Humanitarian efforts are only effective with the contributions of in-country, national staff members. National staff members bring professional experience, insights, and creativity from a relevant, localized perspective that richly enhances the abilities for international organizations to provide durable, appropriate responses to humanitarian crises. With the protection and safety of all humanitarian workers in mind, managers and foreign workers must pay careful attention to the needs of national staff. Often disaster survivors themselves, national staff members courageously continue to take part in recovery efforts and face the unique challenge of coping with their own losses while also helping others.
While little literature currently exists about national staff care, humanitarian groups are becoming increasingly interested in this topic, and it is hoped that culturally relevant programs designed specifically to address issues of health, psychosocial well-being, and security for national staff will grow.
If you are a manager overseeing both national and international staff, the following resources may be of assistance to you.
This self-study training module from the Headington Institute's Learning Center offers an introduction to the unique needs of national staff as well as specific practices for improving support to this group.
The modern dynamic of humanitarian work is that the staff of NGOs is largely composed of nationals. This article argues that primary attention has to be given to the psycho-social well-being of the national staff to equip them as agents of positive change, and proposes a mechanism to address this need that has been modeled by World Vision in Rwanda.
The main aim of the PWG is to address the lack of consensus on goals, strategy and best practice that currently challenges the field of psychosocial intervention in complex emergencies. While their work is primarily geared towards beneficiaries, national staff usually fall under this category and the PWG's suggestions apply.
This article addresses the fact that contemporary humanitarian aid personnel are at risk of experiencing traumatic and daily cumulative stress, and that international staff and national staff may experience stress in different ways, have different needs, and use different coping mechanisms. Eleven areas of situational and individual risk are proposed that are likely to have applicability across different contexts, countries, and people.
This report on a recent randomized controlled trial in Uganda found that group interpersonal psychotherapy was helpful in reducing depression and dysfunction. A clinical trial proved feasible in the local setting. Both findings should encourage similar trials in similar settings in Africa and beyond.
There is overwhelming support, in principle, for the idea that national professionals and professional staff from the region should play a major role in the design and delivery of humanitarian aid in times of conflict and crisis. However, when it comes to the question whether this principle is applicable to one's own organization, positions vary substantively. Another set of obstacles that stand in the way of full and equal participation of national, regional and international staff in the planning and delivery of humanitarian aid are the often very disparate conditions of service that affect expatriate and local staff. This paper addresses these and other concerns.
Print resources
"Culture, power, and community: Intercultural approaches to psychosocial assistance and healing"book Wessells, M. G. (1999). In K. Nader, N. Dubrow, & B. Stamm (Eds.) Honoring Differences: Cultural issues in the treatment of trauma and loss (pp. 276-282). New York: Taylor & Francis.
According to these authors, it is vital to place culture at the center in arranging psychosocial assistance of all kinds. The editors and authors of this book have done this in regard to work on trauma, loss, and healing. Rather than assuming the universality of Western psychology, they have taken as their point of departure the more appropriate view that concepts of mental health and illness exhibit significant cultural variability, as do practices of healing.
This link provides a review and option to purchase John Fawcett's "Stress and Trauma Handbook." The book addresses how stress impacts human functioning, the signs of burn-out, steps that can be taken to reduce the effect of stress and strain, and how this research affects the practicalities of everyday humanitarian work. Using real stories, a series of checklists, stress indicators, and burn-out monitors, this book aims to help aid workers track their well-being. The link above leads to purchase options.
