Additional funding has been poured into schools and public health to increase counselling and other programs available to children and adolescents in the Snowy Valleys in the aftermath of the fires.

At Charles Sturt University, researchers this year collaborated with children's charity Royal Far West to undertake a literature review of research into the impact of bushfires on the mental health of children and interventions used to help them.

Associate Professor Michael Curtin said the review unsurprisingly showed bushfires could have profound, long-term mental health impacts on young people.

"Children might not show an immediate response to it, but some mental health and wellbeing issues might appear later on ... several months to a few years afterwards," he said.

"Children can be invisible because of everything else that's being done, but we actually have to acknowledge that the children are most likely to be impacted as well and we have to monitor that."

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Dr Curtin said researchers were surprised to find a lack of evidence of specific intervention programs proven to successfully prevent or reduce the long term impacts of bushfires on children.

He said the reason for this was complicated and likely not caused by a lack of quality programs, with ethical issues making it hard to create data specific to children in a controlled environment.

Dr Curtin said the literature review found the importance of taking a whole community approach to children's mental health; working with families, schools and towns as a whole as well as focusing on children individually.

This whole community approach is a focus for child and adolescent bushfire recovery clinician Jacinta Elphick, who works as part of the Murrumbidgee Local Health District bushfire recovery team assisting the network of mental health professionals on the ground in the Snowy Valleys.

Ms Elphick said much of her work was "filling in the gaps," supporting the families of children identified as needing support.

"What we know is kids are less likely to let their parents know if they're struggling because they can see the burden their families are trying to carry," she said.

She said it could sometimes be hard for adults to relate to children's priorities at a time like this, with concerns about pets, the sudden abandonment of Christmas presents and struggling without a normal routine common stresses children talk about.

Ms Elphick said research showed adults were often hypr-focused on rebuilding their physical environment after a fire, but it was important to make family time a priority no matter how challenging logistics became to avoid long term damage.

"Those families that prioritised spending time together, making sure they had some fun stuff in between everything have stayed together," she said.

Ms Elphick said much of the work in the Snowy Valleys was coming through the schools, and it had been challenging to put the necessary psychosocial focus on interventions this year due to coronavirus.

"Sorts of things people would normally do to recover from such traumatic events is actually get together on a regular basis and talk with people who've been through the same sorts of things ... normally kids would go along to that, talk to kids who'd been through the same sort of thing, ... COVID has actually really quite interfered with that process," she said.

"We are seeing a delay in what's happening for people and what it's done is probably brought forward that level of distress, all those people having a more chronic response to it you would normally see after the 12 month mark."

With the anniversary of the Dunns Road fire approaching, Ms Elphick said it was normal for members of the community to feel sad given the chance to reflect on the year.

She said with young people it would often take one to five years to resolve grief and re-adjust.

Children and adolescents and those concerned about them can call the team on 0436 942 100 and bypass the usual screening of larger services.

Adults can also call that number.

In a crisis situation, the Murrumbidgee hotline is 1800 800 944.

If you need support or are struggling with mental illness, call 000 in an emergency.

Or please contact any of these national helplines: