think it can just be, yeah, small pieces, small goals around participation, and also thinking from the get-go about what sustainable participation might look like for you, uh, so you're not kind of giving your all and then collapsing in a heap later. Sarah: Yeah, of course. Um, it's so important to meet people where they're at, and, um, any level of participation, great or small, is, is still meaningful. That's, that's a fantastic point, Alex, yeah. Thank you so much. Scarlett: Yeah, so I'm Scarlett, and I'm from a little rural town in Victoria called Kinglake. I've lived there my whole life. Went to the most amazing primary school in Strathewen as well, which has really pivoted the direction of my life as well. I work as a chef. I like to do archery and boxing, and bake a lot actually. Scarlett: And also, like, I volunteer with my local CFA, which is the... one of my favourite things to do. Alex: What a great mix of, uh, hobbies. How long have you been a member of the Country Fire Authority, is that right? Scarlett: Yep. Alex: Yeah. Scarlett: I'm coming up on two years, I think in June will be two years since I joined my brigade, which is very exciting. Alex: Congratulations. Uh, yeah, two years is a, a great commitment to show to the CFA. Is there, um, some information about your experience, um, of a disaster event or threats of disaster events that you would like to share? Scarlett: Yeah. So when I was a young kid, I was involved in the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires that came through Kinglake. Scarlett: Uh, me and my siblings were inside our house during the day, which fortunately did survive, and we were all okay, made it out safely. But that disaster really shaped who I am as a person, because I grew up in a community that had been so devastatingly affected by bushfires, especially one as vicious as Black Saturday was. Scarlett: Attending Strathewen Primary especially solidified who I am as a person due to the, um, bushfire partnership program we did with an Arthurs Creek CFA. We were able to talk about, like, what happened, how, like, the signs of impending disasters, how to talk to adults and tell them, "These are the signs. This is what we need to do. Scarlett: We need to enact our fire plan. We need to tell our neighbours," whatever. And it was just really, really important, and it really resonated with me. And I do believe after finishing that program in primary school and heading into high school, that really drove me to continue working in the emergency management space by joining YACVic, doing a project with Melbourne Uni, um, joining, and then joining CFA when I turned old enough, because I wanted to not just talk about the impact after a disaster, I really wanted to be there to support people during and on, like, the worst day of their lives, which I was able to do, um, earlier this year during the Longwood bushfires. Scarlett: I was deployed three times up into Yea. I spoke to farmers. We helped secure their cattle, check their land, put out spot fires, and just support them as best as we could during that disaster this year. Alex: What do you think that you have learnt over the years from your own experience of disaster and, you know, recovering from disaster that you took to supporting the Longwood communities? Scarlett: I do believe that growing up in a fire-affected community, um, taught me a great deal of empathy and how to really connect with people, to not ensure that everything was going to be okay, but to just support them and be there when they need it. Just, you don't even need to talk, just listen to what they have to say, check up. Scarlett: And I connect especially with children. I know on a few CFA responses there have been children involved, and I always end up babysitting them, making sure they're okay and supporting them. So I think it's just, it taught me a lot of empathy. Alex: Yeah, yeah, which is incredibly valuable when you're even there with your CFA uniform on, that empathy's a core part of that. Alex: If you were thinking of other young people, what would you want to be encouraging other people, other young people to think about or do to help them kind of feel like their voice is heard, or that they're an active participant in their preparedness or, or recovery around disaster? Scarlett: I think the most, like the first step a lot of young people can take is just going to the local council, and I know quite a few have youth summits. Scarlett: I know Nillumbik Council has an excellent youth summit. And if you can get into that, that's a place where they want you to talk, and they want to hear what you have to say. And if there isn't one, go to the council and try and get one. Try and get your community, the youth of your community, to speak up because it is your future that they are deciding for. Scarlett: And if it does interest young people, as I said, I love volunteering with my whole heart and being. CFA, SES, such a wonderful community. You get to do wonderful things. It really gives me a meaning of what I wanna do in life. My brigade

is literally like my second family. I love them all to pieces, and it's just, it's just, it's a brotherhood and a sisterhood. Scarlett: You know you can rely on them. You look to the person to the left and your right, and you know that you would literally gladly walk through fire with them. Even after a difficult incident, none of us are going to not check up on someone. It's quite likely you're gonna get 20 phone calls the next day from everyone in the brigade asking how you're doing, and checking up, and letting you know that they're there if you need to talk or anything. Scarlett: And it's just absolutely amazing. Alex: That's great. And I mean, you have been out, um, yeah, on the fire ground very recently, and I can imagine that support from other brigade members is really important. What... Thinking back even recently when you were, um, out, um, with the CFA for the Longwood fires, what did you find helpful to help you decompress? Scarlett: I found that after my last deployment to the fires, which was our brigade's last deployment, I found that when we got back to station, everyone that had been operational or non-operational was there at the station waiting