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In Brief: First-aid guide for mental health in a disaster
Photo: Courtesy Howe/SurfAid
The World Health organisation (WHO) has just launched a new publication detailing a first-aid style guide for humanitarian workers dealing with psychological issues. The main aim is to help those field workers who have been affected by natural disasters such as earthquakes, droughts and tsunamis.
“Knowing how to support someone who has just experienced a crisis event – to listen, to comfort and to help them regain control of their situation in practical ways – is key in crisis situations,” said Leslie Snider of the War Trauma Foundation. They, along with the group World Vision, helped write what they call the Psychological First Aid Guide for Fieldworkers.
WHO say the guide is designed to help humanitarian and emergency field workers to provide basic support to disaster affected people in distress, including relief workers themselves.
“This guide will enable us to rapidly scale up basic psychological first aid for adults and children throughout all our development and humanitarian emergency programming in almost 100 countries around the world,” said Stefan Germann of World Vision International.
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