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DEVELOPMENTS
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The Latest Issues and Trends in International Development and Humanitarian Assistance

My Boss
Doesn’t Get It!
Why Good Management and
Staff Well-being Matters
Insights From
Peer Support In a Novice
Humanitarian Gardener
Organizations
Staff
Counselling
In the
UN System
The
Importance
Staff
of Psychosocial
Intervention With
National Staff

Care
Working In
HIV/AIDS Projects

September
2008
Vol. 26, No. 9
InterAction
 MONDAY
DEVELOPMENTS

Managing Editor/Art Director

Chad Brobst

Copy Editor
Kathy Ward

Advertising & Sales

Michael Haslett

Communications Department
Nasserie Carew, Public Relations
19
Tawana Jacobs, Public Relations
Tony Fleming, New Media 21

Contents
Chad Brobst, Publications
Michael Haslett, Publications

10
Margaret Christoph, Admin Associate

Editorial Committee
InterAction Communications Team
September 2008 • Vol. 26 • No. 9
InterAction
1400 16th Street, NW
Suite 210 Features Addressing Stess In Walking the Walk | 28
Washington, DC 20036 National Staff | 21 World Concern introduces “Know
Tel: 202.667.8227 Why Bother With Stress Secondary traumatic stress Your HIV Status Day” for staff.
publications@interaction.org
Management? | 10 and burnout can affect national
ISSN 1043-8157 Ignoring stress in the staff too. Helper’s Fire II | 29
workplace leads to inefficiency, Conference works to build
ineffectiveness and turnover. USAID and Staff Care | 23 resilient communities for
Monday Developments is published 12 Task force establishes agency- humanitarian and development
times a year by InterAction, the larg- Staff Counselling Within wide procedures. assistance field staff.
est alliance of U.S.-based international
development and humanitarian non-
the UN System | 13
governmental organizations. With more United Nations staff and If You’re Not Infected, Taking Care of Each
than 160 members operating in every families benefit from a You’re Affected | 24 Other | 31
developing country, InterAction works to well organized system of Psychosocial intervention Peer Support in
overcome poverty, exclusion and suffer- psychosocial support. Humanitarian Organizations
ing by advancing social justice and basic benefits national staff working
dignity for all. in HIV/AIDS projects. • Peer Support Network
Social Support | 14 • “I No Longer Feel Alone”
InterAction welcomes submissions of Is staff care an individual or an Lest We Reinvent the • Staff Care in CARE Lesotho-
news articles, opinions and announce- agency responsibility? South Africa
ments. Article submission does not guar- Wheel | 27
antee inclusion in Monday Developments. Guidelines do exist for good
We reserve the right to reject submis- Insights From a Novice practice in managing stress in The Power of Presence | 34
sions for any reason. It is at the discretion Gardener | 17 humanitarian workers. Sometimes just “being there”
of our editorial team as to which articles makes all the difference.
are published in individual issues.
When it comes to nurturing
staff, consider growing a
All statements in articles are the sole wellness garden.
opinion and responsibility of the authors.
Departments
Articles may be reprinted with prior per-
My Boss Doesn’t Get It! | 19
mission and attribution. Letters to the Why good management and Inside This Issue | 3
editor are encouraged. staff well-being matters. Letters | 4
A limited number of subscriptions are Washington Update | 4
made available to InterAction member
agencies as part of their dues. Individual Inside Our Community | 6
subscriptions cost $80 a year (add $15
Southern Voices | 8
17
for airmail delivery outside the U.S.)
Samples are $5, including postage.
Additional discounts are available for Career Developments | 36
bulk orders. Please allow 4-6 weeks for
delivery. Advertising rates are available
Employment
on request. Opportunities | 37
 INSIDE This Issue
Understanding
Staff Care
A
fter three days in El Fasher, Darfur, I realized that
the coordination and stability of the NGO humanitar-
ian effort in this insecure environment depended on
the well being of a small group of NGO professionals.
Everyone had a story to tell. Staff in all twelve organizations
I visited mentioned attacks, fear, frustrations, burn out, and
concerns for the safety of colleagues. In Darfur, I saw first
hand the staff care needs of people working in that difficult
environment. This is an extreme humanitarian context where
NGO staff are under ongoing and severe amounts of stress,
and our community needs to find ways to intervene. The
problem is not just in Darfur; staff care is essential for na-
tional and expat staff throughout the world, as humanitarian
work has become ever more challenging.
The leadership of major NGOs understands that employ-
ees are their most valuable asset. Investing in staff, and in
particular staff care, is not only the right thing to do, it is
also the cost-effective thing to do. It improves staff retention
rates and the completion of assignments, and it decreases
the costs associated with frequent staff turnover.
Government donors and the United Nations have staff de-
ployed to many of the most difficult humanitarian environ-
ments throughout the world. Donors recognize the risks as-
sociated with working in these environments, and they are
working to improve their staff care procedures in the field. Ky
Luu, the Director for USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster As-
sistance (OFDA), has repeatedly stressed the need to find bet-
ter ways to care for staff in the field. In this issue of Monday
Developments, he has included a call for NGOs to do more, to
take on the care and well being of their own staff in the field.
Ky has offered OFDA’s support for these interventions.
Investing in staff care is not a big-ticket item. There are
low-cost and high-impact interventions that NGOs are easily
incorporating into their day-to-day programming. Examples
of these interventions appear throughout this issue, whether
it is taking a group of staff members to be tested for HIV/
AIDS, setting up peer support networks, or even something
as simple as ensuring staff posted in the field have access to
television and DVD players to watch movies and relax. Men-
tal health care is often covered under an organization’s pre-
Photo: Christina Moore
existing insurance policy, both for staff at HQ and overseas,
so it is worthwhile to review these policies to see what kind of
interventions might already be covered.
Often, when discussing staff care issues, individual staff
are able to come up with creative solutions to relieve stress
specific to their context. With the majority of staff in the field
being national, special consideration should be given to their
needs when designing staff care programs. The stressors on
local staff may be different from expats and there may be dif-
ferent cultural approaches to stress reduction.
Poor or unresponsive management in field offices or at
headquarters has been identified as one of the largest factors
contributing to the stress experienced by staff working in cri-
sis situations. Better management is often synonymous with
better staff care, and simple actions such as including staff
care in job descriptions and performance evaluations of field
and HQ managers, can help us reach this goal.
There is an existing community of professionals that are
available to support NGOs as they attempt to incorporate
staff care into the work that they do. Some members of In-
terAction have institutionalized their commitment to staff
care, some hiring full-time professionals, and finding more
demand for these services than they ever imagined.
InterAction is committed to promoting staff care among its
members, and has applied for funding to address the imme-
diate concerns in Darfur and eastern Chad through a series
of “stress reduction and self-care” (SSC) trainings; to develop
a training module on “Management in High-Stress Environ-
ments”; and to facilitate an interagency process among In-
terAction member NGOs to improve staff care provision, with
the aim of developing a set of staff care guidelines.
At InterAction’s annual CEO retreat in December I will
raise the profile of staff care with the leadership of our mem-
bers, and I hope to impress upon my colleagues the impor-
tance of incorporating staff care into their programming
throughout the world. MD
Sam Worthington
President and CEO
InterAction
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008 3
 Letters
Security and Partisan Goals Require
Partnerships for Effective Aid Delivery
Jim Bishop’s presentation on the “Militarization of
Foreign Aid” [July 2008] follows on the heels of a concern over
the militarization of foreign policy. Such fears arise when a be-
hemoth enters one’s own area of expertise. I would recommend
another look at his observations and perceptions. He notes
that in November 2005, the Defense Department raised the
profile of stability operations, but he calls the tasks “spanning
… peace to combat … a radical departure for the armed forces.”
Not so. Despite a history of preferring to address combat opera-
tions as if they were isolated from transition-to-peace, occu-
pation, counterinsurgency, advisory, and constabulary duties,
the military’s current emphasis on counterinsurgency repre-
sents a pendulum swing welcomed by observers who see policy
engagement in many more shades of gray than those who per-
ceive black-and-white distinctions between war and peace.
Bishop attributes to the relief and development activities of
the commands focused on Africa and Latin America a need to
justify staff and budget. Is it not equally likely that an analysis
of the challenges in these regions led national-security plan-
ners to conclude that our country’s interests there require the
expertise of multiple sectors? If food insecurity could lead to
mass migration of Africans to Europe, isn’t agricultural de-
velopment an appropriate response? If narco-trafficking is a
major challenge in Latin America (and Afghanistan), wouldn’t
our government be most effective if we foster multilateral co-
operation among law-enforcement authorities combined with
agricultural advisors who can provide attractive crop alterna-
WASHINGTON Update
Budget and Appropriations
Congress left for the August recess with most
appropriations bills still unpassed. Thanks to dis-
agreements over off-shore drilling, committee con-
sideration of appropriations bills was called to a halt.
At this point, the House has moved five bills through com-
mittee, and passed one of those on the floor – Military Con-
struction/Veterans Affairs. The State/Foreign Operations bill
was passed out of the House subcommittee but awaits full
committee consideration, and the subcommittee has released
neither the text of their bill nor the text of their report.
In the Senate, nine bills were passed out of committee,
including State/Foreign Operations, but none made it to the
Senate floor. Unlike the House, the Senate did release the
State/Foreign Operations bill text and report.
Democrats reportedly plan to pass and send two bills to
the President – Military Construction/Veterans Affairs and
Defense – and will fund everything else with a Continuing
4 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008
Send your letters to:
Chad Brobst at cbrobst@interaction.org
tives? Someone outside these domains is often the best advo-
cate for such activity.
At a November 2007 speech at Kansas State University, Sec-
retary of Defense Gates articulated a conviction that economic
development, rule of law, provision of government services, and
the like are necessary to meet our goals in Afghanistan and
Iraq. More recently, USAID Administrator Henrietta Holsman
Fore has pointed to an emerging realization of how fundamental
security is to her agency’s mission in fragile and failed states.
Bishop faults the Bush Administration for providing insufficient
advocacy to Congress to fund greater capacity in the Depart-
ment of State. But Congress has both a preference for funding
the military and an aversion to funding foreign aid. In her recent
article in the military journal Parameters (38.2 [2008]), the AID
Administrator writes, “While relations between the military and
USAID have evolved, stereotypical views outside the Agency’s
walls, including in Congress, have not. This may prove to be one
of the chief impediments to the Agency’s future effectiveness.”
Belligerents often do not see humanitarian activities as im-
partial; they frequently divert aid only to their partisans and
away from those who may support others. As a donor to aid
agencies, I resent a charity paying a “tax” to local warlords or
corrupt authorities. Aid workers are not necessarily more fa-
miliar with the local environment than are the troops deployed
to a trouble spot. Thus, every agency must become familiar
with local conditions. We hope that aid reaches those who need
it, but commodities in tight supply require security to ensure
equitable distribution. Humanitarian relief is not a question of
either troops or aid workers; it requires all appropriate means.
Kurt E. Müller, Ph.D.
Resolution (CR) that extends into early next year. A
CR is a joint resolution enacted at the end of a fiscal
year if the regular appropriations bills for the next
fiscal year have not been enacted. It provides bud-
get authority for federal government agencies and programs
to continue in operation at current funding levels until the
regular appropriations bills are enacted. At that point they
hope to be dealing with a new and more flexible administra-
tion, with which they can negotiate spending levels and pass
bills (probably glommed together in an omnibus) to fund the
rest of the fiscal year.
Recess
Congress began its summer recess on August 1, and will
be in session for three more weeks starting September 8. MD
If you have any questions, or would like to be added to the
email list for the weekly public policy update, please contact
Margaret Christoph at mchristoph@interaction.org.
 INSIDE Our Community
10th Anniversary of Women Thrive Worldwide
On September 10, 2008, Women Thrive Worldwide
(formerly the Women’s Edge Coalition), the leading non-
profit organization shaping U.S. policy to help women in
developing countries
lift themselves out of
poverty, celebrated
its ten year anniver-
sary in Washington,
DC. The event, which
was hosted by CNN Anchor and Reporter Carol Costello,
honored four individuals who have made extraordinary
contributions to women’s global empowerment.
Congresswoman Nita Lowey (18th-NY) received the
Leadership for Women to Thrive Award for her leader-
ship in Congress to ensure the U.S. government’s sup-
port for women’s economic opportunity, education and
healthcare. Ambassador John J. Danilovich, CEO of
the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), Juan Se-
bastián Chamorro, Director General of Cuento Reto del
Milenio (MCA Nicaragua), and Imara Martínez of Con-
sejo de Mujeres de Occidente, a local women’s organiza-
tion in Nicaragua, were jointly awarded the Partnership
for Women to Thrive Award for their successful partner-
ship which has resulted in model programs that have
had a powerful initial impact on the ground.
New Data Show 1.4 Billion Live On Less Than $1.25
A Day, But Progress Against Poverty Strong
The World Bank said improved economic estimates showed
there were more poor people around the world than previ-
ously thought while also revealing big successes in the fight
to overcome extreme poverty.
The new estimates, which reflect improvements in interna-
tionally comparable price data, offer a much more accurate
picture of the cost of living in developing countries and set
a new poverty line of US$1.25 a day. They are based on the
results of the 2005 International Comparison Program (ICP),
released earlier this year.
In a new paper, “The developing world is poorer than we
thought but no less successful in the fight against poverty,”
Martin Ravallion and Shaohua Chen revise estimates of pov-
erty since 1981, finding that 1.4 billion people (one in four)
in the developing world were living below US$1.25 a day in
2005, down from 1.9 billion (one in two) in 1981.
An earlier estimate—of 985 million people living below the
former international US$1 a day poverty line in 2004—was
based on the (then) best available cost of living data from
1993. The old data also indicated about 1.5 billion in poverty
in 1981. However, the new and far better ICP data on prices in
developing countries reveal that these estimates were too low.
The new estimates continue to assess world poverty by the
standards of the poorest countries. The new line of US$1.25
for 2005 is the average national poverty line for the poorest
6 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008
10-20 countries.
“The new estimates are a major advance in poverty mea-
surement because they are based on far better price data for
assuring that the poverty lines are comparable across coun-
tries,” said Martin Ravallion, Director of the Development Re-
search Group at the World Bank, “Data from household sur-
veys have also improved in terms of country coverage, data
access, and timeliness.”
“The new data confirm that the world will likely reach the
first Millennium Development Goal of halving the 1990 level
of poverty by 2015 and that poverty has fallen by about one
percentage point a year since 1981,” said Justin Lin, Chief
Economist and Senior Vice President, Development Econom-
ics at the World Bank. “However, the sobering news that
poverty is more pervasive than we thought means we must
redouble our efforts, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa.”
The new data show that marked regional differences in
progress against poverty persist. Poverty in East Asia has
fallen from nearly 80 percent of the population living below
US$1.25 a day in 1981 to 18 percent in 2005. However, the
poverty rate in Sub-Saharan Africa remains at 50 percent in
2005—no lower than in 1981, although with more encourag-
ing recent signs of progress.
InterAction Members Respond to Georgia Crisis
International aid organizations are mobilizing a response to
the humanitarian crisis following the recent outbreak of fight-
ing between Georgian and Russian forces. The United Nations
now estimates that up to 100,000 people have been displaced,
adding to a previous caseload of over 220,000 internally dis-
placed from hostilities in the early 1990s. According to Rus-
sian and Georgian officials, up to 30,000 refugees have fled
northward into Russia since the Georgian offensive to retake
control of the autonomous
territory of South Ossetia
began on August 8th. It is
estimated that 56,000 peo-
ple have fled from the Gori
region in Georgia toward
the capital Tbilisi, approxi-
mately 80% of the popula-
tion of the town.
Twenty-four InterAction
member organizations are
responding to the humani-
tarian needs with emergen-
cy medical, food, shelter,
water and hygiene sup-
plies. Many organizations
have offices in the region
While on a two-day trip to access implementing health, edu-
the U.S. humanitarian response cation and conflict resolu-
to the situation in Georgia, USAID tion programs, which have
Photo: USAID
Administrator Henrietta Fore met with been mobilized to respond
President Mikheil Saakashvili in Tbilisi. to the emergency needs. It
is hoped the recent cessa-
tion of hostilities following the Russian government’s decision
to halt its offensive will allow humanitarian organizations to
access the affected populations to deliver much needed aid.
The U.S. Embassy in Georgia issued a Disaster Declaration
on Sunday, August 10, and the U.S. Agency for International
Development (USAID) has announced an initial $250,000
in emergency assistance for the people of Georgia. Countries
throughout the world have pledged their assistance, and are
calling for protection of civilians and respect for international
humanitarian and human rights law. The Government of Geor-
gia has requested humanitarian assistance, specifically medi-
cines, medical supplies, emergency shelter items and food.
Sam Worthington Testifies Before Senate
InterAction President & CEO Sam Worthington testified
on July 31, 2008 at a hearing on Capitol Hill—“A Reliance
on Smart Power: Reforming the Foreign Assistance”—before
the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Oversight of Government
Management (part of the larger Committee on Homeland Se-
curity). His testimony focused on:
• The mission of U.S. foreign assistance.
• The U.S. Government’s capacity to be an effective partner
in development.
• Protecting the “humanitarian and development space,”
within which InterAction’s member organizations work.
Brandeis University
The Heller School of Social Policy and Management
The End of Poverty ...
Over 150 students in residence from 65 countries forming one of
the largest programs of its kind in the world.
Alumni are employed by U.N. agencies, bilateral and multilateral
aid organizations, and NGOs throughout the world.
Generous financial assistance for Peace Corps and other service
organization volunteers.
A community of activists and scholars on the front lines of social policy.
heller.brandeis.edu
• The need to elevate international development as a compo-
nent of U.S. foreign policy—namely by creating a Cabinet-
level Department for Global and Human Development.
Free Web Portal for African
Civil Society Organizations
GuideStar International (GSI) and the United Nations
Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) announced
in August a joint venture to develop a free web portal for
African civil society organisations, which will showcase
the work of all NGOs, charities, nonprofit organisations
and community based organisations from the smallest to
the largest. Utilising a shared internet platform, organisa-
tions will, for the first time, be able to display their vision
and mission, objectives, activities, needs and finances to
donors, researchers, policy makers and the general pub-
lic. The service, known as GuideStar, is already fully op-
erational in the US www.guidestar.org and the UK www.
guidestar.org.uk where these websites contain detailed
information on hundreds of thousands of registered char-
ities and non-profit institutions. GuideStar International
is also working to develop similar systems in Europe,
Canada, India, South Korea and South Africa. MD
Knowledge Advancing Social Justice
One Degree at a Time
x M.A. in Sustainable International Development
M.S. in International Health Policy and Management
x
x M.B.A. concentration in Sustainable Development
x M.P.P. concentration in Poverty
x Dual M.A. programs in Sustainable Development with
Coexistence & Conflict and with Women & Gender Studies
781-736-3820
HellerAdmissions@Brandeis.edu
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008 7
 SOUTHERN Voices

Now What? How

national staff – people with their own needs, aspirations, ex-
pectations, and responsibilities.
Yolanda, a gender specialist, explained: “My perception is

Project Termination that NGOs are not sending a coherent message based on the
principles of solidarity and altruism they advocate. I especial-

Affects National Staff ly felt this when I discovered the absence of internal national
staff care policies once projects finish, and when I remember
how our supervisors constantly reminded us of the impor-
By Ana Uriarte, Advisor, InterAction tant role we played as valuable individuals with technical
skills that helped achieve the agency’s goals. We were told

A
stark contrast exists in NGO policies when that we contributed to maintaining the high prestige that the
it comes to the treatment of staff at the completion of organization enjoys worldwide. This process has been very
in-country projects. Suddenly unemployed and without tough and frustrating.”
income, national staff are often left in similar conditions to In general, there was disappointment and sadness among
the populations they had previously been supporting. This is staff as the program started its termination phase. Many felt
much different to international staff,
who are free to apply for other posi-
tions within the same organization
and have many other opportunities
throughout the world. National staff
however, must remain behind, often
without the funds or the freedom to
pursue work in other locations. For
them, there is little organizational
support – they are left only with the
skills they’ve learned and a sense of
a job well done. Neither of these feeds
their family.
To better illustrate this situation I
interviewed several staff in one Latin
American country, who until recently,
worked for a large U.S.-based NGO.
After restructuring its program, the
NGO let dozens of national staff go.
Many had worked on the project for
years and now found themselves
faced with the prospect of being un-
employed in a poor job market that did not value their NGO betrayed and used. Feelings of frustration and impotence
skills. I asked how they felt when their employer terminated were widespread and the feeling was that the agency cared
their contract and what their expectations were. only about the budgets, auditing, and closure dates that
One staff member named Miguel stated: “As a national complete a successful project.
staff member, I expected project termination would be a more Jimena, a technical coordinator, writes:
humane process, less shocking or traumatic considering the “My initial feelings when I started working for this NGO
type of organization we were working for. As a non-profit were very positive. I felt honored given the great prestige the
NGO, we assumed it would be different from private enter- agency represents. But when the project ended and many of
prises that are focused on productivity levels of manufactured us did not even receive a simple paper acknowledgement of
or consumable goods. We understood our existence was not our contributions, and knowing all the dedication and com-
based on local or international market prices, because what mitment we had given to our work, my feelings suffered a
we produced were improved lives. And here is where I ask drastic change. Now I strongly believe there is a level of hy-
myself why national staff are not part of the benefit that de- pocrisy in some NGOs and I don’t regret voicing my profound
velopment projects bring? I truly believed the organization bitterness after all I have been through.”
Photo: Sara Sywulka

would provide us some positive alternatives for our future.
Soon I realized there was nothing reliable for us.”
Humanitarian agencies should understand that the over-
whelming positive impact they achieve worldwide would not
be possible without the extraordinary technical capacity of
“My personal suggestion to other agencies from my position
as a national staff member is that they should help us look
for opportunities in future expansions of the projects. We felt
the organization was not interested in investing time in our
program staff because our future with them was already de-

8 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008

“I strongly believe there is a level of
hypocrisy in some NGOs and I don’t
regret voicing my profound bitterness
after all I have been through.”
termined to end. I insist that it would have been a good policy
to listen to us, or at least let us present our proposals for the
formation of new enterprises by taking advantage of the expe-
rience we had acquired while working with the program.”
Many feel the treatment of national staff is ironic and inconsis-
tent. NGOs understand the essential roles these staff members
play in developing countries, and their invaluable contribution
to maintaining relationships with the community leaders that
ensure humanitarian assistance reaches targeted populations.
Yet most agencies do not have a project completion plan that
addresses national staff’s needs – they simply terminate staff
contracts and focus on new projects based on new trends.
On the other hand, international staff members have a
much different experience when projects end. In most in-
stances, the organization facilitates their transition to a new
destination in another part of the developing world. They are
given the opportunity to continue the use and development
of their skills. Their perspective and feelings are the opposite
of national staff because they do not face abrupt unemploy-
ment and a dearth of assistance in job placement.
Often international staff are already thinking about their
next assignment before the current one is even finished. In
fact, when told local staff (past and present) would be inter-
viewed for this article, the Country Director of the NGO in
question reacted with deep concern. He instructed them to
contact headquarters before making any statement. National
staff assumed that he did not want an expression of their dis-
satisfaction to jeopardize his new position within the organi-
zation. Of course several of the people that were interviewed
had already been terminated and certainly didn’t have to get
permission from headquarters to give their opinion.
The expressions and feelings captured from those inter-
viewed are testimonies in their own words. Hopefully, their
comments will spur NGOs to begin a dialogue with staff to
address their concerns. A positive step would be to make na-
tional staff an integral part of the overall organization, start-
ing with their inclusion in developing policies and procedures
at the country level. In addition, work needs to be done to
reduce the existing gap between the treatment of local and
expat employees. MD
*staff names have been changed
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008 9
 Stress
Why Bother
Stress
with
Management
F
By Joshua Levin
Special Assistant to the Executive Counselor
Mercy Corps
or me, stress is the long hours,
the loneliness and the attachment to work.
I wonder how many IDPs [internally dis-
placed people] we will reach today, and I
forget about my own needs. Meanwhile,
the government is breathing down my neck
and insecurity keeps me from leaving our compound.
So much for privacy and relaxation. Individual person-
alities really come out when you share the same liv-
ing quarters. The environmental conditions aren’t great
either: dust, sun, heat. Oh, and kidnapping is now an
issue; we are a soft target, you see. So what are my ma-
jor coping mechanisms? Well, the gym we were going to
was attacked, so I guess I’d say gin and chardonnay.”
– Comments of an aid worker
in Afghanistan
Such sentiments are not unique to any particular or-
ganization or region. Humanitarian relief and develop-
ment organizations place inordinate mental and emotion-
al demands on their practitioners. Aid workers frequently
suffer psychological strain as a result of isolation, difficult
working conditions, demanding programming obligations,
and physical danger. In a study published by the Journal
of Traumatic Stress in 2001, as many as half of all returned
nongovernmental organization (NGO) expatriates exhibited
10 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008
Ignoring stress in the
workplace leads to inefficiency,
ineffectiveness and turnover.
?
symptoms of burnout, depression, or PTSD. These findings
highlight the importance of psychosocial support for field-
based staff.
So why, given its pervasiveness, have aid agencies been
so slow to respond to stress in their employees? Simply put,
many organizations have not made employee wellness a
priority. Under their funding constraints, they doubt their
ability to implement high-impact solutions without a high-
impact budget. Furthermore, many aid workers have
grown to expect deprivation and self-sacrifice as inevita-
ble. In other words, there is not enough complaining. Fa-
talistic attitudes about on-the-job stress, however, have
done little to inspire progress, and there are a number of
practical reasons NGOs should pursue comprehensive
stress management systems for their employees.
Photo: Anantha Vardhan - Istockphoto.com
First, stress affects judgment. Whether manifested
as indecisiveness, fatigue, distraction or careless-
ness, stress results in impaired decision-making. For
aid workers this can mean poor strategic choices,
strained interpersonal relationships and diminished
job satisfaction. For the international nonprofits
they work for, it translates into lost funding oppor-
tunities, inefficiency and poor team dynamics. Of
perhaps greater consequence, though, unsound
decisions may impact the efficacy of programs and
the safety of teams in the field. After all, severely
 Stress

?
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008 11
 Stress
stressed employees working in high-security environments
not only expose themselves, but also their colleagues and
beneficiaries to unnecessary risk.
Second, overwhelming stress decreases productivity. Better
mental performance results in better efficiency and morale.
And although nonprofits may have priorities that are less con-
nected to the bottom line than their counterparts in the for-
profit sector, the success of their missions is just as tied to the
effectiveness of their employees. According to the September
4, 2004 issue of The New York Times, “Workplace stress costs
the nation more than $300 billion each year in health care,
missed work and the stress-reduction industry that has grown
up to soothe workers and keep production high.” Investing in
psychosocial resources for NGO staff may, in the long run,
make international nonprofits more cost-effective, not less.
Finally, unrelenting stress leads to “burnout” which hurts
employee retention. Aside from the obvious loss of organiza-
tional memory and the opportunity costs related to training
and orienting new employees, turnover takes a significant fi-
nancial toll. In 2005 Financial Literacy Partners estimated that
the average cost of replacing a staff member is between $3,000
and $13,000. These expenses are especially striking when
considered in conjunction with the approximately 40 percent
of job turnover that is directly attributable to stress. Given the
skyrocketing costs of recruitment, aid agencies stand to ben-
efit a great deal from well-managed staff support systems.
12 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008
Beyond the practicalities of strategy, efficiency and staff re-
tention, humanitarian relief and development organizations
have a moral imperative to look after the health and well-
being of their team members. Staff deployed to the field face a
variety of situational stressors. They must cope with the fre-
quently conflicting interests of their organizations, beneficia-
ries, and host governments. They endure perennial resource
limitations and the challenges of a restricted personal life.
They brave dangerous operating environments and uncertain
futures. International NGOs demand a great deal of their staff
and owe them a supportive working environment.
Employee stress is not restricted to humanitarian relief and
development organizations. In fact, the American Institute of
Stress estimates that job stress costs the U.S. economy over
$300 billion annually. In contrast to most NGOs, however,
some private-sector companies have taken major steps to re-
dress their staff support gaps. If the nonprofit sector wishes
to continue to grow and develop, it must do the same. De-
velopment and relief organizations must pursue innovative,
cost-effective employee wellness solutions. In the long term,
a robust support platform may improve their programming,
reduce their health care costs, and enhance the safety and
security of their field teams.
Ultimately, the calculus is simple: Any money saved by ig-
noring stress in the workplace is lost tenfold in employee in-
efficiency, ineffectiveness and turnover. MD

