Aid Worker PTSD

BY MICHAEL BEAR

PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 08, 2009 @ 06:55AM PT

Eight months after coming home from Iraq, I found myself curled on the floor of my bathroom, sobbing. Which, granted, wasn't how I planned on spending the evening. I had always thought I could keep control over my emotions, that I could compartmentalize away all that fear, all that stress. I was wrong.

And apparently I wasn't alone. A recent article from Reuters AlertNet highlights the growing problem of aid worker burn-out.

According to Claire Collard, the Executive Director of the Centre for Humanitarian Pscyhology: "The biggest problems HRs (human resource departments) in NGOs face around their field staff is not trauma at all, it's what is called cumulative stress and burn-out. They are living a very closed-in type of life. They can hardly go out in the evening. They work in the camps then they come back to their compounds and are stuck there for the whole evening with a bunch of colleagues who they haven't chosen in the first place."

We don't like to talk about it, but the problem is real. One study estimated that between 5-10% of aid workers in dangerous situations suffer diagnosable PTSD, while another 20% suffer partial PTSD.

Some studies put the numbers even higher. According to the September 2008 issue of InterAction's Monday Developments, "as many as half of all returned nongovernmental organization (NGO) expatriates exhibited symptoms of burnout, depression, or PTSD."

The November 2007 report NGO Staff Well-being in the Darfur Region of Sudan & Eastern Chadincludes additional statistics from the field - 51.4% of staff surveyed reported feeling physically stressed in the previous two weeks; 45.8% reported feeling emotionally stressed and 29.2% reported feeling mentally stressed over the same period.

Resources for dealing with aid worker PTSD are included below:

- The September issue of InterAction's Monday Developments has a number of excellent articles on the subject, including guidelines for helping to manage stress, as well as a look at staff counseling within the UN system and peer support within humanitarian agencies.

- The 2005 InterAction Forum on staff wellness included useful information and recommendations, in particular the presentation Helping Your Organization Address Staff Wellness by Lisa McKay, Lynne Cripe and Sharon Forrence.

- The Headington Institute focuses on "helping the helpers" - their website is a tremendous resource, including a series of online tools such as training modules, self-examination tools, handouts on coping with traumatic stress, tips for self-care, stories from the field, andlinks to other online resources.

- The majority of attention on staff wellness focuses on international staff, while for the most part national staff are left to fend for themselves. To help address this gap, the Headington Institute offers an excellent module on supporting national staff.

- The Humanitarian Practice Network paper Understanding and addressing staff turnover in humanitarian agencies looks at the causes of staff turnover, as well as the consequences on organizational effectiveness.

- Finally, please see also the bibliography prepared by John Ehrenreich about Managing Stress in Humanitarian, Health Care and Human Rights Workers.