Nurturing Spiritual Resilience to Promote Post-disaster Community Recovery: The 2016 Alberta Wildfire in Canada
The 2016 Alberta wildfire, the largest insured natural disaster in Canada, led to a mass evacuation of residents of Fort McMurray, a small city in northern Alberta. The wildfire resulted in significant damages to housing and community infrastructure. The entire community was displaced for several we...
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:d6df01d2858e4c80ae88f04a91930bff 2023-05-15T16:17:37+02:00 Nurturing Spiritual Resilience to Promote Post-disaster Community Recovery: The 2016 Alberta Wildfire in Canada Nasreen Lalani Julie L. Drolet Caroline McDonald-Harker Matthew R. G. Brown Pamela Brett-MacLean Vincent I.O. Agyapong Andrew J. Greenshaw Peter H. Silverstone 2021-07-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.682558 https://doaj.org/article/d6df01d2858e4c80ae88f04a91930bff EN eng Frontiers Media S.A. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2021.682558/full https://doaj.org/toc/2296-2565 2296-2565 doi:10.3389/fpubh.2021.682558 https://doaj.org/article/d6df01d2858e4c80ae88f04a91930bff Frontiers in Public Health, Vol 9 (2021) spirituality resilience post disaster recovery community service providers meaning making Public aspects of medicine RA1-1270 article 2021 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.682558 2022-12-31T10:22:42Z The 2016 Alberta wildfire, the largest insured natural disaster in Canada, led to a mass evacuation of residents of Fort McMurray, a small city in northern Alberta. The wildfire resulted in significant damages to housing and community infrastructure. The entire community was displaced for several weeks. Post-disaster, community members experienced individual and collective trauma, and other negative mental health impacts in response to the significant losses and grief they endured. Spirituality has been found to be a major protective factor in facilitating resiliency and recovery following the experience of disaster. Nonetheless, little focus has been directed toward how spirituality can strengthen and empower community capacity and growth during post-disaster recovery. Our study explored various meanings and concerns, along with tools and strategies that helped to nurture spiritual resilience and well-being among residents of Fort McMurray following the Alberta wildfire. Data were collected through interviews and focus group discussions with community influencers working to support long-term recovery efforts in the city. Participants identified a number of spiritual resources such as a strong sense of belonging, a shared positive outlook, faith and hope, compassion, and sense of gratitude, which contributed to increased resilience and positive health and well-being and helped them to support families and communities in the post disaster recovery period. Our findings indicate that spiritual values and beliefs can play a significant role in building resilience and promoting individual and communal healing and recovery post-disaster. These findings have important implications for post-disaster recovery strategies, as they highlight the need to ensure supports for interventions and initiatives that strengthen a collective sense of identity and social cohesion, informed by communal norms and beliefs, including programs and resources which support opportunities for reflexivity to foster shared healing and ongoing ... Article in Journal/Newspaper Fort McMurray Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Canada Fort McMurray Frontiers in Public Health 9 |
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Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
op_collection_id |
ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
spirituality resilience post disaster recovery community service providers meaning making Public aspects of medicine RA1-1270 |
spellingShingle |
spirituality resilience post disaster recovery community service providers meaning making Public aspects of medicine RA1-1270 Nasreen Lalani Julie L. Drolet Caroline McDonald-Harker Matthew R. G. Brown Pamela Brett-MacLean Vincent I.O. Agyapong Andrew J. Greenshaw Peter H. Silverstone Nurturing Spiritual Resilience to Promote Post-disaster Community Recovery: The 2016 Alberta Wildfire in Canada |
topic_facet |
spirituality resilience post disaster recovery community service providers meaning making Public aspects of medicine RA1-1270 |
description |
The 2016 Alberta wildfire, the largest insured natural disaster in Canada, led to a mass evacuation of residents of Fort McMurray, a small city in northern Alberta. The wildfire resulted in significant damages to housing and community infrastructure. The entire community was displaced for several weeks. Post-disaster, community members experienced individual and collective trauma, and other negative mental health impacts in response to the significant losses and grief they endured. Spirituality has been found to be a major protective factor in facilitating resiliency and recovery following the experience of disaster. Nonetheless, little focus has been directed toward how spirituality can strengthen and empower community capacity and growth during post-disaster recovery. Our study explored various meanings and concerns, along with tools and strategies that helped to nurture spiritual resilience and well-being among residents of Fort McMurray following the Alberta wildfire. Data were collected through interviews and focus group discussions with community influencers working to support long-term recovery efforts in the city. Participants identified a number of spiritual resources such as a strong sense of belonging, a shared positive outlook, faith and hope, compassion, and sense of gratitude, which contributed to increased resilience and positive health and well-being and helped them to support families and communities in the post disaster recovery period. Our findings indicate that spiritual values and beliefs can play a significant role in building resilience and promoting individual and communal healing and recovery post-disaster. These findings have important implications for post-disaster recovery strategies, as they highlight the need to ensure supports for interventions and initiatives that strengthen a collective sense of identity and social cohesion, informed by communal norms and beliefs, including programs and resources which support opportunities for reflexivity to foster shared healing and ongoing ... |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Nasreen Lalani Julie L. Drolet Caroline McDonald-Harker Matthew R. G. Brown Pamela Brett-MacLean Vincent I.O. Agyapong Andrew J. Greenshaw Peter H. Silverstone |
author_facet |
Nasreen Lalani Julie L. Drolet Caroline McDonald-Harker Matthew R. G. Brown Pamela Brett-MacLean Vincent I.O. Agyapong Andrew J. Greenshaw Peter H. Silverstone |
author_sort |
Nasreen Lalani |
title |
Nurturing Spiritual Resilience to Promote Post-disaster Community Recovery: The 2016 Alberta Wildfire in Canada |
title_short |
Nurturing Spiritual Resilience to Promote Post-disaster Community Recovery: The 2016 Alberta Wildfire in Canada |
title_full |
Nurturing Spiritual Resilience to Promote Post-disaster Community Recovery: The 2016 Alberta Wildfire in Canada |
title_fullStr |
Nurturing Spiritual Resilience to Promote Post-disaster Community Recovery: The 2016 Alberta Wildfire in Canada |
title_full_unstemmed |
Nurturing Spiritual Resilience to Promote Post-disaster Community Recovery: The 2016 Alberta Wildfire in Canada |
title_sort |
nurturing spiritual resilience to promote post-disaster community recovery: the 2016 alberta wildfire in canada |
publisher |
Frontiers Media S.A. |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.682558 https://doaj.org/article/d6df01d2858e4c80ae88f04a91930bff |
geographic |
Canada Fort McMurray |
geographic_facet |
Canada Fort McMurray |
genre |
Fort McMurray |
genre_facet |
Fort McMurray |
op_source |
Frontiers in Public Health, Vol 9 (2021) |
op_relation |
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2021.682558/full https://doaj.org/toc/2296-2565 2296-2565 doi:10.3389/fpubh.2021.682558 https://doaj.org/article/d6df01d2858e4c80ae88f04a91930bff |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.682558 |
container_title |
Frontiers in Public Health |
container_volume |
9 |
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1766003505511792640 |