Staff Counselling Within
the UN System
United Nations staff and families benefit from a well
organized system of psychosocial support.
By Penelope Curling, Staff Counsellor, UNICEF
T
here are more than 80 UN
Counsellors based in headquar-
ters and field locations. Some of
the Counsellors are international
staff and some are nationals of the coun-
try in which they serve. Broadly, the
Counsellors are responsible for the psy-
chosocial welfare of UN staff, and offer
interventions, consultations and train-
ing to individual staff and to managers
on work-related stress and psychoso-
cial health issues, including burnout,
depression, anxiety, traumatic stress,
family and marital problems (including
domestic violence), bereavement, work-
place harassment and substance abuse.
Counselling is offered on a face-to-face
basis, or referrals are made to local
mental health professionals.
If a UN staff member or one of his
or her direct dependants is affected by
a traumatic event, the UN Counsellor
would usually make direct contact with
him or her, providing some informa-
tion about common traumatic stress
reactions and offer support either di-
rectly or through a referral. For many
UN staff in the field, this contact with
a supportive colleague, and the knowl-
edge that the Counsellor is available if
needed, is all that is needed to boost
their natural coping mechanisms and
prevent the development of a stress
disorder. Similarly, for staff members
struggling with burnout, substance
abuse or other mental health issues,
being able to quickly and easily access
confidential, in-house support and ad-
vice, which is often not available local-
ly, can be the key factor that enables
them to keep functioning, saving the
organization untold costs in sick leave,
medical evacuations and resignations.
Some staff members prefer to con-
sult a local mental health professional,
who is familiar with the local culture
and removed from the workplace, to
guarantee anonymity. For others, be-
cause the Counsellor is a colleague,
the stigma they may associate with
mental health professionals is absent
when they contact a Counsellor. For a
staff member in the field, consulting a
Counsellor based in headquarters of-
fers additional distance and “safety.”
When a headquarters UN Counsellor
goes on mission to a field location, col-
leagues sometimes share intimate de-
tails of their lives, only to close with: “I
can tell you all of this because I know
you are going away again.”
Some of the UN Counsellors have
implemented Peer Support or Peer
Helper systems in their organisations,
and are responsible for the training,
supervision and support to these Peer
Helpers. These trainings include a first
level and an advanced level training,
teaching active listening and commu-
nication skills, general stress manage-
ment and the role of the Peer Helper/
Peer Support Volunteer, as well
as an introduction to the impact
of trauma, bereavement, work-
place harassment, HIV in the
workplace and other work-re-
lated stress issues.
The UN Counsellors meet an-
nually at a forum for further
learning and to share experi-
ences, tools and much needed
mutual support. Close networking
among the Counsellors facilitates
inter-agency referrals, back-up sup-
port and the organization of inter-agen-
cy trainings and workshops, all of which
UN system
serve to improve access to UN Counsel-
ling services. The Counsellors have a
website where announcements can be
posted, locations tracked, and tools and
resources can be shared.
A number of Counsellors have pro-
duced publications for advice to UN
staff on managing stress and trauma,
building resiliency, domestic violence
as an issue impacting on individual
staff or colleagues, substance abuse
and other issues. Many also manage
intranet websites for their colleagues
to access information about workshops
and other staff support activities, as
well as to download publications and
other staff well-being information.
During critical incidents affecting a
large number of UN staff, the UN Depart-
ment of Safety and Security’s Critical In-
cident Stress Management Unit coordi-
nates the UN Counselling response,
ensuring that staff of all UN agencies
have access to Counselling resources
and avoiding a duplication of services. A
UN Counsellor on-site in an emergency
or following a critical incident offers
much more than the availability of coun-
selling: the Counsellor also advises and
guides managers on creating a support-
ive working environment, and boosts the
morale of staff, who see the presence of
the Counsellor as a sign that the organi-
sation cares about their well-being. MD
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008 13
 Support
Social Support
Is staff care an individual or an agency responsibility?
By John H. Ehrenreich, International Associate, Antares Foundation
and Professor of Psychology, State University of New York –
College at Old Westbury
A
bad boss is more stress-
ful than war, aid workers say. “I
was expecting the conflict and the
stress, but what really brought
me down was how mean my manager
was to me,” one aid worker travelling to
Sri Lanka told researcher Barb Wigley.
Aid workers told Wigley they were con-
stantly frustrated by the dynamics of
the large organization they work for. “It
starts to feel like no one cares.” (Reported
in AlertNet, January 26, 2006.)
As aid agencies have become more
aware of the emotional cost of aid work
to their staff, a simple understanding
of the problem has developed. Aid work
is inherently stressful, runs the logic.
Difficult living and working conditions,
14 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008
separation from loved ones, chronic
danger, exposure to gruesome sights,
and exposure to survivors’ terrible tales
take their toll. To survive emotionally,
aid workers need interventions to in-
crease their resilience: training and
support in carrying out stress reduc-
tion techniques, before they are de-
ployed, when they are in the field and
after they return. (This model may need
specific modifications for national staff,
but the same general principles apply.)
There are two problems with this un-
derstanding. First, in addition to the
“inherent” stresses of aid work, staff
complain of other, “non-inherent” stres-
sors. These may include lack of the sup-
plies and equipment needed to do the
job expected of them, unclear expecta-
tions and ambiguous job descriptions,
poor organization and scheduling of the
work process, overly bureaucratic agen-
cy policies and practices, unnecessary
barriers to communication with fam-
ily, and, especially, arbitrary or unfair
or unsupportive management practices
and conflict and mistrust within the
team. For example, in the Headington
Institute study of aid workers in Darfur
and eastern Chad, survey respondents
were asked about the most significant
sources of stress. Fourteen percent cited
inadequate management or supervision,
18 percent communication difficulties
with colleagues or with headquarters,
and seven percent lack of clarity as to
job responsibilities. These are clearly
managerial and agency issues, not sim-
ply matters to be dealt with by individual
stress management practices.
Second, as is well known, not all
workers show adverse effects from the
Photo: iofoto - Fotolia.com
stress they experience. For example,
in the Headington Institute study, 46
percent of the workers interviewed
described themselves as “emotionally
stressed.” On the other hand, 19 per-
cent reported that they were “not at all
 Support

stressed.” To some degree the variabil-

ity in the impact of aid work may reflect
differences in the particular field expe-
riences of individual staff members. To
some degree it may represent individ-
ual differences in vulnerability, due to
factors such as personality, prior expe-
riences, training and use of individual
stress management practices.
But a growing body of research sug-
gests that it is social support, not in-
dividual differences, that are the key
determinant of the impact of stress on
individuals. Even under the extreme
stress of war, studies of war veterans
have found that social support (e.g., pla-
toon cohesion, post-war support) plays
the largest single role as a protective
factor against the development of PTSD
and other combat stress reactions.
For aid workers, the key social sup-
ports are their team and, for those with
family nearby, their family. If there is
cohesion, good communication and
a sense of trust within the team, it is
far easier to withstand the rigors of the
work. Conversely, dissension within the
For aid workers, the key
social supports are their
team and their family.
team, team dynamics making decision-
making difficult, clique formation, or
harassment and bullying both interfere
with the ability to staff to withstand the
“inherent” stresses of the job and are
themselves potent sources of stress.
The team leader plays a critical role
in establishing and maintaining posi-
tive team functioning. In addition, a
team leader who is considered compe-
tent, fair and able to make decisions
but open to information and feedback
from the team, and who can lead by
example increases team resilience and
reduces individual vulnerability.
Leadership and management be-
haviors at higher levels, and agency-
wide policies and practices also play a
central role. Critical supports for staff
emotional well-being include clear job
descriptions, a clear chain of command,
efficient logistical support, clear and
well-implemented safety and security
procedures, good communications, ap-
propriate workload expectations, appro-
priate polices with respect to days off,
work schedules and vacation time, fair
and appropriate human resources poli-
cies (e.g., benefits, career paths), and
effective planning with respect to issues
such as any needed evacuations.
The implications of these observa-
tions are clear: Maintaining staff capac-
ity does not result from interventions
solely targeting individual staff mem-
bers. Effective stress management and
risk reduction is a systematic policy,
carried out by the team and the agency
as well as the individual worker. It in-
cludes: systematic, self-conscious ef-
forts by team leaders and by the agency
as a whole to promote team cohesion;
selection and training of managers at
all levels with respect to skills and be-
haviors that reduce staff stress among;
and systematic scrutiny of both exist-
ing and proposed agency policies and
practices for their impact on staff. MD

I n Memoriam On August 13, 2008, International Rescue

Committee staff members Shirley Case, Nicole
Dial, Jackie Kirk, and Mohammad Aimal died in
the line of duty in Logar Province, Afghanistan,
as their clearly-marked IRC vehicle came under
heavy gunfire.

"These extraordinary individuals were deeply

committed to aiding the people of Afghanistan,
especially the children who have seen so much
strife. Words are inadequate to express our
sympathy for the families and loved ones of the
victims and our devoted team of humanitarian
aid workers in Afghanistan."
— George Rupp, President, IRC

The InterAction community expresses its

sincere condolences to IRC and the staff
members’ families.

16 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008

 Human Resources

Insights From a
Novice Gardener
When it comes to nurturing staff,
consider growing a wellness garden.
By Bing Castro, Human Resources Manager, Save the
Children USA, Philippine Country Office
simply hearing out staff in one-on-one encounters.
Four months later, a group of Save the Children staff went
for wellness workshop trainer certification in Melbourne,
Australia. Our trainers were careful to make us understand
the sensitivities of a wellness and stress mitigation program
with a psychosocial foundation for development workers.
Our staff have not only different perspectives and capacities,

I
but also different potentials for wellness.
got introduced to gardening of a different kind
about ten months ago. The idea of planting a seed and
nurturing it patiently quietly came in November 2007 after
three days training for Human Resources Manag-
ers during which I gained some insights and
picked up some skills. It was all about hav-
ing a sharper psychosocial lens dimen-
sion in the HR work that protects staff
and builds resilience. It gave me a men-
tal model of what was until then perhaps
just intuitive.
one-day wellness workshop conducted for 25 mem-
The gardener must pay attention
to the plant to give it enough of what it
needs to survive and thrive. Each plant
needs different kinds of care.
This training was about paying attention to the person in-
side the person in various HR interactions such as screening,
recruitment and selection, briefing, deployment, de-briefing,
and end of employment. It’s called
taking care of staff wellness.
A gardener will always have the
need to garden.
Two months later, for my fellow
trainer Ariel Balofinos and me, our con-
fidence and competence grew enough to
deliver the one-day wellness workshop pro-
gram with integrity. This was initially to 25 staff
members in the Philippines, and has now grown
to reach 60 staff members after four sessions. This
bers of the Expanded Senior Management Team of
the Save the Children Philippine Country Office
and other staff in mid-May was a global pre-
mier! And Ariel and I were happy to deliver it.
The subsequent sessions were held for staff groups
across the country – our South Central Mindanao Pro-
gram Office, our Metro Manila Program Office, and
our projects in Mindanao. We were surely helped by
the build-up on wellness support throughout Save

But the gardener has

to come out in the
garden everyday.
Back at work after that
training, there followed a
series of daily attempts,
applications and experiments
Photo: Serj Siz`kov - Fotolia.com

in everyday settings. Some were

successful; others became “lessons
learned.” No fanfare, just quiet wellness
initiatives. Among these are the “Friday
habit” of aerobics at the office, celebrating
monthly birthdays with a little more flair through
the initiative and creativity of staff, braving some tough talk
between staff to help smooth interpersonal differences, and

MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008 17

 Human Resources
the Children, our robust certification training, and our own
in-country campaign – all of which gave us the platform to
do our job (but also some jitters knowing the importance of
what we are doing).
The wellness workshop participants now have a common
appreciation of their individual responsibility for their
wellness, confidence in their potential to achieve their own
wellness, and comfort in knowing that they have given them-
selves permission to recognize, manage and reduce stress
and act on it: the best lesson of all!
Participants are now more sensitive about recognizing
their workplace stressors, their signs of stress (as well as
those of their colleagues) and most importantly, their multi-
dimensional tools for managing stress at the physical, mental,
emotional, spiritual and behavioural levels.
After planting a seed, often the best thing a
gardener can do is patiently wait. And on the
surface, we may feel that we may not have
affected anyone with what we have tried to
do. But indeed, somehow we have planted
that seed. And when that person is ready – in
his or her quiet time – coming back to that
moment, the bloom appears.
18 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008
It has been a quiet journey but along the way a garden has
been growing...
... in me as a person and as a Human Resources Manager
and a certified trainer.
... in my fellow community of trainers and fellow gardeners
who you can count on to help nurture this wellness culture.
... in those who have gone through the wellness workshop.
The garden needs daily attention. It is a joy
for a gardener to have a happy helper.
Some three weeks after the first wellness workshop in our
Country Office, a new friend “Louellawella” with a Save the
Children email address, surprised participants with an email.
She began this way:
Hi! You have a new friend - Louellawella – your wellness
friend! It is 25 days you since our wellness workshop. Have
you given yourself permission to recognize, manage and re-
duce stress? Hmmm. Perhaps you have not been paying atten-
tion too much. But that’s okay. We can revive that. Remember
your Self Care Plan? Why not check on it again and see where
you are. Let’s do a quick check shall we? Stay with me just a
while…
And from there she reminded participants of practical learn-
ing points for wellness: identifying stressors, being aware of
signs of stress and developing strategies to manage these.
Louellawella visited with us as our wellness friend and ad-
vocate, as a constant reminder, and therefore our “constant
gardener.” Let us welcome her if she comes to your garden.
Why not have or be your own “constant gardener?” MD
This program is part of the Global Employee Wellness pilot
project. Initially designed for the Indonesia Country Office in
collaboration with Save the Children and Antares Foundation,
the project aims to improve the overall wellness of Save the
Children’s employees, thereby increasing employee satisfac-
tion and retention. It consists of three major components: (1)
HR managers training; (2) employee wellness certification
training of trainers; and (3) program manager training to ad-
dress employee wellness issues in the four major domains of
personal, environmental, organizational
and home life wellness. If you
have questions or comments,
please contact, John Fawcett,
Deputy Director Staff
Wellness, at jofawcett@
savechildren.org
 Management

My Boss
Doesn’t Get It!
Why good management and staff
well-being matters.
By Rick Augsburger, Managing Director, The KonTerra
Group, and Lynne Gilliland, Partner, Gilliland & Jud

M
y boss doesn’t get it!”
– a common comment from
field staff working in crisis
situations. One of the great-
est stressors that field staff endure is
not the lack of security, poor living cir-
cumstances or overwhelming workload.
It is the absence of healthy management
systems and skilled managers. And
they are talking about their managers
in the field and their managers based in
headquarters or in third countries.
Humanitarian personnel often work
in situations of chronic stress and
crisis, characterized by chaos,
upheaval, and ongoing threats
to safety. This reality makes
good management and solid
management systems criti-
cally important.
Leadership and manage-
ment choices made in this
context can be helpful or hurt-
ful: to the organization, to benefi-
ciaries and to employees.
A supervisor’s management strengths
and weaknesses influence staff’s ability
to perform well and can greatly impact
stress levels. Effective managers help
us be at our very best so we can bounce
Supervisors
back from stressful situations and bring
creativity and resilience to the work at
that “get it” have
hand. An attentive, effective boss can worked at developing
help a divided team become high per-
forming instead. For NGOs, investing in
and honing some or all of
developing good management and lead- these skills.
Photo: Bela Tibor Kozma

ership skills can reward the agency one

thousand fold through increased staff
wellness, output and staying power.
A Headington Institute study on
NGO staff well-being in Darfur, (NGO
Staff Well-Being in the Darfur Region
of Sudan and Eastern Chad, December
2007) found that:
“It was evident that the strengths and
weaknesses of organizational manage-
ment systems and/or individual man-

MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008 19

 Management
Effective managers
help us be at our very
best so we can bounce
back from stressful
situations and bring
creativity and
resilience to the work
at hand.
agers were, in part, responsible for sig-
nificantly magnifying or mitigating the
level of stress experienced by staff and
their functional ability.”
The study went on to say:
“A focus on strengthening the self-
care and stress-management skills of
individual staff deployed to complex
emergencies without a concomitant
focus on strengthening organization-
al management skills, systems and
structures seems unlikely to result in
enduring improvements in staff well-
20 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008
being. Any systemic strategy aiming to
enhance staff well-being should priori-
tize strengthening individual manage-
ment skills and organizational manage-
ment systems.”
Think of a time when you were in
a highly stressful professional situa-
tion and your supervisor helped you
achieve or maintain high performance,
mitigating the unnecessary stressors
so that you could really focus on the
task at hand. What did he or she do
that made that possible?
Chances are you listed such traits
as good communication skills, good
management of conflict and a strong
ability to create teams that worked well
together. She probably had a sharp eye
for knowing signs of stress in staff and
had the skills to address them. May-
be your supervisor kept the drama to
a minimum and was good at manag-
ing his own emotional state and well-
being, modeling consistency and calm.
You probably would say there was trust
and open and clear communication
with your supervisor. You might also
say that that person was a competent
and effective leader.
Supervisors that “get it” have worked
at developing and honing some or all of
these skills, and they have the ability to
consistently apply these skills in ex-
tremely stressful working environments.
MD
Four Critical Skill Areas:
Communication Skills
Listening, asking open ended
and curious questions, refraining
from micromanaging by giving
unwanted advice. Facilitating
uninterrupted conversations.
Acknowledging the work or
behavior of the staff person.
Sharing information freely and
transparently. Consistency.
Team Development Skills
Shared work and responsibility.
Team decisions. Team purpose
and rewards. Ability to handle
tension so that all viewpoints are
heard. Fun. Acknowledgement.
Clarifying goals. Establishing a
clear decision-making process.
Modeling accountability as a team.
Facilitating productive conflict.
Leadership Skills
Setting the vision. Staff
development. Delegating.
Handling problem staff with
respect and decisiveness.
Managing multiple demands and
stakeholders. Troubleshooting
organizational barriers. Clarifying
roles and responsibilities.
Maintaining good relations with
all staff. Setting and enforcing
behavioral standards. Taking credit
for nothing and responsibility
for everything. Holding staff
accountable.
Self-Management Skills
Serving as a model of expected
behaviors. Self-care that maintains
mental and emotional well-being.
Heightened self-awareness.
Adequate self-confidence. Holding
oneself accountable. A good
measure of humility. An ability to
learn and to handle change.

Addressing Stress
in National Staff
Secondary traumatic
stress and burnout can
affect national staff too.
By Siddharth Ashvin Shah, MD,
MPH, Medical Director, Greenleaf
Integrative Strategies
T
he geographic cure. R&R.
Regular alcohol use with compa-
triots in an end-of-day cathartic
ritual. Phone calls to family.
Many readers will recognize these NGO
worker attempts to deal with humani-
tarian aid stress. Although these inter-
ventions might mitigate the stress and
workplace difficulties that accumulate
into burnout, they leave untouched
an important category of occupation-
al stress: secondary traumatic stress
(STS) – the neurobiology that humani-
tarian workers develop in the process
of working with other people’s trauma.
Photo: Siddharth Shah
Given that STS is such a massive topic
and that it has been dealt with in the
humanitarian literature in a general
sense, I want to focus on the untold
opportunities for humanitarian efforts
when we engage with the stress vulner-
ability and resiliency of national staff.
In 2002, I began providing trainings
on identifying, mitigating and prevent-
ing secondary trauma stress to hu-
manitarian organizations headquar-
tered in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Translating a validated instrument from
the scientific literature into Gujarati, I
designed a quantitative public health
study for four organizations working
with victims of violence. Out of the near-
ly 100 workers studied, every single per-
son identified a negative, vicarious trau-
matic consequence of their work.
That means that every national staff-
er acknowledged that their work hurts
their mind. The staffers responded to
the simple 17-item instrument with
STS symptoms such as, “Due to the
trauma content of my work, in the last
week I have found myself:
• Re-living the trauma experienced by
my client.
• Having trouble sleeping.
• Being easily annoyed.
• Having trouble concentrating.
STS makes its imprint on buried re-
gions of the brain and there is no one
National Staff
Laughter yoga therapy with Indian NGO.
classic form of STS. It could be chronic
insomnia as a result of working with
refugee populations; or it could take the
form of memory gaps in an otherwise
fresh, new worker who starts listening
to the testimonies of rape survivors.
STS often means an affected person
feels stuck or frozen in seemingly irra-
tional feelings and behaviors.
STS also occurs in headquarters staff
or back office staff who may never go to
the field. When an organization works
with what have been called “traumas-
capes,” the whole organizational chart
begins to vibrate with trauma. People do
not have to work in the field to absorb
enough crisis, grief, anxiety and pain to
be impacted by STS. After all, regions of
our brain with their specialized neurons
are built to suffer vicariously.
I was warned that humanitarian or-
ganizations would be reluctant to delve
into STS. However, in my experience,
South Asian NGO leadership is not
hindered by a cowboy machismo de-
nial mindset or a slowness to acknowl-
edge that their work has mental health
costs. South Asian groups ask me for
cheap, low-tech, adaptable and porta-
People do not have
to work in the field to
absorb enough crisis,
grief, anxiety and pain
to be impacted by STS.
ble interventions to mitigate traumatic
stress. I give them a menu of 20 to 30
options from which they can pick and
choose including:
• Intra-agency, horizontal (peer-to-
peer) and vertical (throughout the
hierarchy) “neuropsychoeducational”
exchanges. Learning together how
the brain is wired for vicarious trau-
ma, their occupation’s sector-wide
vulnerability and signs of difficulty
reduces stigma for everyone in an
agency.
• Inter-agency meetings in which staff-
ers share mental notes and cross-
pollinate concerning stress mitigation
techniques. This method reduces the
need to adapt techniques foreign to
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008 21
 National Staff
Guided meditation with Indian aid workers.
the culture (e.g. psychodynamic or
cognitive-behavioral therapy or expo-
sure therapy – all powerful evidence-
based therapies, but which require
painstaking adaptation).
• Mind-body therapies such as breath
modulation (pranayama, breathwork)
and meditation have been popular.
• With the proper framing, system-
atic shaking, trauma-sensitive yoga,
dance and other movement therapy
can be powerful given the trauma lit-
erature’s recognition of how animals
bounce back from horrifying events
through shaking and engaging the
body purposefully.
• Laughter yoga, a sequence of activi-
ties systematized by an Indian physi-
cian, although not appropriate for the
acute or subacute phase of recovery,
can be used to build group resiliency,
to engage the body, and frankly, to
have fun while promoting wellness.
What doesn’t work? One-size-fits-all
protocols. People do not have identi-
cal cognitive styles. So while yoga and
meditation may work for some work-
ers, journaling and poetry will work for
others. Referring a worker to a mental
health professional, while it may seem
like the diligent and scientific thing to
do, is useless if the worker does not ac-
cept the basis of psychotherapy. Prayer
works great in organizations, but it
22 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008
must be done in a way that ensures
that those who do not believe in prayer
will not feel ostracized.
While the geographic cure (a trip away
from fieldwork to somewhere nice or
home) can help with the stress leading
to burnout, it does nothing to reach the
neurobiological changes that occur in
traumatic stress. In fact, the geographic
cure can actually do more harm than
good by allowing the trauma to simmer
in someone’s brain. As the psychiatrist
National staff can be
especially open to
creating interventions
that are essentially a
re-tooling of familiar
cultural or spiritual
practices.
who helped develop trauma-sensitive
yoga explains, “Trauma is not like fine
wine. It does not get better with age.”
National staff can be especially open
to creating interventions that are es-
sentially a re-tooling of familiar cultur-
al or spiritual practices. For example,
in Pakistan, I took a generally accepted
reverence of Noor (“Divine Light”) and
developed a guided meditation that
we packaged in mp3 files that
could be easily emailed from
peer to peer. When accepted
practices are re-tooled, work-
ers will more easily buy into a
menu of interventions for de-
stressing themselves daily (i.e.,
while the work is in progress)
and not only at workshops or
trainings. In fact, as a form of
South to North learning, we in
Northern nations have an im-
portant opportunity to learn
specific resiliency factors from
abroad and adapt them to our
settings and mindsets.
As a physician who sees
multiple opportunities for pre-
vention, I take a hard-nosed
view of what we are dealing
with here. Burnout and sec-
ondary traumatic stress are
both bona fide occupational
hazards in this industry. There
is an ethical responsibility to mitigate
these hazards, just as we have a re-
sponsibility to safeguard people who
work near asbestos or tuberculosis be-
cause, otherwise we are putting them
in harm’s way without providing the
means to avert the harm. We know
there is harm in working near trauma.
The medical and humanitarian litera-
ture is rife with the evidence. Is there
any doubt that there are costs to such
work? No doubt at all.
As mentioned, reluctance from South
Asian NGO leaders in acknowledging
“our work has its costs” has not been a
barrier. There are opportunities in both
directions: provide training to national
staff in a way that meets them halfway,
and reduce current barriers to ade-
quately training headquarters and ex-
patriate staff. Is it possible that in the
West we are more nervous about ad-
dressing this subject because if STS
were discussed regularly as an occupa-
tional hazard a lot more due diligence
from legal departments would be nec-
essary? Do managers fear that workers
would ask for more psychotherapy
benefits? Would donors have to come
face-to-face with the reality that in the
Photo: Siddharth Shah
process of doing good in the world we
put humanitarian workers in harm’s
way? When it comes to STS, it will take
strong leadership to capitalize on our
opportunities. MD