for us to get back, and we simply just, we cleaned the trucks, we checked inventory, just mundane tasks that we do every week. Scarlett: And it was just really nice to just get through those routine tasks of checking the hoses, making sure the branches were fine, checking the pumps and the water levels, and cleaning all the dust and the ash off the vehicles. It was just really nice to just go through that methodic routine of just maintenance of our trucks. Alex: Yeah. No, I can understand that that would help with, uh, decompressing. Thinking then maybe, um, you know, there is a, a real threat of future disasters, whether for you as a community member or, um, your volunteer role with the CFA, what is it that you would be thinking about beforehand that might help, um, you cope with the disaster? Scarlett: Oh, well, I guess the only thing we can really do is just prepare properly and just have a plan, 'cause, and have one that can jump into action straight away. Because you never know how quickly something can start and how far or fast it can travel. And so I just believe having a plan, especially coming into fire season with climate change and everything it's doing and making them worse and worse every year- It's just the most you can do is just be a- as prepared as you can be. Scarlett: Even the Longwood bushfires, we did in Kinglake. We got put under a watch and act, and then an evacuation. So for me, it was just about getting my family off the mountain, getting my family and my pets off the mountain. And as soon as they were gone, I knew that it would be fine, because they were far away. Scarlett: They were, they knew that I was gonna be fine, 'cause I'm trained. The safest place for me to be is at the fire station or on a firetruck. And just that mutual comfort that they were far away from anything that could happen, and that they were comfortable in my level of skill and training, and my fellow brigade members, that I was gonna be okay as well. Alex: It, it shows how kind of a sense of safety's really relative, isn't it? So for your family, for you to know your family were safe, that was them being off the, the hill, as you say, out of the area. Whereas for your family to know that you were safe, it was about you've got the skills and the equipment and the team beside you, uh, to be safe. Alex: Yeah. Yeah. And, and what do you think a young person's role can be in being ready, um, for a disaster? Scarlett: I do believe a young person has a different perspective on things than adults. Adults might look at all of the important things. Like, they'll take care, like your parents would take care of birth certificates, bills, like, documents and everything. Scarlett: A young person might find a family photo from 10 years ago. They might think of a picture of your grandparents that may have passed. They will make sure the animals are in their crates, and just think of the littler things that an adult may miss in a panic. Alex: Yeah, so being an active participant in those discussions- Scarlett: Yeah Alex: beforehand's really important as well. And I like the idea that, yeah, bringing a different perspective of, um, and also what's important to the young person- Scarlett: Yeah ... Alex: as well I think is really good. Are there things that you wish, um- older adults or people in leadership positions, uh, would do to better support young people who have experienced a disaster? Scarlett: I would like them all to know that age does not equal experience. For me, obviously I joined the brigade at 16, and whilst I was new to the direct emergency services response, I wasn't new to emergency services or emergency management. Because at that point, I'd already been involved in it for six years, and I had a lot of prior knowledge with community engagement and how it all worked. Scarlett: And so my brigade was awesome. They accept my rambling about it with full force. But there are definitely some people I've met that have looked at me and gone, "Well, you're just a kid. You don't know anything. I've been doing this for 40-plus years. I know more than you." And it's just like, "You don't. You don't know. Scarlett: We have different experiences. We have completely different perspectives and thoughts and opinions. You may know more about the emergency services perspective for being in it for so long, but that doesn't mean that I don't have just as much knowledge in a separate but also at the same time conjoined space." Alex: Yeah, yeah. One of the key things about a disaster in terms of its impact is that it takes people's sense of safety away, even if it's just in the short term. So one of the things that we know kind of, well, you know probably from your lived experience and I know, uh, from the work that I do,

that restoring a sense of safety is really important after a disaster. Alex: And I was just wondering if you had any thoughts on how, what you find helpful to help you keep at least a relative sense of safety, um, you know, when you're out in CFA or in community? Scarlett: For me, with responding with my CFA, to keep just a relative sense of safety, that's just the training that's been hammered into my brain, which is just, um, which is SPADRA, so the Safe Person Approach and Dynamic Risk Assessment. Scarlett: So observe your surroundings. For me, in a bushfire, grassfire sense, I know a lot about fire weather, so keeping an eye on the elements and the weather, wind change, relative humidity, all that really helps me read the fire behaviour. And for when I was a kid after the Black Saturday bushfires, to kind of restore my sense of safety, it really started within that program in primary school. Scarlett: Because I do remember when I was a kid, if I would hear a siren or anything, I would just panic because I just didn't know what it was or what was happening, or if I was in danger, or if my family was in danger, and it would just make me panic. But that program really taught me how to... I would, I call it, like, my safe story, as in, like, how to talk about it without getting triggered in a teaching sense. Sarah: Mm. Scarlett: And for me, it's just to, just to breathe, honestly. Like, if I find that I'm getting stressed on the fire ground, no matter the type of incident, I