In the summer of 2019-2020, Australia experienced one of the most devastating bushfire seasons in its history, with over 12 million hectares of land burnt, 34 lives lost, and thousands of homes destroyed. In response to this disaster, the Australian government launched the Black Summer Bushfire Recovery Program to support affected communities in their recovery efforts. The program included a range of initiatives such as mental health support, small business grants and community infrastructure funding offered through non-profit organizations. In 2021, the program was extended to provide ongoing support to communities still dealing with the aftermath of the bushfires in various local government areas.

The objective of this research is to build and test a measurement tool (that is, a validated survey scale) to evaluate and assess the effectiveness of the Black Summer Bushfire Recovery Program Extension using the Red Cross as a case study. The program consists of initiatives (e.g. community workshops, community events) organized by Red Cross to support the resilience of the local population in rural areas. The research will produce a set of items that Red Cross will use in the future to evaluate community resilience and capacity in anticipating, responding to and recovering well from disasters. Through the above indicators, this research seeks to confirm whether the Red Cross has progressed towards its outcomes and community resilience goals.​​​​​​​

This research has focused on community resilience concepts such as disaster resilience, empowerment, self-efficacy, participative decision making, connectedness, social capital, relatedness, social support, confidence, control, uncertainty, uncertainty, personal competence, active coping, change, help seeking, knowledge, sense of mastery, well-being, emotional resilience, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety and community connectedness.

Project Funding

This project is funded by the Australian Red Cross.