USAID and Staff Care
Task force establishes agency-wide procedures.
By Alonzo Fulgham, Chief Operating Officer,
U.S. Agency for International Development
A
s the principal U.S. gov-
ernment agency extending as-
sistance to countries recovering
from disaster, trying to escape
poverty, and engaging in democratic
reforms, the U.S. Agency for Interna-
tional Development (USAID) employs
thousands of staff in the United States
and around the world under a variety
of hiring mechanisms. USAID recog-
nizes that its primary resource for en-
suring the successful delivery of funds
from the American people to support
overseas causes is its staff; and the
surest way to maximize assistance to
those in need overseas is to ensure
the well-being of its personnel. Many
non-governmental and private sector
partners are already leading the way in
innovative staff care concepts designed
to improve morale, productivity and
retention. USAID is reviewing many of
its best practices as it looks to draft its
own staff care policy that would apply
to all hiring mechanisms.
Humanitarian and development staff
frequently work in high-risk, unstable
field environments that are often char-
acterized by unpredictability, rapid
change, and pressure in both the field
and from Washington, DC. While this
environment encourages personal and
professional growth, these factors can
cause serious stress in staff and, ulti-
mately, adversely impact the delivery of
aid and assistance to beneficiaries.
USAID encourages implementing
partners to begin or continue to de-
velop standard staff care policies and
practices, and it looks forward to con-
tinuing collaboration with partners on
developing baselines for staff care in all
environments.
USAID began its own Staff Care Task
Force through the Democracy, Conflict
and Humanitarian Assistance (DCHA)
Bureau in February 2008, following
staff deaths in Khartoum, Sudan and
USAID
on staff care issues; (2) creating an in-
ternal website that will eventually serve
as the primary point of information for
staff care resources for all USAID hir-
ing mechanisms (there are currently
23 hiring types in the Agency); (3) cre-
following recommendations from a ating a common emergency database
number of earlier reports, such as les- for all staff hiring types in the bureau,
sons learned from the U.S. Embassy as well as a database that provides
bombing in Kenya in 1998. The Task useful staffing reports for offices in the
Force was formed to pioneer implemen- bureau; (4) developing more detailed
tation of cutting-edge ideas and previ- pre-departure checklists for both tem-
ous lessons learned, with the goal of porary and permanent staff of all hiring
adopting agency-wide operations and types; and (5) researching all available
procedures in support of staff care. For agency mental well-being services to
the purposes of the Task Force, “staff determine which services are available
care” includes broad issues ranging for which hiring types, and providing
from personal emergency prepared- this information to all agency staff, as
ness and response to staff wellness on well as holding pilot “road shows” with
a day-to-day basis, including physical service providers and DCHA.
safety and psychological well-being in The Task Force has recently be-
the workplace. gun expanding and institutionalizing
Initial Task Force efforts include: (1) a number of its pilot efforts agency-
surveying DCHA staff to gauge their wide. An expanded USAID Staff Care
morale, understanding and opinions Working Group will continue to: raise
continued on page 30
OFDA and Staff Care
Excerpts from an address by USAID Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) Director
Ky Luu to a staff wellness conference in Denver on May 18, 2008:
“The field of humanitarian assistance has evolved and professionalized over the
years, and continues to do so. The next challenge in the evolution of our field should
be to better incorporate concerns about the psychological and emotional well-being
of our humanitarian workers into our standard way of doing business.
“The work we do and the difficult places we work take a toll on our staff. Are we
losing experienced, highly qualified staff members prematurely because we do
not help them care for themselves properly in stressful assignments? Effective staff
care can boost staff retention, which is a highly desirable goal from a managerial
perspective.
“OFDA is willing to help fund initiatives that facilitate progress on staff wellness
standards for the humanitarian community. In the same manner that NGOs, over the
years, have collectively identified and agreed to performance standards on a range
of humanitarian issues, we believe that NGOs working together should develop
minimum standards and guidance for staff care within our profession.
“NGO personnel policies should include staff care procedures. NGOs should ensure
that managers at all levels are trained on staff care issues. Let it be clearly understood
that OFDA considers staff care by our partner agencies to be a legitimate and
important component of indirect operational costs.”
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008 23
 HIV/AIDS
If You’re Not Infected,
You’re Affected
Psychosocial intervention benefits national staff
working in HIV/AIDS projects.
By Carla Uriarte, Coordinator Mental Health Support to Field Teams,
Doctors Without Borders - Spain (Médecins Sans Frontiers -MSF OCBA)
H
umanitarian help is in-
trinsically stressful. In order
to respond to this reality, MSF
Spain consolidated psychoso-
cial support for its field teams in 2005.
One of the areas the organization
addressed was the impact of working
on HIV/AIDS projects – a reality solidly
documented in the relevant literature.
To assess the situation we conduct-
ed in-depth interviews with coordina-
tors, supervisors and key personnel,
individual debriefings with counselors,
focus groups organized by work func-
tions (such as laboratory workers,
medical assistants, and home health
nurses), activities such as clinic visits,
accompanying home-based care teams,
and sensitizing activities, and meetings
with advisors of local services that pro-
vide training and support.
In total, around 300 local profes-
sionals participated in these activities
conducted in and through the MSF-
Spain missions in Kenya, Malawi, Tan-
zania and Zimbabwe, with particular
help from Carmelo Vázquez in Kenya,
Beatriz Rodíguez Vega in Tanzania
and Cristina Vivares in Zimbabwe. The
findings presented here are drawn from
these visits.
Results: Stresses and Strengths
“If you are not infected, you are af-
fected.” This sentence powerfully sums
up the reality of working on and living
with HIV/AIDS. With high levels of in-
fection in the general population, most
of the local MSF personnel in these
countries are directly affected by the
epidemic. Even if they are not infected
personally, one or more of their family
24 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008
members, friends and neighbors
are infected.
In most of the places where
medical support projects have
developed there is also a strong stig-
ma associated with HIV/AIDS, in spite
of the efforts of many organizations to
eliminate this stigma. Before MSF came
to Busia in Kenya, the room where
terminal HIV/AIDS patients were left
had the popular name of “the Bosnia
room” because whoever entered there
was destined to die. The fear and lack
of means to deal with these deaths led
local health professionals to refuse to
help the sick people. More recently, the
introduction of antiretroviral medicines
has given hope to many communities,
although the stigma continues.
Stresses
The local teams working in this envi-
ronment share a number of challenges.
Secondary stigma is a common prob-
lem. In many places there is the belief
that if you work in an HIV/AIDS proj-
ect (as a doctor or driver, for example)
it is because you are infected.
Exposure to people in life-threaten-
ing crises drains staff emotionally and
sometimes physically as well. The pro-
fessionals working on these projects are
daily witnesses to the social and emo-
tional impact that HIV/AIDS has on
their patients such as orphans unable
to go to school, and the harrowing pros-
pects for widows with infected children.
Dealing daily with patients who also
have other opportunistic, infectious dis-
eases such as tuberculosis, and the risk
of contracting those diseases, creates ad-
ditional stress for many team members.
In most of the
places where
medical support
projects have developed
there is also a strong
stigma associated with
HIV/AIDS.
Another factor is the limits of the
ability of the organization and the local
health system to respond to the over-
whelming needs. Workers frequently
must operate in a reality in which they
know they cannot satisfy the treatment
needs of all those in need and that
they, the workers, will have to choose
who will receive treatment.
Powerlessness to address social and
economic needs (such as food, school-
ing and livelihood support) of the pa-
tients that lie beyond the scope and re-
sources of the program and for which
there are no local support systems, can
Photo: Ricardo Verde Costa - Fotolia.com
also take a toll on team members. As
can the emotionally draining reality of
identifying with their patients.
Working in international organiza-
tions also creates challenges due to
factors such as frequent turnover of
coordinators, operating in a multicul-
tural environment, and the existence
of very limited opportunities for promo-
tion to the top leadership ranks.

The investigations identified a num-
ber of risks and challenges particular
to different types of work related to
HIV/AIDS programming:
• Laboratory Personnel. In some proj-
ects, the laboratory is perceived as
an infected place that other health
workers consider dangerous and do
not want enter unless it is absolutely
necessary. In this context, some peo-
ple may have irrational fears about
being infected by tuberculosis and
other opportunistic diseases. Labora-
tory professionals also maintain direct
contact with the patients, who often
share with the workers their stories
and difficulties and engage in strong
emotional expressions for which the
workers have not been prepared.
• Counselors. Some counselors daily
confront people dealing with issues
of death, infidelity, misery and other
life crises. Although most counsel-
ors have received specific training
on how to manage HIV/AIDS coun-
seling, sometimes that training has
failed to include basic psychological
coping strategies for the counsellors.
• Home-Based Health Care Teams.
Workers in this field witness the dif-
ficult conditions, misery and the lack
of general resources with which many
patients live. The house visits can be
emotionally demanding, putting work-
ers in the midst of the realities their
patients and their support networks,
including children caring for the ter-
minally ill, patients so sick they can-
not go to the hospital, and orphans.
This, in turn, increases the likelihood
that the workers will identify with their
patients at emotionally draining levels
that can be greater than those experi-
enced by workers at health centers.
Strengths
The study also revealed a number of
strengths that allow the professionals
to continue day after day in the face of
so many difficulties.
For the majority of those working
with MSF, the understanding that “If
you are not infected, you are affected”
makes them proud to be part of the
miracle of introducing the antiretroviral
medicines (ARVs). In working in these
projects they are saving thousands of
lives and even though there are still
not enough ARVs available to provide
HIV/AIDS
Staff Care on a Shoestring:
Comments From NGO Staff Around the World
While some aspects of staff care may require additional resources, there are many
things you can do with little or no budget to start building a culture of staff-care in your
organization. Here are a few examples offered by field staff in various organizations:
• Recognize and appreciate colleague’s good work and/or extra effort.
• Have managers serve as role models of good self-care and a healthy work-life bal-
ance.
• Celebrate special occasions and holidays; acknowledge transitions in people’s
lives (e.g., births, deaths, birthdays, promotions, new jobs). This doesn’t have to
be elaborate or expensive.
• During times of high stress, be mindful of each other’s well-being. Spend time
checking in with each other and actively listen to responses. Protect your sleep!
• Use newsletters, emails and meetings to provide information about stress and
resilience. This helps normalize people’s experiences and may expand their rep-
ertoire of coping strategies.
• Host a party or social event that includes family members.
• Encourage staff to take mini-breaks during the day. Managers: set a good exam-
ple and take them yourself.
• Have a pot-luck lunch
• After work-related travel (especially lengthy and intense travel) encourage staff
to take some down-time.
...What else would you add?
treatment to all those in need, the most working on HIV/AIDS programs.
vulnerable groups (children, pregnant
women) are being saved. While the Preparation
manifestation varies from team to team, • Improve the basic psychological and
in the majority of cases team members social skills training for the frontline
also share a sense of pride in being part personnel working with patients.
of MSF – a sense that translates into This training would cover issues
dynamic, protective teams. such as how to manage the anger,
Team members also draw on respect pain and anxiety of patients, and ba-
and support they receive from family sic psychological support. We recom-
and communities because of their work mend that this training be provided
saving lives and the status of belonging not only to counselors, but also to all
to an international organization. Ben- other personnel with direct contact
efits include stable employment, per- with the patients in any way, such as
sonal economic stability in the midst laboratory technicians and drivers.
of shattered economies, social status, • Strengthen team members’ under-
and access to influential people. Other standing of humanitarian principles
sources of support include personal and the organization’s strategy.
and social resources such as support This can help the teams better un-
from co-workers and family, and natu- derstand the limits of a particular
ral support networks, including reli- project, the decision-making process
gious communities. and the global strategy to fight HIV/
AIDS into which the project fits.
Intervention: • Continue technical training, with a
Strengthening Existing Strengths special focus on protection measures
The assessment also led us to iden- to be used when working in environ-
tify a number of steps in the areas of ments with infectious diseases.
advance preparation and on-going
measures that would help create a bet- On-Going Support
ter network of support for our teams The sessions that formed the heart
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008 25
 HIV/AIDS
Humanitarian
organizations now
display a regular
and ever increasing
interest in providing
psychosocial support.
of the assessment highlighted the im-
portance of social support as a primary
resource for confronting these chal-
lenges. The following steps can help
teams strengthen this social support:
• Create and maintain an organiza-
tional culture that recognizes and
fosters the sharing of difficulties,
challenges of daily work.
• Technical supervision of cases, with
special attention to managing psy-
chosocial problems that arise.
• Create formal spaces for mutual
support among professionals, and,
26 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008
where local external resources exist,
work with an outside facilitator. Pro-
posed sessions include group debrief-
ings and/or psychosocial workshops
on topics such as how to manage the
fear of infection, stress management
and conflict resolution.
• Include key national staff in deci-
sion-making and positions of re-
sponsibility.
• Facilitate access to outside psycho-
logical support for individuals who
need it.
• Be flexible with the working rules to
give space to local cultural coping
strategies (e.g., provide time to pray
during a medical workshop for Mus-
lims).
• Sensitize international personnel,
who usually hold coordination posi-
tions, on: the need to minimize the
impact of turnover of staff in coor-
dination positions; cultural differ-
ences; the psychosocial impact of
working in HIV/AIDS projects; and
organizational factors that cause
stress and how to prevent and mini-
mize them.
• Incorporate team dynamics and
team-building activities into the work
agenda.
Humanitarian organizations now dis-
play a regular and ever increasing inter-
est in providing psychosocial support
for their teams. This is good news for
staff welfare, and its impact is reflected
in the mental health and quality of ser-
vice of the NGO staff and project benefi-
ciaries being helped and supported.
Until recently this interest was largely
limited to providing support for interna-
tional staff. Yet the majority of those
working in humanitarian aid are nation-
al staff, and it is therefore important
that organizations implement support
strategies that take into account the
specific psychosocial risks and strengths
faced by these local workers, and devel-
op ways to invest in their well-being. MD

