 |
History
Humanitarian organizations send their staff overseas to the most challenging conflict areas, disaster zones, and impoverished communities. These individuals, as well as local staff, often find themselves in need of psychosocial support due to trauma or chronic stress. Many organizations, however, do not have the capacity to provide this kind of support to their people before, during, and after their deployment.
In 2002 Action Without Borders was approached with the idea of convening a group of people wrestling with these issues, and in March of 2004, after almost two years of planning with experts in the field, AWB organized a national conference under the title: "Tending the Helper’s Fire: Mitigating Trauma and Stress in International Staff and Volunteers."
Hosted by Notre Dame University’s Kroc Institute, the conference was the first in the U.S. to bring together human resources professionals, researchers, program directors, and international humanitarian aid workers to examine how different organizations currently provide psychosocial support to their overseas staff,and how they can do so more effectively.
Participants in the
conference agreed that there is a great need for an online resource center
devoted to the broad range of psychosocial support issues. This new site –
psychosocial.org
- connects humanitarian experts, aid workers, and academics, and provides them with the training materials, best practices, and research results needed to support their work.
All photos © Karl Grobl
|
|
![[logo]](/images/big_logo.gif){kind=logo}
Mail a Friend
About us