Facing Trauma in former Yugoslavia
by Rune Stuvland
Former Psychosocial Advisor UNICEF Area Office to former Yugoslavia
When the wars in former Yugoslavia began in 1991, UNICEF was returning to Yugoslavia over 40 years after we had last wrapped up its programmes there in 1950. With no recent experience of war in a European country and no programmes on which to build, we were starting fresh.
Psychosocial trauma counseling of children in war was also still a relatively new area of work for UNICEF. We were indeed starting from scratch.
In February 1992 I arrived in Zagreb as a guest researcher invited by Miomir Zuzul at the Faculty of Psychology, University of Zagreb. Croatia was already at war, and soon the war would spread to Bosnia and Herzegovina.
These were indeed strange times - counterparts from all sides of the conflict tried to convince us to accept their version of events as «the truth». In May 1992 I started a consultancy for UNICEF in Croatia. My wise supervisor in Geneva at the time, Bruno Martin, wanted me to see «the other side» of the conflict. So in July 1992 I participated in the first UN Inter-Agency assessment mission visiting Serbia and Montenegro. There we met with ministers in Belgrade who insisted that Serbia had played no role in the war. Yet on the tarmac of Podgorica airport the next day we watched as MIG fighter jets took off and headed towards Bosnia and Herzegovina.
 |
Tarmac in Sarajevo - Rune Stuvland and Reuven Gal |
Over the following three years I was busy establishing programs for traumatized and vulnerable children throughout the six countries that had emerged from Yugoslavia. We put the main focus on reaching children in the schools, because this allowed us to reach as many children as possible.
Starting from scratch had the advantage of forcing us to look outside UNICEF and the UN for partnerships with established academic institutes both international and local.We followed a similar strategy in all six countries. In cooperation with the respective ministries of education, we identified institutions and national expert teams. Typically this involved a Faculty of Psychology in the national university. We teamed these resources with each ministry of education and an international expert team. In turn, these partners trained school psychologists and teachers. In this way, we were able to make available at the level of the classroom the most modern methods and techniques to assist traumatized children. Schools were very pleased to work with these teams, as they faced every day large numbers of children trying to cope with stress and traumas. Teachers and school principals were themselves often traumatized by events around them. Giving them the tools needed to help their students allowed them to be active care-givers gave them a sense of purpose.
In Croatia Professor Atle Dyregrov of Center for Crisis Psychology in Bergen, Norway and his team worked with the national team. National experts in Croatia, and later also in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia provided significant inputs. This was especially true with their unique competences in areas such as art therapy for children.
In Bosnia-Herzegovina we cooperated with several international resource teams.
- In Sarajevo we worked with an Israeli team of psychologists led by Dr. Reuven Gal and had good financial cooperation with JDC, the leading global Jewish humanitarian organization. The Israelis worked well with their Muslim counterparts in Sarajevo and throughout Bosnia and were able to establish professional links and meeting points on all sides of the war. Along with the Israeli experts, we invited psychologists from all the different sides in the war to a joint training seminar in Israel.
- For development of social welfare institutions in Sarajevo we initially worked with the University of Cork, Ireland.
- Later with SIDA funding we developed a 3 year long project for strengthening these social welfare institutions. The Department of Social Work from the University of Stockholm, led by Professor Sven Hessle, provided the expertise. Swedish experts visited Sarajevo and national staff and experts in turn visited Sweden.
- In Mostar we worked with the Department of Psychiatry of the University of London, under the leadership of Professor William Yule. The University established a project office in Mostar and lived and worked in Mostar for several years.
What did we learn?
Our programmes throughout the six countries were successful, largely thanks to active participation of all levels, starting from teachers and social-workers up through experts both local and foreign.
A strong focus on practical and large scale projects is essential in reaching large numbers of children and their families.
War brings new and dramatic changes for all types of work with children. Teachers, health workers, and psychologists all need up-to-date knowledge about how traumatic stress impacts children and adults. They also need to know the importance of therapeutic activities and the best ways to offer these.
In addition to practical results, empirical components are important. In the case of former Yugoslavia what was learned by researchers and practitioners in the field later appeared in a number of scientific publications.
Cooperation with universities strengthens their awareness of field realities. This ultimately feeds back in the form of improved methodologies for work with vulnerable and traumatized children. All levels need this sort of feed-back - from university to ministry to teachers and social workers.
Writing this article brought up nice memories. After working in a few other missions after ex-Yugo, I must say UNICEF ex-Yugo was very special, in a positive way. After ex-Yugo, the most successful programmes in which I was involved were post earthquake recovery in Turkey in 1999-2000 and then in Bam, Iran.
Unfortunately, at the same time there was much skepticism in UNICEF towards trauma and psychology. I say ‘unfortunately, because a lot of organizational learning has been missed.
UNICEF could benefit from more researchers 😊But that is another story.
See Rune’s full album of photos from former Yugoslavia by clicking here.
Our programmes throughout the six countries were successful, largely thanks to active participation of all levels, starting from teachers and social-workers up through experts both local and foreign.
A strong focus on practical and large scale projects is essential in reaching large numbers of children and their families.
War brings new and dramatic changes for all types of work with children. Teachers, health workers, and psychologists all need up-to-date knowledge about how traumatic stress impacts children and adults. They also need to know the importance of therapeutic activities and the best ways to offer these.
Cooperation with universities strengthens their awareness of field realities. This ultimately feeds back in the form of improved methodologies for work with vulnerable and traumatized children. All levels need this sort of feed-back - from university to ministry to teachers and social workers.
Writing this article brought up nice memories. After working in a few other missions after ex-Yugo, I must say UNICEF ex-Yugo was very special, in a positive way. After ex-Yugo, the most successful programmes in which I was involved were post earthquake recovery in Turkey in 1999-2000 and then in Bam, Iran.
Unfortunately, at the same time there was much skepticism in UNICEF towards trauma and psychology. I say ‘unfortunately, because a lot of organizational learning has been missed.
UNICEF could benefit from more researchers 😊But that is another story.
See Rune’s full album of photos from former Yugoslavia by clicking here.
 |
| Our Sarajevo Team |
Comments
Post a Comment