Bega Valley Data Collective President, Kate Sollis, first connected with Catalina Langen in January 2025.  Kate was interested in the work Catalina was doing with the Civic Wellbeing Partners in Santa Monica and reached out as a peer to find out more. Their first conversation took place just days after the Californian wildfires had devastated parts of Los Angeles, including areas of Santa Monica.

Kate and Catalina soon realised they had a lot of valuable experience to share with each other. The Bega Valley was one areas most impacted by the Black Summer Bushfires of 2019/2020, and is still recovering from the economic and psychological effects of a natural disaster followed immediately by a pandemic. Recent crisis events in Southern California – wildfires, persecution of the migrant population and riots – are putting unprecedented strain on services while innocent people are being harassed to the point of being afraid to leave their homes.

The conversation between Kate and Catalina developed; first to include other members of the BVDC, then more recently to an international audience through a webinar ‘Leveraging a Crisis to Advance Wellbeing- Australian Fire Recovery’ hosted by Wellbeing Economy Alliance California (WEAll CA) on the 9th July.

The webinar brought together a diverse group of representatives from the not-for-profit sector, along with researchers, architects, writers and volunteers, from both California and Australia, to talk about the common challenges facing communities adapting to crisis environments and recovering from multiple trauma events.

Tim Whitaker and April Merrick from the BVDC along with Carolyn Ardler from FRRR spoke about their involvement in the consultations with affected communities in the aftermath of the Black Summer Bushfires – sharing some of what they experienced and highlighting their key insights.

Here are some of the main themes which arose during the webinar.

The Bushfires

The Bega Valley experienced multiple and on-going traumas from late 2019 through to 2022.

While a severe fire season had been predicted, the scale of the devastation – 5.5 million hectares burnt, 26 dead, 2448 homes destroyed – was beyond most peoples’ imaginations.

The impact on entire communities both materially and emotionally was huge and ongoing, with fires burning for three months. Soon after the disaster response work began in the Bega Valley, the nation went into lockdown with Covid, adding yet another dimension of trauma and unpreparedness to an already surreal and disoriented landscape.

The immediate aftermath of the bushfires brought a sudden influx of relief funding to the Bega Valley. Spurred on by media attention, local and federal governments responded quickly with relief money and resources, however without a clear understanding of what communities needed, these top-down initiatives didn’t have the positive impact that was intended.

Connectivity and Collaboration

Five years on from the disaster some communities have recovered better than others.

April and Tim observed that the communities who had already begun meeting and talking about local need were better prepared and recovered faster than communities who were less connected.

‘Small communities don’t necessarily share a common voice’, says Tim. ‘Everyone has their own views about what the community needs.’

Funding comes quickly. Jealousies and conflict can arise when a community hasn’t already established mutual goals and has no funding proposals ready to activate when the funding lands. Without these conversations and plans in place, spending and resources are far less likely to be directed to where they are most needed.

Additionally, having a data-guided approach – where metrics and indicators around community need are monitored and shared – provides a solid foundation for decision-making, keeps organisations and authorities on the same page and can make it easier for communities to establish mutual goals and plans.

Through her work with FRRR’s Investing in Rural Communities Futures initiative, Carolyn Ardler has gained a wealth of insight into the common challenges of groups and organisations in rural communities.

FRRR in collaboration with community ran a series of place-based workshops within the Bega Valley – both before and after the bushfires – aimed at strengthening local not-for-profits through long-term capacity building. These workshops created safe places for people to meet and share their ideas and views, while coming together to work on a community-wide strategy for greater resilience.

Carolyn found that the workshops were not only beneficial for helping people heal during a crisis, they also served to initiate the necessary conversations and co-ordinated planning to respond to a crisis more effectively, ensuring communities are locally governed and connected at a grass roots level.

Managing Conflict

Conflict is a difficult and common issue that all communities need to be prepared for.

April observed how people in a community come together in the immediate aftermath of a disaster with an abundance of kindness, generosity, and support for each other. However, when funding and resources begin to be distributed, this initial surge of solidarity can quickly turn sour if there’s a perception that some people are receiving more than others. April calls this the ‘they are, we’re not’ effect which can divide a community causing rifts and splits. Tim observed how communities that are dealing with conflict while recovering from disaster need different treatment.

Carolyn points out that the workshops on managing conflict were always full and were delivered multiple times. Other workshops highlighted practices such as sharing resources (policies, office space, paid professional roles), collaborating rather than competing (on funding bids), and developing strategy. Most of all having the mechanisms in place to facilitate effective communication is key.

Carolyn emphasises the need to create the right kind of atmosphere and recommends using a circle practice – arranging seats in a circle – where people feel safe to speak freely and honestly. Well-crafted questions are also important to keep the conversation constructive.

As noted earlier, having timely conversations about need and establishing mutual community goals can prevent a lot of conflict from occurring and will allow a community to recover much more quickly than a community that hasn’t already taken steps towards better connectivity.

Adaptation

The need to rebuild offers us space to radically rethink what people really need in terms of more adaptive infrastructure. Disasters can serve as an opportunity to ask important questions about what is no longer working, and to examine the role of more insightful urban planning as a means to optimise whole-community wellbeing.

Architect Carl Welty shared a timely link to the Village Homes project in Davis California. He points out that there are many ecological and social benefits of a well designed community. Examples such as Village Homes demonstrate how housing that embraces ecologically sustainable design are not only better suited to the Californian (and Australian) indoor-outdoor lifestyle, can promote a greater quality of life for the inhabitants and are actually cheaper to build and maintain. As he puts it ‘We can be green for less money.’

Healing

Carolyn saw many instances of communities coming together after the bushfires, sharing their stories and being there for one another. She found these gatherings – particularly the circle practice – to be very healing and necessary for people experiencing and recovering from trauma.

Catalina Langen from the Civic Wellbeing Partners in Santa Monica shared some of the hardship that migrant families (and colleagues who are supporting migrant families) are currently experiencing in Los Angeles. The ongoing oppressive environment that people are now living and working in is having a major impact on the mental health and wellbeing of whole communities. Catalina expressed how grateful she is for the connection to other organisations and groups. Feeling connected to a larger solidarity network and having our own unique experiences validated can be tremendously healing.

The Bega Valley Data Collective gives a big thank you to the Wellbeing Economy Alliance and the Civic Wellbeing Partners for offering us this opportunity to share and connect with other communities who are experiencing and recovering from multiple disasters and ongoing trauma. You can watch the webinar in full here on Youtube.