Long Term Pastoral Care as a Recovery Strategy to Recover Social Hope and Build Resilience After Repeated Natural Disasters
Tracks
Marquis Room | In-Person Only
| Tuesday, July 23, 2024 |
| 12:05 PM - 12:25 PM |
Overview
Rev Dr Mark Layson, Disaster Recovery Chaplaincy Network
Details
Key Presentation Learnings:
1. Gain an understanding the pastoral care methodology, how it complements other methodologies.
2. Conceptualise how and why chaplaincy and pastoral care can be of long term benefit to communities that have been impacted by multiple disaster
3. Develop a strategy for the implementation of long term pastoral care programs during the recovery phase of disasters.
Speaker
Rev Dr Mark Layson
Adjunct Research Fellow
Disaster Recovery Chaplaincy Network
Long term pastoral care as a recovery strategy to recover social hope and build resilience after repeated natural disasters.
Abstract
Background:
Australian communities are experiencing the impact environmental conditions that have creating “Poly-crises” from continuous, recurring, and cascading disasters. These conditions have ongoing impacts on both the built and social infrastructure. Such impacts leave long lasting mental health impacts and a loss of personal/social hope for a secure future. It is well noted that domestic violence, social dislocation, and suicidality accompany disasters. The response phase of disaster operations sees extensive resources provided for survivors in evacuation centres and then sporadically through recovery centres. The services provided in centres include provision of material aid, temporary accomodation, and the provision of pastoral care provided by specially trained chaplains. Pastoral care services are co-ordinated by the Disaster Recovery Chaplaincy Network, an initiative that is funded by the Uniting Church in Australia under MOUs with state governments.
However, the recovery phase can take years, especially when communities are impacted by multiple disasters, meaning the long term provision of services are just as important but less reliably delivered.
Intervention:
This presentation reports on several long term recovery pastoral care programs that have successfully been implemented in the North, South, and West of NSW. The first such long term pastoral care program was delivered in the recovery phase after the 2017 Lismore floods. This program was so successfully implemented that it is now being reproduced in the long term recovery of social infrastructure after the 2022 floods in Lismore.The program is facilitated by locally sourced chaplaincy agents who are provided with targeted training, external funding and psychosocial support for locally based chaplains. Learnings from these programs are presented along with recommendations for creating programs in rural and remote communities that enhance social infrastructure and reduce long term adverse impacts on business and community members.
Australian communities are experiencing the impact environmental conditions that have creating “Poly-crises” from continuous, recurring, and cascading disasters. These conditions have ongoing impacts on both the built and social infrastructure. Such impacts leave long lasting mental health impacts and a loss of personal/social hope for a secure future. It is well noted that domestic violence, social dislocation, and suicidality accompany disasters. The response phase of disaster operations sees extensive resources provided for survivors in evacuation centres and then sporadically through recovery centres. The services provided in centres include provision of material aid, temporary accomodation, and the provision of pastoral care provided by specially trained chaplains. Pastoral care services are co-ordinated by the Disaster Recovery Chaplaincy Network, an initiative that is funded by the Uniting Church in Australia under MOUs with state governments.
However, the recovery phase can take years, especially when communities are impacted by multiple disasters, meaning the long term provision of services are just as important but less reliably delivered.
Intervention:
This presentation reports on several long term recovery pastoral care programs that have successfully been implemented in the North, South, and West of NSW. The first such long term pastoral care program was delivered in the recovery phase after the 2017 Lismore floods. This program was so successfully implemented that it is now being reproduced in the long term recovery of social infrastructure after the 2022 floods in Lismore.The program is facilitated by locally sourced chaplaincy agents who are provided with targeted training, external funding and psychosocial support for locally based chaplains. Learnings from these programs are presented along with recommendations for creating programs in rural and remote communities that enhance social infrastructure and reduce long term adverse impacts on business and community members.
Biography
Mark is an interdisciplinary researcher and chaplain who focuses on the intersection of moral injury and trauma exposure and chaplaincy to produce organisational and leadership preventative strategies. His research interests include moral psychology, moral theology, and spirituality as they relate to, trauma, wellbeing and workplace safety. As a former police officer, firefighter, and disaster chaplain he currently centres his research on primary preventative wellbeing strategies for first responders and chaplaincy.
