Psychological First Aid Principles Within a Community-Led, Arts Initiative: Lessons from the Blacksmiths' Tree.

Psychological First Aid (PFA) is widely used in the early phases of disaster recovery, despite limited empirical evidence supporting its application. PFA aims to reduce distress and encourage adaptive coping and is grounded in five principles: Promotion of Hope, Connectedness, Safety, Calm, And Self- and Collective Efficacy. Drawing on a constructivist perspective, we analysed interview transcripts from Forged from Fire: The Making of the Blacksmiths' Tree, a documentary film about a community-led arts project initiated after the 2009 bushfires in Victoria, Australia. Using a reflexive process that employed deductive and inductive coding, we investigated the presence of PFA principles in participants' experiences of the Blacksmiths' Tree project and whether themes not accounted by PFA were also salient. Findings supported PFA principles and generated additional themes: Grassroots and Community Leadership and Healing Through Creation and Expression. Implications for disaster recovery in community settings are presented.