No Bull Support

No Bull Support is a workshop that was born of ideas generated in collaboration with the Drought Counsellors and Rural Support Workers across Victoria, during 2007 and 2008. During this time, it became evident that there was a need to provide support to stressed secondary workers and others in communities who regularly encountered distraught people battling high levels of emotional distress and ongoing experiences of loss. We felt that this support was best provided by the Drought Counsellors themselves, and we have held true to this original model of the program, whereby Bouverie trains counsellors who then take the workshop back to their own local communities. The Bouverie Community Services Team provides ongoing support and consultation for these Facilitators, in addition to a quarterly newsletter and networking via an on-line Web Forum.

Since 2008, NBS has been successfully rolled out across all of regional Victoria, where it continues to help people cope with the impact of disaster on their local communities. Over 2009, we have trained two new cohorts of NB Support Facilitators under our ongoing Drought funding provided by the Department of Health, and we continue to support them in their work with our project.

We have recently embarked on a new round of training, with funding from the Victorian Government, through the provision of a Victorian Support Grant from the Community Support Fund, aimed at supporting, specifically, volunteers and workers involved in the drought support and bushfire recovery efforts, though certainly other local participants may wish to attend. We have added a second day of training for NBS Facilitators, in which we coach them through presentation and group process components of the workshop, and we continue to provide direct consultation and ongoing support throughout the life of the project.

For general enquiries, contact Project Coordinator Carmel Hobbs via phone at 03 9385 5100 or via e-mail: c.hobbs@latrobe.edu.au.