A randomised trial comparing a brief wellbeing intervention delivered by coaches with a self-directed intervention to promote recovery in Victorian regional and rural communities impacted by bushfires, drought, and COVID-19.

Participants randomised to the SOLAR program will receive 5 face-to-face or telehealth sessions of the SOLAR program. The first session runs for 80 minutes and subsequent sessions for 50 minutes each. Sessions involve practical and skills-based one-on-one sessions with a trained “Coach”. The intervention will be delivered by trained “Coaches” who may be psychologists, social workers, community workers or teachers that are trained and provided with weekly supervision by Phoenix Australia. Participants will be allocated to a Coach within their workplace for face-to-face treatment or telehealth. The SOLAR program comprises elements drawn from evidence based treatments for individuals experiencing mental health problems with behavioural skill development, psychoeducation, and cognitive strategies. Specifically, these elements include components on psychoeducation about healthy living, information about keeping relationships healthy, values based behavioural activation, arousal and affective management, emotional writing of the disaster experience, and dealing with worry and rumination. Session 1: Healthy lifestyle; physical activity and sleep, managing strong emotions with controlled breathing. Relaxing activities; Session 2: Diet, grounding exercises, expressive writing; Session 3: Healthy relationships, behavioural activation; Session 4: Dealing with worry and rumination; and Session 5: Reviewing achievements and planning for the future. Following each session the participant will be encouraged to complete homework activities which includes the following: Session 1: 1 physical activity, 1 relaxing activity, practice controlled breathing, 1 good sleeping habit (1 – 2 hours); Session 2: 1 healthy diet change, 1 grounding exercise, writing their disaster story (1 – 2 hours); Session 3: Behavioural activation, complete 3 activities with others (1 – 2 hours); Session 4: practice a strategy for dealing with worry and rumination, behavioural activation, complete 3 new activities (1 – 2 hours); Session 5: None. All Coaches will undergo training delivered by Phoenix Australia in both self-directed online learning and group based training via videoconferencing and will be provided with a Coach manual, Participant workbook and Training PowerPoint. During the training there will be didactic delivery of information, group discussion, demonstration videos and skill rehearsal via videoconferencing. Training will include 2.5 hours of self-directed online learning, 4 hours group based videoconferencing training, 2 hours optional group based videoconferencing counselling skills session for those without a background in counselling, and 2 hour preparation supervision session prior to intervention commencement, and 1 hour supervision sessions once intervention has commenced. Strategies to monitor adherence to the intervention include evaluating coaches' knowledge and confidence pre- and post-training and rating level of competence across specified criteria when coaches engage in role plays during training (e.g., demonstrated rationale when explaining skill). As part of a SOLAR accreditation process, 1 session for each coach was recorded and provided to Phoenix Australia for fidelity monitoring purposes. SOLAR coaches will also engage in weekly supervision during the study period.