Humanitarian work is intrinsically stressful. Staff live and work in physically demanding and often unpleasant conditions. They experience excessive work loads, long hours, and a lack of privacy and personal space while often being separated from their families for extended periods. Field staff frequently face chronic fear and uncertainty, and are repeatedly exposed to tales of trauma and personal tragedy or to gruesome scenes. Some may have horrific experiences themselves.
In the short term, these stressors can leave humanitarian workers feeling stressed out, overwhelmed, or chronically fatigued. In the long term, they can have more serious effects, such as burnout, paralyzing anxiety or depression, compassion fatigue, and post-traumatic stress syndromes. Field staff may start to feel unmotivated or become indifferent to beneficiaries' suffering, while their work may begin to feel pointless. Stress can lead field staff to engage in self-destructive behaviors such as drinking and dangerous driving, while interpersonal conflict with co-workers or family members can also increase. As a result, humanitarian workers are likely to become less effective at carrying out their assigned tasks.
Other sections of this website provide resources to help individual field staff and their agencies reduce the number and severity of stressors, but, in the end, a significant level of stress is inescapable. The links in this section provide tools to help you learn about the effects of stress and how to protect yourself against them. There are also resources such as questionnaires to help assess stress levels and relaxation exercises to help reduce the inevitable stress of working in the field.
Online resources
Tools for assessing stress
Are you stressed? Here are several links to online stress assessment tools.
This booklet deals with how to recognize stress and trauma, and includes a self-test assessment. The booklet also includes a lesson recognizing symptoms of post-mission stress and suggestions for recovery and stabilization.
This workbook is meant to accompany the "Insights into the Concept of Stress" workbook (listed just below) and focuses on dealing with stress in disasters and traumatic situations.
CARE's security and safety manual assembles the best available information on how to work safely in today's humanitarian environment, and discusses policies, assessments, planning, and fundamental safety and security procedures. Chapter 7 is devoted to discussing the sources of stress, stress indicators, and ways to prevent stress.
This leaflet is designed as a practical tool for delegates before, during, and after their mission. Its aim is to help them to recognize, prevent, and reduce stress in the field.
More information about stress and stress management
Current information is provided on this website about security in particular regions. The ICISF is a nonprofit, open membership foundation dedicated to the prevention and mitigation of disabling stress through the provision of: education, training, and support services for all emergency services professions; continuing education and training in emergency mental health services for psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and licensed professional counselors; and consultation in the establishment of crisis and disaster response programs for varied organizations and communities worldwide.
This learning center was established to provide valuable resources on psychological and spiritual support for humanitarian aid and disaster relief personnel worldwide, as well as links to additional resources.
This section of the Aidworkers.net site provides some basic resources for recognizing and meeting common physical and emotional problems encountered during disaster relief activities.
How does stress impact human functioning? What are the signs of burnout? What steps can be taken to reduce the effect of stress and strain? How does this research affect the practicalities of everyday humanitarian work? In this book, the answers to these questions are presented along with real stories, a series of checklists, stress indicators, and burnout monitors to track the well-being of all workers. The link above leads to purchase options.
Chapter 4 of this guidebook discusses the causes and consequences of stress for field staff and lays out a strategy for reducing stress. The Resources section contains scripts for relaxation exercises. The link above leads to an outline of the book and purchase options.
The book is prefaced by a helpful foreword by Kofi Annan, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations. Mr. Annan's comments are followed by 36 chapters on stress factors for peacekeepers, aid workers, and media personnel. There are some excellent research studies and reviews on stress among the military as well as among aid workers. And there are also some chapters on organizational approaches to stress reduction, human resource development, and in general, what life is really like for those who cross cultural boundaries to serve fellow human beings in need. The link above leads to purchase options and a chance to read the book's introduction.
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