Project Workers engage 30 - 40 vulnerable disadvantaged young people from the bushfire affected Shoalhaven LGA through referrals from project partners and community organisations and get those young people involved in:

a.​ Grit Training​: to build their own Resilience and Leadership (could be surfing, or rock climbing, cultural experiences, didgeridoo workshops, snorkelling, or tree’s adventure activities depending on the interests and goals of the young people involved. The project brokers and pays local organisations to provide these experiences for the vulnerable young people) The experiential element is linked by the Project Workers with a counselling/life coaching type session about Grit and Resilience, based on individual young people identifying their strengths and using those strengths to tackle situations where they might feel their resilience is lacking)

b. ​Grit Stories​: Project Workers engage young people to create audio stories with a Grit theme (including stories about responses to disasters/bushfires). In keeping with trauma informed practise these stories will likely be fictional in order to allow a one-step removed way of talking about issues. Some young people may prefer to start working on informational stories that will inform others on the objectives of the Disaster Recovery support process.

c. ​Grit Course​: Project workers run a Grit group work course for some of the core young people aiming to build their resilience and leadership.

Networking and Consultation: Project workers will also reach out to other organisations and individuals throughout the Shoalhaven LGA to seek people who would be willing to be part of Stage 2.

A Steering Group is established that will include First Nations representatives, project partners and emergency services organisations to help guide the project’s reach throughout the community and ensure vulnerable people who may benefit from being involved in stage 2 or people who have valuable stories or information about disaster recovery, risk mitigation or resilience building are prioritised.

Project Workers take vulnerable young people in pairs or small groups to various other parts of the Shoalhaven to "interview" and develop stories of Grit with people throughout the Bushfire affected LGA. These stories would include information that covers the various priority outcomes of the Bushfire Disaster Recovery and Resilience Fund. The core young people can be employed as casuals on these site visit/story gathering activities, building their confidence, capacity, commitment and work readiness skills.

Grit Training will continue and new vulnerable people may connect up to the project during this period and be part of Grit Training.

The Grit Course will be run for some other vulnerable or affected groups within the community. The core young people will have an opportunity to be employed as casuals to assist in the running of the Grit Course. The course could be offered to other groups of young people, but it could also be offered to businesses or organisations wanting to build Resilience in their teams.

Grit stories are packaged into 8 podcast episodes and also presented by young people in interactive live or virtual events.

These presentations enable community conversations about the other key outcomes of this funding strategy as it relates to building awareness of bushfire recovery and resilience.

Live presentations will be done in a variety of different settings including cinemas, community centres, schools, clubs etc.

Presentations will also be done virtually via platforms like Zoom, where anyone from the LGA can join in.

Podcasts mean people can listen any time and interact through online forums and social media set up for the project.

Because many people have been involved in the creation of the stories in Stage 2, this is a good basis for organic build of an audience for these events and podcasts, as those people involved share information about the podcasts and events with their contacts. Further publicity and information presented via Social Media will also benefit from this kind of organic spread through project collaborators.

Traditional media stories also help to spread the messages even further throughout the community. Through traditional media or social media we intend to reach a majority of the LGA community with stories or information about the project, which will highlight aspects of the disaster recovery process and key messages. We will also impact communities beyond the LGA who are interested in Disaster Recovery and Resilience building.

As part of the risk management strategy, Project Workers will moderate community conversation on Social Media and provide links to information and services.

Grit stories, Grit Training and Grit Course can be offered beyond the end of this funding to orgs/businesses throughout the community using a community enterprise model. Partner organisations can use the connections created through this project to continue to offer those services to organisations or businesses who see the benefit they will gain from engaging in them and paying for them.