will just breathe for a second. And my captains and lieutenants and everyone knows this, that if I need a second, I will just go outside just by myself and just take a second, and then I'll come back in and I'll be all good. Sarah: So Alex, um, how can participation itself contribute to healing, to confidence, and a sense of belonging? Alex: It can definitely contribute to all of those things, and I think it is, and we heard from Scarlett that a core part of participation for her was gaining skills and gaining knowledge. And I think once you gain those things about, in her case, it was fire, fire behaviour, how to be safe around fires, um, it can, um, increase your, uh, confidence around that, increase your sense of safety, and also will hopefully... Alex: We know that if people are feeling informed and knowledgeable and skilled and have confidence in those things, then it will probably help someone feel calm if, or calmer I should say, if they're faced with a disaster. Sarah: Scarlett talked beautifully about empathy and understanding different perspectives. As a listener myself, what are some skills that I can develop to support my loved ones? Alex: I think the advice Scarlett gave was really o- on point in terms of, um, making that effort to understand someone else's perspective, knowing that their experience of the disaster itself will be very different in terms of their experience of loss or how they were impacted, but also recognizing that, you know, a disaster doesn't happen in a vacuum, does it? Alex: It's, uh, people have other things going on in their lives, uh, whether short-term stresses or more ongoing things. So I think that's a really key thing. In terms of other things I think that you can do, uh, to help your peers, because we know that that's where people get support from, is, you know, to just be available to talk. Alex: Don't pressure anyone to talk. Uh, just be, you know, "I'm ready to talk when you are if you want to." Uh, I think there's also a temptation to try and jump in with solutions, 'cause of course we wanna do something to try and make someone feel better or to fix the problem they've just identified. But sometimes just listening, giving that person space to, you know, acknowledge the horrible stuff that they have experienced is important. Alex: And I think another really key thing is not to, um, give, well, what we would call, uh, false reassurances. What do I mean by, by that? It's, you know, don't jump too quickly in with, "It'll be right. You'll be good in a few days." Cause of course we don't know that. So I think there are a few key things that I would be thinking about, um, if I were you and you had a friend that you wanted to be supporting. Sarah: Yeah. Absolutely. Everything that we, we do, we do it with thoughtfulness and, and care and, and love. That's such a great point, Alex. Um, reflecting on today's discussion as a whole, what would you say are your key takeaways? Alex: I think building on that last point around thinking about how young people can support each other. Alex: I think, you know, we know even from research that people turn to their peers first when they want support, when they need support. So I think, um, being someone who is willing to listen to other people, but also checking in on friends, uh, checking in on loved ones, and not just checking in once and being like, "Oh, well, they seemed fine that day, so that's it." Alex: Uh, but yeah, checking in every so often to see how someone's going I think is really important. Sarah: Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you so very much, Alex, for sharing all your thoughts today. I, I really appreciate it. Alex: No problem. Alex: In this episode we spoke about how experiencing a disaster, or another traumatic event, at a young age can have lasting impacts and shape the person you become. I’d like to share a little bit more about that now. In Scarlett’s case, we can see that her experiences of the fire, and the CFA program that followed at her primary school, have influenced her values and the choices she’s made since then - from decisions around participating in her community, to how she supported her family during more recent events. It’s important to remember that childhood experiences, including traumatic events, can affect us in many different ways at any time. The experiences we have when we’re young can influence how we see the world, the things we value, the decisions we make throughout our lives. For Scarlett specifically, those experiences have played a part in shaping her interests and ability to relate to others, and likely many other parts of who she is today. Understanding how our experiences shape us can help us make sense of our own reactions, our interests and values, and even the impact it can have years later. It reminds us that there’s often a story behind the choices we make and the people we become. And while we can’t change what happened in the past, understanding it can give us greater self-awareness, self-compassion, and can help us make more informed choices about how we move forward. Liz: If anything we discussed in today's episode raised issues for you, please reach out to someone you trust and seek support. One resource we're sharing in every episode is eheadspace. This is a free confidential service for young people across Australia with support available online, by email, or on the phone with a mental health clinician or peer worker. Liz: Go to headspace.org.au. Liz: You can also check out ReachOut, which is a youth-focused website with information and tools on mental health, stress, relationships, and other issues that affect young people. Look up au.reachout.com for more. Liz: You'll find all the support resources available in the show notes. Liz: The Finding Steady Ground podcast was brought to you by the Centre of Excellence: Young People and Disasters and Phoenix Australia. This podcast was recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri and Boon Wurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation. This episode was hosted by Alex Howard and Sarah Hezina. Liz: Pre-production and research were by Phoebe Michetti and Jessica Standish. Editing and production were by Liz Keen from Headline Productions.