Lest We
Reinvent
the Wheel
Guidelines do exist
for good practice in
managing stress in
humanitarian workers.
By John H. Ehrenreich,
International Associate, Antares
Foundation and Professor of
Psychology, State University of New
York – College at Old Westbury
T
he Antares Foundation’s
Managing Stress in Humanitari-
an Workers: Guidelines for Good
Practice (www.antaresfounda-
tion.org) seeks to help aid agencies de-
fine their own needs in relation to stress
management in their organization. The
Guidelines were developed over the last
few years by an international working
group, made up of NGO staff (human
resources, national and field managers,
safety and security officers), people with
extensive experience consulting with
NGOs and NGO staff on staff stress, and
academic experts on stress and stress
management. Feedback responding to
several earlier drafts was obtained from
meetings of national and international
field managers in Jerusalem, Mel-
bourne and Canberra (Australia), New
York, Amsterdam, Tbilisi (Georgia) and
Tuzla (Bosnia).
The starting point of the Guidelines is
that managing stress in staff of humani-
tarian aid organizations is an integral
management priority in enabling the
organization to fulfill its field objectives,
as well as being necessary to protect the
well-being of the individual staff mem-
bers, their teams and the communities
they work with. The Guidelines empha-
size the actions that agency, managers
and the team must undertake to miti-
gate staff stress, as well as actions that
individual staff members can take. The
Guidelines are organized around eight
key principles, reflecting the phases of a
staff member’s deployment. Thus, there
are principles on overall agency policy,
screening and assessing staff, prepara-
tion and training of staff, monitoring
staff in the field, ongoing support in the
field, crisis support, end of assignment
support, and post-assignment support.
Each principle has supporting indica-
tors and comments designed to help
agencies more fully understand the con-
cepts underpinning the principles and
how they translate into management
practice. The principles and indicators
are intended to apply to both interna-
tional and national staff and to both
headquarters and field staff, recognizing
that adjustments may be necessary to
take into account the unique needs and
characteristics of each group. They are a
tool for learning, reflection and planning
rather than a set of rigid rules or solu-
tions applicable under all conditions.
The Antares Foundation is currently
developing a variety of ancillary materi-
als in support of the Guidelines. These
include: an interactive web-based ver-
sion of the Guidelines; training work-
shops for individual staff members,
team leaders and agency managers;
written materials developing some of
the principles further, and manage-
rial tools for analyzing agency behavior
with respect to the Guidelines’ princi-
ples; case studies on using the Guide-
lines; and sample policies.
In addition, the Inter-Agency Stand-
ing Committee (IASC) Guidelines on Men-
tal Health and Psychosocial Support in
Emergency Settings (www.who.int/men-
tal_health/emergencies/en) were devel-
oped by the IASC Task Force on Men-
Guidelines
tal Health and Psychosocial Support in
Emergency Settings, co-chaired by the
World Health Organization and Inter-
Action. The overall thrust of the Guide-
lines is “to enable humanitarian actors
to plan, establish and coordinate a set
of minimum multi-sectoral responses
to protect and improve people’s mental
health and psychosocial well-being in
the midst of an emergency.” One sec-
tion, Action Sheet 4.4 (and, to a lesser
extent, several other sections, especially
Action Sheets 4.1-4.3), addresses staff
support issues. Early drafts were circu-
lated in the humanitarian community
and the feedback was incorporated.
Action Sheet 4.4 notes that, “The pro-
vision of support to mitigate the possible
psychosocial consequences of work in
crisis situations is a moral obligation
and a responsibility of organizations ex-
posing staff to extremes. For organiza-
tions to be effective, managers need to
keep their staff healthy. A systemic and
integrated approach to staff care is re-
quired at all phases of employment – in-
cluding in emergencies – and at all lev-
els of the organization to maintain staff
well-being and organizational efficiency.
The word ‘staff’ in this action sheet re-
fers to paid and volunteer, national and
international workers, including drivers
and translators, affiliated with an aid or-
ganization.” Like the Antares Guidelines,
although the Action Sheet notes that
“support measures should in principle
be equal for national and international
staff,” it points out that “some structural
differences exist between the two.”
In virtually all respects, the sections
of the IASC Guidelines dealing with staff
support issues closely parallel the An-
tares Guidelines. Like the latter, the
IASC Action Sheets specify roles for the
agency, managers and the team. Spe-
cific “key actions” include: actions to
ensure the availability of a concrete plan
to protect and promote staff well-being
for the specific emergency; prepare staff
for their jobs and for the emergency
context; facilitate a healthy working en-
vironment; address potential work-re-
lated stressors; ensure access to health
care and psychosocial support for staff;
provide support to staff who have expe-
rienced or witnessed extreme events
(critical incidents, potentially traumatic
events); and make support available af-
ter the mission/employment. MD
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008 27
 HIV Status Day
Walking
the Walk
World Concern
introduces “Know Your
HIV Status Day” for staff.
By Bethany Baxter,
HIV/AIDS Program Coordinator,
World Concern
A
t a meeting of World
Concern HIV/AIDS field staff,
the question came up of how
many of us knew our HIV sta-
tus. A few hands went up, but not every
hand. Which led to the next question,
“How can we refer people to voluntary
counseling and testing (VCT) centers if
we haven’t gone ourselves?” As is be-
ing highlighted throughout 2008, more
leadership is required if the world is go-
ing to tackle the AIDS pandemic. And
at this meeting, World Concern was
28 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008
convinced to start leading by example.
The HIV/AIDS team agreed on a date
that we would all go get tested – the
first World Concern Know Your Status
Day. The invitation was extended to the
rest of the World Concern Kenya staff
who were informed that: (1) attendance
was not required; (2) they would not be
asked to disclose to their status; (3) the
current staff health plan covered treat-
ment; and (4) they could not be fired
for testing positive. In an effort to make
getting tested as easy as possible, each
HIV/AIDS district team was responsible
for making arrangements (e.g. transport
and appointments) for those interested
in their office interested in participating.
The results of the day were amazing.
In the Nairobi office, 80 percent of those
available (i.e., not on leave, traveling or
the like) chose to be tested. One staff
member said that he had wanted to go
a number of times, but had been too
Some [staff] said
that knowing their
status made them
feel empowered to
encourage others to
get tested.
scared. He said he was happy to have the
opportunity to be tested through work,
because going in a group helped him
face his fears. In Narok, only the HIV/
AIDS team wanted to participate, which
give them the opportunity to show lead-
ership within their own office. The Narok
staff reported the experience as tough,
but also encouraging. And in Embu, the
whole staff chose to be tested.
Staff who felt comfortable talking
about their VCT experiences were en-
couraged to share their thoughts and
feelings, and were informed that their
views might be shared with others if
they agreed. Many were willing, and
some even asked to have their picture
taken while they were being tested.
Some said that knowing their status
made them feel empowered to encour-
age others to get tested including fam-
ily, church and other community mem-
bers. One male staff member (age 33),
said that he wanted to be an example to
the youth in his church. Another com-
mented that going in a group had made
the waiting time less stressful. One
woman admitted that she did worry a
bit about going in a group, because she
wasn’t sure if she would be able to hide
the emotions of testing positive. Recog-
nizing that results were inevitable, she
decided to get tested and found it com-
forting to be amongst friends.
Since Know Your Status Day, there
has been a heightened interest in HIV/
AIDS facts and a more open environ-
ment for discussion and information
dissemination. In response, an “HIV/
Photo: Bethany Baxter, World Concern
AIDS fact” is posted weekly: the first be-
ing on the reliability of HIV tests. In ad-
dition, the day helped World Concern
HIV/AIDS staff gain a better under-
standing of some of the challenges and
constraints to being tested, including
concerns about being tested by some-
body you know. World Concern plans
to make this an annual event. MD
 Helper’s Fire

Helper’s Fire II
Conference works to build The conference reflected an increased
understanding that humanitarian aid is
resilient communities highly rewarding but demanding work,
for humanitarian and and that aid workers and volunteers
face a variety of threats to their physical
development assistance health and mental health and emotional
field staff. stability. However, attention to staff care
and support before, during and after
their time in the field, and the study of
By Sharon Forrence, MSW, Training how to improve outcomes in this arena
and Staff Care Consultant was still relatively new in 2004.
International Disaster Psychology Pro-
gram hosted Helper’s Fire II: Building
Resilient Communities for Humanitarian
and Development Assistance Field Staff.
The conference brought together partici-
pants from the non-governmental sector,
donors, government organizations, con-
sultants, researchers, graduate students
and other expert practitioners to focus
on key staff care issues for humanitar-
ian and development workers and the
organizations for which they work.
Stressors in the field of humani-
tarian aid, from those indigenous to
emergency situations to demanding
and stressful management practices,
adversely affect the capacities of hu-

I
n March 2004, humanitarian
and international development pro-
fessionals from more than 60 organi-
zations gathered at the University of
Notre Dame for a groundbreaking confer-
ence entitled “Tending the Helper’s Fire:
Mitigating Stress and Trauma in Inter-
national Staff and Volunteers” organized
by Idealist.org/Action Without Borders.
Since that time, recognition that ef-
fective self-care and management ulti-
mately contributes to the ability of all
humanitarian workers to work more
effectively, more safely, and ultimately
further the mission of the organization
has gained considerable traction.
In line with these advances, in May
2008 the University of Denver’s Gradu-
ate School of Professional Psychology’s
manitarian workers to deliver services.
The Helper’s Fire II conference was de-
signed to provide information on new
staff care initiatives and organizational
efforts to institutionalize support to aid
workers. It also served to identify the
difficulties with implementation and to
propose strategies and actions that will
contribute to the forward movement
of this developing field. Key issues in-

How Secure Is Your Organization?

InterAction Minimum Operating Security Standards Workshop
October 30th—Washington, DC
The working environment for international humanitarians and development professionals has become increasingly
volatile in recent years. Because of this, many NGOs are seeking a way to incorporate more robust security measures
into their programming. However, few NGOs know how best to do it.

InterAction has been tasked by USAID to create a set of Minimum Operating Security Standards (MOSS) for its
members. Under the MOSS, InterAction members are required to create organizational policies and plans; make
appropriate resources available to comply with the standards; implement appropriate human resources policies;
incorporate accountability for security at the management level; and work together as a community in order to
advance their common security interests.

This workshop seeks to assist InterAction members and other interested organizations in the incorporation of
InterAction’s Minimum Operating Security Standards (MOSS). Recognizing that every organization will have differing
needs, the “Suggested Guidance” section for each standard will be presented by members of the Security Advisory
Group. A brief review will be followed by an open forum that will enable attendees the opportunity to discuss
methods, policies and practices of other members in order to aid all in compliance.

This workshop is open to InterAction member organizations only.

Please RSVP by email to jkearns@interaction.org.

Subject line: “MOSS RSVP.”

MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008 29

 Helper’s Fire

cluded: management and leadership tares Foundation and the Inter-Agency have very different needs for staff care.
in stress reduction; staff assessment, Standing Committee (IASC) Guide- The best way to identify appropriate
selection and retention; training and lines on Mental Health and Psychoso- support for national staff is to consult
working with national staff; respond- cial Support in Emergency Settings, as with them. Third, it is important for or-
ing to critical events, including family well as new initiatives undertaken by ganizations to develop critical incident
support; building external and internal the Headington Institute, InterAction, protocols and include plans for work-
support for staff care initiatives; build- People In Aid and USAID. Break-out ing with staff members’ families. This is
ing in evaluation of staff care policies groups discussed the key questions an important component when dealing
and programs; and field staff exit inter- outlined during the plenary presenta- with critical incident stress.
views, debriefing and re-entry. tions in order to identify concrete steps Another key theme is senior man-
Ky Luu, Director of USAID’s Office that could move the field forward in the agement buy-in for staff care. While
of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA), given area. the need seems obvious to those who
provided the keynote address. Staff care The field of staff care for humanitarian have worked under difficult conditions
issues have become one of OFDA’s pri- and development workers and organi- and for those who provide services to
orities given how they affect OFDA staff zations has made considerable progress aid workers, convincing senior man-
as well as the staff of partner organiza- since the first Helper’s Fire conference. agement that investing in staff care
tions working in complex emergency sit- Several key themes emerged. First, staff initiatives is a cost-effective business
uations. He described the challenge of care is everyone’s business and needs practice continues to be a challenge for
encouraging the humanitarian commu- to be integrated throughout the lifecycle most organizations. Assessing staff care
nity to incorporate staff care/staff well- of an employee or volunteer. As an or- initiatives that are currently being un-
ness as a routine operating standard. ganizational priority, staff care needs to dertaken by various organizations can
Panel presentations provided an be incorporated in management prac- help to further support efforts to push
update on recent developments in the tices from headquarters down to the this issue with senior management.
field including guidelines from the An- field office. Second, national staff may The final Helper’s Fire II conference
report will be published on the Univer-
sity of Denver’s website www.du.edu/
helpersfire/, on the Psychosocial.org
web site (www.idealist.org/psychosocial)
and on the InterAction staff care web
Helper’s Fire: What does that mean? site (www.interaction.org/staffcare).
In March of 2004, Action Without Borders and The Joan B. Kroc Institute for A Helper’s Fire III conference will be
International Peace Studies at Notre Dame University organized the conference held in 2010, with details to be an-
“Tending the Helper’s Fire: Mitigating Trauma and Stress in International Staff and nounced. In the near future, a Helper’s
Volunteers.” The name of the conference - “Tending the Helper’s Fire” - comes from the Fire II.5 meeting will be held in early
Master’s thesis title of Karen Brown. November either before or after the
PIA/Headington Symposium. For fur-
After the Notre Dame conference, groups formed in Washington, DC and New York ther information, or if you have ques-
under the name “Helper’s Fire” to hold continuing presentations and discussions on tions or comments, please contact the
staff care issues. author at sforrence@yahoo.com. MD
What is the mission of Helper’s Fire?
To promote wellness of staff working in chronic and acute stress environments by
USAID
sharing resources, best practices and training materials. continued from page 23

awareness of staff care issues at all lev-

What are some current activities? els; review office, bureau, and mission
Representing government agencies, non-government organizations and practices in staff care; make appropri-
independent consultants, the Helper’s Fire group is well-placed to serve as an ate recommendations to the agency;
advocate for staff wellness, as an advisory group, and as an information resource for and provide appropriate, relevant re-
organizations, agencies and groups engaged in development and relief efforts. The sources to assist all staff in better miti-
outcome of our efforts will serve expatriate, third-country, and host country staff. gating or coping with the stressors of
USAID work.
How can I get involved? The Agency working group will be an
Since September of 2004, the DC Helper’s Fire group has been meeting on the first avenue for USAID offices and bureaus
Wednesday of the month from 10:30 am to 12:00 pm. Since January 2008, the DC to share and learn from each other’s ex-
Helper’s Fire group has been meeting in conjunction with the InterAction Staff Care periences, seeking to create a standard
Working Group at the InterAction office (1400 16th Street NW, Suite 210). You can baseline of services and support that
join the DC Helper’s Fire yahoo group at: http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/ enable the agency to not only fulfill its
HelpersFire/ mandate, but also its desire to protect
the well-being of its staff members. MD

30 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008

 Peer Support

Taking Care of Each Other

Peer Support in Humanitarian Organizations

P
eer support describes a variety of ways that people with similar
experiences can assist each other with difficult situations. Workplace peer
support programs have grown in popularity over the past two decades,
especially in professions characterized by service to others and high threat or
danger. When implemented effectively, peer support programs can contribute
to increased social support in the workplace, improved organizational climate,
and greater numbers of people with problems or in distress seeking assistance.
A number of humanitarian organizations have developed peer support
programs to address the challenges facing aid workers around the world.
The following articles provide three perspectives on peer support program.
Two psychologists describe peer support programs launched by their NGOs,
and in the third piece, staff in the field discuss how they have made peer
support practical and concrete in a context of HIV/AIDS.

Collected by Sharon Forrence, MSW, Training and Staff Care Consultant

Peer Support Network

BY Christina Moore, PsyD, Doctors Without Borders/
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) USA
The MSF USA Peer Support Network (PSN), begun
in 1999, is the non-professional, peer-operated, informa-
tion sharing system provided by a group of MSF-USA volun-
teer returned field staff (RFS). PSN volunteers offer listening
support and information for other RFS within one month of
returning from assignment. Typically, this is done through
email and telephone contacts, and often with face-to-face
meetings. The content of the peer-to-peer conversations re-
mains confidential.
PSN Volunteers are distributed across the U.S. They deter-
mine who will contact returning field staff based on similarity
of professional background, familiarity with field assignments,
ease of shared time zones or by date of return.
The returned field staff list is managed by PSN coordinators
through a web-based contact management system. Introduced
early in 2007, the system tracks contacts from the time of the
RFS return from assignment to the end of the PSN volunteer’s
contacts with that individual. PSN Volunteers enter details re-
Photo: Sandy Krawitz
from professional consultants and included significant input
from the MSF human resources department and other MSF
New York office resources. Gradually, the PSN has assumed
responsibility for its own training, with logistical support from
the MSF USA Association Coordinator’s office. A long-term con-
sultant attends trainings and provides welcome training and
practice in stress reduction techniques. The PSN guidelines
have evolved over time, in parallel with the maturing network
and increased technical support.
The PSN participates in national and international confer-
ences on staff support and security, regularly updates train-
ings based on current research and developing best practices.
In April, 2007, the PSN met at Peaceful Valley Ranch, near
Lyons, Colorado, for a formal training and welcome for new
members; continuing members attended for the required up-
date to their training. Training included formal discussions
and practice sessions for making peer-to-peer contacts. The
group learned to use GPS tools while hiking in the mountains
and exchanging experiences from assignments and from PSN
contacts over the years.
The training provides direction and formal guidelines, as
well as a perspective on how MSF returned field staff find
and redefine life and work on assignment and on return. The
training emphasis is on listening, and providing information
(or reminders) about additional support systems, such as the

garding contact dates. The PSN Web-tool provides substantial
information to the PSN coordinators about quality and effi-
ciency of PSN services, and statistical data on operational ef-
fectiveness.
Early training of PSN volunteers was done with assistance
Employee Assistance Program, that are available to assist the
returned field staff with reintegration after an assignment. New
members bring vitality and a wealth of experience to the PSN.
Please send questions and comments to the author at cem-
psyd@yahoo.com.

MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008 31

 Peer Support
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32 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008
“I No Longer
Feel Alone”
By Lynne Cripe, PhD, CARE USA
ings in Darfur. HIV-related loss and orphaning in Malawi.
These are just a few of the serious stressors facing CARE
staff around the world. CARE staff have reported five pri-
mary categories of stress: (1) lack of job security; (2) concerns
about security and safety; (3) overwork and difficulty with
work-life balance; (4) internal staff conflict, e.g. competition,
issues with trust; and (5) personal issues, e.g. stresses from
financial pressure, family demands and health problems.
To increase social support to help staff cope with the
stresses of life, CARE launched a Peer Social Support Team
(PSST) in 2007 in ten of its Country Offices (COs) in Africa. In
mid-2008, the PSST expanded to six COs in Asia.
After six months, the program in Africa reported the fol-
lowing successes:
• Improved morale and communication in the CO;
• Conflict resolution among team members;
• Improved relationships with supervisors;
• Improved response to critical incidents;
• Improvement in human resources programs devoted to
staff care and staff wellness;
• Better coordination and synergy between programs devot-
ed to staff care; and
• Improved contribution to Country Office strategic planning
through coordination with the senior management team
and other CO staff.
To get started, Country Offices selected two Social Support
Advisors (SSAs), typically one male and one female, through
a variety of ways. Some were selected by their senior manage-
ment team; others were elected by the entire staff. Currently,
all SSAs are national staff, drawn from the entire range of
positions within CARE COs: administrative, drivers, human
resources, program managers, technical advisors. SSAs de-
vote, on average, three hours per week to their PSST activi-
ties, although in some COs more time has been allocated.
The regional Peer Social Support Teams were launched in
a week-long training and planning workshop that focused
on knowledge- and skill-building, and action planning. Top-
ics included empathic listening, stress management, com-
municating self-care information to colleagues and building
trust. Working in their country teams, SSAs developed terms
of reference and action plans based on the unique needs and
existing initiatives and programs within their Country Office.
This is a critical element of the PSST because staff needs and
operating environments vary greatly across CARE COs. For
example, the objectives of the Sudan PSST focus on improv-
ing support for staff affected by critical incidents. In contrast,
a key objective of the India PSST is to help the CO “downsize
well” by attending to the social and emotional needs of staff
affected by job losses. Although the PSST operates within
 Peer Support

shared basic parameters there is the need for considerable
customization and flexibility across COs; this customization
is crucial for ownership and sustainability of the PSST.
As CARE looks to the future of the PSST we see a number
of challenges ahead:
• Securing the financial resources needed to expand the
PSST into other regions;
• Developing models of support, supervision and follow-up
that can withstand geographic dispersion, time differences
and imperfect phone/internet connections;
• Cultivating sustained engagement by CO leadership in the
PSST activities;
• Training new team members when inevitable attrition oc-
curs; and
• Developing a meaningful monitoring and evaluation ap-
proach that allows us to effectively tell the story of the
PSST without unduly burdening our volunteer SSAs.
Although we are still grappling with how best to evaluate
the work of the PSST, I will close with a small anecdote that
demonstrates that the PSST is making an impact. At the
conclusion of a workshop co-facilitated with Social Support
Advisors, a colleague stated, “I thought I was the only one
that felt this way. But now I know that I am no longer alone.”
That’s a result worth replicating.
Please send questions and comments to the author at
lcripe@care.org or to Kathleen Gaines at kgaines@care.org.
Voluntary Savings and Loans
Learning from our work in the community, we adopted the
Voluntary Savings and Loan (VS&L) program to encourage
staff to save money. Groups of five or six staff members con-
tribute an agreed upon amount and borrow amongst each
other with an agreed amount of interest. This initiative helps
members because it helps them achieve their personal goals
such as buying furniture, and paying for school fees (many
staff are taking care of orphans and vulnerable children), and
buying medicine. We are also looking at longer investment
opportunities for staff that will give them piece of mind to
know that their families will be taken care of if needed.
Workplace Nutrition
The organization is also contributing to staff wellness by
providing nutritional support in the workplace. Staff do not
have a lot of time to take care of themselves while at work
because their concentration is focused on meeting the needs
of the communities. To improve their health and help keep
them fit so that they can perform well, we are providing each
staff member with two fruits per day; as they say, “an apple
a day keeps the doctor away.” CARE views this as a small
amount to pay compared to the price of unmotivated, un-
healthy staff. This initiative has helped reduce the number of
sick days staff have taken.
Please send questions and comments to the authors at
mpatose@care.org.ls and hlebone@care.org.ls MD

Staff Care in CARE

Lesotho–South Africa
Moleboheng Patose, Wellness Coordinator, and Hofnie
Lebone, Human Resources Manager
CARE Lesotho-South Africa

Stress (whether work-related or personal) in

the workplace is a common feature of life today. It can damage
the health and well-being of employees. From CARE’s perspec-
tive, employees who feel valued have lower levels of stress and
absenteeism and higher levels of motivation and loyalty to the
organization’s core business. HIV and AIDS are serious issues
for staff in CARE Lesotho-South Africa. We seek to address the
needs of an employees at all stages of the HIV/AIDS timeline:
from prevention for HIV-negative staff to impact mitigation after
death. Several initiatives are helping us to improve staff care.

Consultations for choosing the Peer Social Support Team

Through intense consultations with staff, a group of em-
ployees were chosen to be Social Support Advisors (SSAs). The
SSAs were chosen for a variety of skills, including good listen-
ing skills, empathy, calmness, popularity within the workplace
and friendliness. The SSAs offer confidential one-on-one sup-
port to staff on various issues: domestic violence, HIV man-
agement, workplace stress and employee relations. Staff now
know people are there to offer support.

MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008 33

 Presence
The Power of
Presence
Sometimes just “being there” makes all the difference.
By Lisa McKay, Director of Training and Education Services,
Headington Institute
O
n Monday I was up at
5am. This was partly because
my body was convinced it
was still in Michigan where it
had woken up on Sunday, instead of in
California. And partly because I needed
to be at work at 6am.
In my opinion, 6am is practically an
obscene hour of the morning, an hour
when no one should have to be at work
unless it’s for an exceptionally good
cause. But although I grumbled a bit
to myself as I left the house in the dark,
I did have to admit it was for an excep-
tionally good cause.
How it all came about is a long story
that starts in January as I was plan-
ning for workshops in Kenya. We’re
trying something new this year at the
Headington Institute called regional
training – running free workshops on
understanding and coping with stress
and trauma for humanitarian workers
34 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008
in different cities around the world. By
January we were well into organizing
our first regional training for humani-
tarian workers in Kenya.
Regional training is simple, really. You
choose a city. You estimate how many
people you think might show up to these
free workshops. You book a venue, or-
ganize catering, and review your budget.
You pull together a team of experienced
trainers and counselors. You co-ordi-
nate everyone’s dates, book air tickets,
get visas, review the security situation
in the destination city, remember to pick
up malaria medication, plan the work-
shops, backup presentation materials,
and organize handouts. Oh, and check
and double check which day your flight
leaves because, believe it or not, that
one has almost derailed me more than
once during the last five years.
Okay, when I look at all of that may-
be it’s not quite so simple. Maybe it’s
more like organizing a wedding. In a
foreign country. When you don’t know
how many people will be attending the
reception. And everyone who does show
up is bound to be way more stressed
out than your average bride.
So back to Kenya, where I was sup-
posed to be heading in March. It was
all planned. We’d made all the hotel
bookings. I’d even organized to take
a couple of days after the workshops
and travel down to Tanzania to spend
a couple of days with friends. Things
were on track.
I was going to Australia in January
for almost a month, but my amazing
project manager, Bree, was going to
send out the fliers and organize the
workshop registrations in my absence.
In the flier we asked people who were
interested in attending to send us a
200-word statement of interest. Why,
we asked, did they feel they’d benefit
from these workshops? I hoped these
statements would help me make sure
the training I planned would meet as
many of the needs as possible of the
approximately 30 people we estimated
would turn up.
So I went on a much-needed holi-
day. Bree sent out the fliers. And in-
stead of 30 registrations, within the
first forty-eight hours after we sent the
announcement we were flooded with
emails from well over one hundred hu-
manitarian workers and mental health
professionals who wanted to attend the
workshops. And their statements of in-
terest…they were heart-breaking.
At the same time, things were going
from bad to worse in Kenya. I knew
when I left for Australia that things in
Nairobi were unstable. I’d moved for-
ward anyway, reasoning that the vio-
lence would probably have simmered
down by March. But by the time I re-
turned to the office in February it was
clear that the prudent course of action
would be to postpone the workshops.
When there would be one hundred peo-
ple traveling around Nairobi to reach
Photo: Darren Baker - Fotolia.com
the training the risk was too high that
someone would get seriously hurt, or
worse. Given that we could still go later
in the year when things would hope-
fully have calmed down, it didn’t seem
worth chancing.
So we postponed, which we hated to
have to do when the need there was so

clearly acute. And we started thinking
about what we could do in the mean-
time to help support the hundred peo-
ple who had wanted so much to attend
the workshops. One thing we decided to
do was offer some free phone consulta-
tions to anyone who had registered. An-
other was to organize several hour-long
webinars (virtual online trainings) on
the topic of resilience in the face of trau-
ma. It was one of these webinars I was
trundling off to co-facilitate on Monday
morning at 6am, 5pm Nairobi-time.
The session was designed for other
mental health professionals, and we
had several counselors working with
kids living in slums in Nairobi – kids
“Your mere presence
is hope. The fact that
you are alive, and
walking, and talking,
and present – that
sends the message that
there is life and hope
somewhere, that a
different kind of future
is possible.”
who have seen and heard awful, aw-
ful things in the last four months. “It’s
overwhelming to know what violence
and poverty can do to children’s lives,”
one counselor said. “My passion is
about helping advocate for children so
they are better served and more pro-
tected. So when the political situation
means that stray bullets from the po-
lice have killed two of our students, I
feel powerless.”
We ended up talking a lot on Monday
about this issue of feeling overwhelmed
and powerless, and what can anchor
us in the midst of situations that pro-
voke those feelings. In the face of vio-
lence, and injustice, and the fragility of
life that is so evident when people are
regularly being killed on your neigh-
borhood streets, what do we have to
offer as helpers? What weapons do we
really have to fight against this feel-
ing of powerlessness? These are cru-
cial questions to find some personal
Presence
answers for, as research on “learned
helplessness” suggests that when we
become mute or frozen for too long in
the face of powerlessness, we tend to
end up rather hopelessly traumatized.
One person talked of the key role her
faith has played in helping anchor her.
“I have found that because I can re-
lease my powerlessness to God there is
a sense of relief. I feel so for friends who
do not have faith and can only release
the powerlessness into anger.”
“Being there is so critical, even if you
don’t know what to say,” someone else
said. “Your mere presence is hope. The
fact that you are alive, and walking,
and talking, and present – that sends
the message that there is life and hope
somewhere, that a different kind of fu-
ture is possible. Jesus walked among
the people. We tend to focus only on
the miracles that were performed, but
he must have spent most of his time
simply walking among the people, and
I think that, in itself, brought hope.”
This theme of the power of presence
is what stuck with me long after we’d
wrapped up our discussion. Presence
can seem like such a small offering.
More than once I’ve sat on a plane my-
self wondering what I can possibly say
in the workshops I am going to give
that will make it worth the time, the
money, the energy and the risk to get
there. But I was reminded again on
Monday of times when the presence
of other people in my life has been an
anchor for me. I might not now be able
to recall even what they said, but I do
remember their presence – their lov-
ing, caring, understanding presence,
and the message that sent that I was
not alone.
This is what the counselors we have
the privilege of talking to in Kenya are
trying to do for children in the slums
right now. And what we at the Heading-
ton Institute – imperfectly and across
many miles and time zones – are trying
to do for them.
This is what makes a 6am start
worth it: the chance that you might, by
showing up and, through the power of
presence if nothing else, sow some
seeds of hope in fields of violence and
despair. MD
Please send questions and comments
to the author at lmckay@headington-
institute.org.
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008 35
 CAREER Developments
Considering a Career
in Development?
The following is adapted from Development 101, The Develop-
ment Executive Group, Development Recruiting, www.devel-
opmentex.com/development_recruiting/dev101/dev101.jsp
A
re you considering pursuing an international develop-
ment career or consulting assignment? The following
are some valuable tips you may want to consider as
you progress toward your goal.
Tip 1: Understand the Types of
Positions Available
Professionals often will speak
of their interest in an interna-
tional development career. But
what they envision is often vague
and doesn’t fit with the types of
positions available. It’s an over-
simplification, but there are es-
sentially three types of jobs in
international development. If you
understand what each entails, it
will be easier for you to position
yourself for a job or assignment.
Technical Expert: This is what
many professionals think of when
they envision an international de-
velopment career. A Technical Ex-
pert is someone with a high level of
expertise in a particular technical
field, such as water/sanitation,
public health, food distributions
& assessments, shelter building,
designing effective livelihood proj-
ects, etcetera.
These positions are generally attached to specific projects
funded by governmental donor agencies including the World
Bank, USAID, and WFP. These agencies normally have tight
restrictions on the qualifications for Technical Experts. It is
not uncommon for requirements to include many years of
experience and an advanced degree, plus particular foreign
language skills and substantial in-country experience.
Program Management: If you want to work on interna-
tional development projects but don’t have all the qualifica-
tions to be a Technical Expert, consider a Project Manage-
ment position. These jobs typically are located either at field
sites or at the local country office.
A program management position entails all aspects of man-
aging a staff (usually national as well as expatriate) and meet-
ing the objectives of the project or program. This includes
building relationships with local governments and officials.
36 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008
The administrative functions may be basic duties (expense
reports, invoicing, and paperwork of all kinds) and, depending
on the level of your job, can include project direction, tech-
nical advice, coordin ation with donor agency officials, and
publication of project reports.
Logistics and Program Coordination: If you are begin-
ning your international development portfolio these positions
may be more suited to you. Logistics can include procure-
ment, finances, supply chain management, office support,
among many other assigned duties.
Program Coordination would be those who mostly report
to larger Program Managers. They would help that manager
coordinate functions, various aspects of the program, even
manage a small piece of the overall project. Typically they
would not supervise a staff.
Tip 2: Promote Your Skills
It is common among interna-
tional development professionals
to have multiple CVs or resumés.
Each version highlights and em-
phasizes a different core skill
area to best position you for the
wide range of positions available.
As you seek to promote your
skills, consider the many job op-
portunities available by carefully
searching the job listings on sites
such as [http://careers.interac-
tion.org]. Select only those posi-
tions for which you are truly qual-
ified, and create multiple versions
of your CV that directly address
specific positions. A general CV is
much less likely to be successful,
particularly if you are seeking a
Technical Expert position.
Ours is a rapidly changing in-
dustry and there are new areas
of prominence and focus each year; to be best positioned to
promote your skills, it is critical that you remain aware of the
latest sectors of prominence, funding trends, and activities of
the world’s leading NGOs and companies.
Tip 3: Experience is King
Hands-on field experience in the relief and development
world makes an enormous difference. No trainings, work-
shops, or academic knowledge can take the place of real dirt-
under-your-fingernails kind of job experience. Making an ef-
fort to get as much multi-cultural developing nation living
and working familiarity is most valuable. The culture and
Photo: Spencer Millsap
work is so dramatically different than any western position,
most field staff without prior experience can spend up to
three months just learning to survive and adapt. That three
months is a programmatic loss to the beneficiaries and an
irretrievable loss of time in the grant arena. MD
MONDAY Developments
EmploymentOpportunities
Project Manager
Eugene, Oregon
Mobility International USA (MIUSA) promotes the inclusion of
people with disabilities as a human rights issue. Project Man-
ager sought with excellent international development, project
management, and training skills to manage Building an Inclu-
sive Development Community project. Qualifications; BA/BS.
MA/MS strongly preferred; 2 yrs field-based exp in international
development; 5 yrs project management exp, passion for em-
powering people with disabilities in international contexts. Send
cover letter, resume and references to crothvinson@miusa.org.
Position open until filled. Details online at www.miusa.org.
Sr. Director, International Operations
Washington, DC
The international development programs office of World
Learning seeks a Sr. Director for International Operations
to provide overall strategic and operational leadership for
all international development programs in terms of donor
accountability (reporting), finance, internal and external
compliance, project initiation/closeout and administration.
The Sr. Director works in close coordination with the Controller
and CFO to ensure the finance and compliance health of the
international development portfolio. The Sr. Director is a
member of the senior team and will be involved in setting the
overall strategic direction and management approach for the
entire international development business unit. The Sr. Director
reports to the SVP for International Development Programs.
Qualified candidates will have a Master’s degree in finance,
accounting or management; min. 17 yrs exp. In relevant positions
in management with an international focused organization,
ideally from both a home office/field office perspective, 3 yr or
more living and working overseas highly desirable.  Please apply
to recruitment@worldlearning.org Complete job description
can be found at www.worldlearning.org
Director of Disaster Response
Seattle, WA
World Concern, a recognized and experienced international
Christian disaster response and development organization, is
seeking a Director of Disaster Response to prepare for, direct and
support disaster responses. World Concern responds to natural,
man-made and complex emergencies throughout the world.
The Director will develop policy and procedures for respond-
ing to disasters. In addition to managing responses, the Direc-
tor will provide technical consultation to Regional Directors and
develop partnerships with other agencies and donors. Requires
BA degree plus 7 years of proven success in international disas-
ter response management, leading multi-cultural teams, able
to design, present and execute strategic plans. Solid successful
record of obtaining large scale funding from USAID, USDOS or
other USG entities. Seattle-based, travel 30% in unstable condi-
tions. Documentation proving legal right to work in the US will
be required upon hire. Apply at http://www.worldconcern.org/
NETCOMMUNITY/Page.aspx?&pid=929&srcid=427.
To advertise, call 202-667-8227 ext 548 or email publications@interaction.org MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008
Program Manager II- Livelihoods & Disaster
Risk Reduction Coordinator
Baltimore, MD
Catholic Relief Services. Provide strategic direction, oversight
and leadership to a team of national staff to manage the trans-
formation of CRS’ IDP Camp Support and Facilitating IDP Returns
and Reintegration program; focused on IDPs to a broader liveli-
hoods approach that centers on strengthening communities of
return, incorporating elements of reducing and mitigating risk
to man-made and natural disasters. For a complete job descrip-
tion and to apply for this position please go to www.crs.org/
about/careers.
Editorial Associate
Washington, DC
Friends of the World Food Program is seeking an Editorial
Associate. This position will be Friends’ writer/editor with primary
responsibility for developing and managing print and electronic
communications. Candidate must have a bachelor’s degree in
journalism, communications or related field, minimum of two
years’ experience in a journalism or public affairs position with
writing and editing responsibilities, familiarity with Associated
Press style, and strong computer sk ills. Ideal candidate has
working knowledge of Adobe Photoshop, InDesign and Acrobat
Professional, electronic communications and digital photo
file formats, editing and printing. To learn more visit: www.
friendsofwfp.org.
Director of Advocacy
Washington, DC
Refugees International. In close collaboration with the Vice Presi-
dent for Policy and program staff, The Director of Advocacy is the
lead campaign strategist for Refugees International to help ensure
that the agency achieves its overall objectives in its priority goal
areas. The position directly supervises staff focusing on advocacy
with the United Nations in New York and with Congress and the
administration. A full Job Description is found on the RI website:
www.refugeesinternational.org. Please apply by September 29,
2008 to jobs@refintl.com. Please put  “Director of Advocacy”  in
the subject line and include a cover letter, CV, writing sample and
references. Only finalists will be contacted to set interviews.
ad
eal! Job Ad Bundle!
at Place a job advertisement in
Wh Monday Developments and receive
25% off
an ad on InterAction’s
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Contact Michael Haslett at publications@interaction.org
37
 EmploymentOpportunities
Director, Mickey Leland International
Hunger Fellows Program
Washington, DC
The individual is primarily responsible for directing and manag-
ing all aspects of the Mickey Leland International Hunger Fellows
Program. In this capacity, s/he oversees program development;
host organization selection; fellow recruitment, selection, advis-
ing and training; and administration and budget. S/he is also re-
sponsible for overseeing the promotion of the program. This in-
dividual reports to the Deputy Director, manages the Associate
Director, and oversees other program staff. Extensive overseas
travel required. Masters Degree and 7 years of program manage-
ment preferred. Please visit our website at www.hungercenter.
org for additional information.

Reviewers
CultureGrams, a series of educational reports describing the cul-
tures of more than 200 countries, is seeking reviewers on a con-
tract basis. Reviewers receive $100–$300 for providing feedback
on the accuracy of an existing report. More than 80 countries
are available for review. Professional writing experience is not
required. Applicants must speak a national language, be well in-
tegrated in the described culture, and have lived in the country
for at least 2.5 of the last 4 years. Visit www.culturegrams.com/
submissions/reviewers.htm for more information and an online
application.

Senior Financial Officer

Silver Spring, MD
Medical Care Development International is seeking a Senior Fi-
nancial Officer for our office in Silver Spring, Maryland. The Se-
nior Financial Officer serves as primary liaison between the In-
ternational Division Financial Unit, the corporate office Finance/
Accounting department, and Field Office finance staff. The posi-
tion requires 7-10 years experience in a relevant business setting
of which five years must be in the management of USAID grants/
contracts and/or multilateral development bank contracts. Ex-
perience with the application of technical accounting principles,
management of the accounting cycle, and familiarity with OMB
133 audits is a must. A BS in accounting/finance is required. E-
mail cover letter and resume to mcdi@mcd.org.

Senior Health Program Officer

Silver Spring, MD
Medical Care Development International is seeking a Senior
Health Program Officer for our office in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Senior Health Program Officers lead the Program Support Team
for their assigned field programs. Qualified candidates must have
a minimum of an MPH (or equivalent) with five to ten years of
experience in international health (at least two years in a devel-
oping country setting); significant technical capacity in malaria
prevention/control and/or in maternal and child health; signifi-
cant health program management experience under contracts
with USAID/World Bank/Global Fund; demonstrated ability to
manage the proposal writing process; competency in Microsoft
Office Suite; and be fluent in English with capacity in French or
Spanish. International travel (10-25% time) is required. E-mail
cover letter and resume to mcdi@mcd.org.

38 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008 To advertise, call 202-667-8227 ext 548 or email publications@interaction.org
To advertise, call 202-667-8227 ext 548 or email publications@interaction.org MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008 39
40 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008 To advertise, call 202-667-8227 ext 548 or email publications@interaction.org
To advertise, call 202-667-8227 ext 548 or email publications@interaction.org MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008 41
 “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex,
and more violent. It takes a touch of genius— and a lot of
courage—to move in the opposite direction.”
—Albert Einstein, at whose suggestion the IRC was founded

PETER RUOT | Education

South Sudan

It takes the best to prevail against

the worst of crises.

To join us, please visit: theIRC.org/Jobs

42 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008 To advertise, call 202-667-8227 ext 548 or email publications@interaction.org
 SKILL
AND
PASSION
AT WORK
Current
Openings
Reproductive Health Manager
Chad

Health Coordinator
Chad

Senior Gender Based Violence

Program Coordinator
Kinshasa, DR Congo

Grants Coordinator
Sudan

Chief of Party
South Sudan

Deputy Director of Operations

South Sudan

To learn more about working

with us, please visit

theIRC.org/Jobs

To advertise, call 202-667-8227 ext 548 or email publications@interaction.org MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS September 2008 43
1400 16th Street, NW, Suite 210
Washington, DC 20036
Phone: (202) 667-8227
Fax: (202) 667-8236
publications@interaction.org
www.interaction.org

InterAction is the largest alliance of U.S.-based international

development and humanitarian nongovernmental
organizations. With more than 160 members operating in every
developing country, we work to overcome poverty, exclusion
and suffering by advancing social justice and basic dignity for all.