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Personal Resilience - Are your International Staff Prepared?

4 July 2011

Based on cutting edge research and clinical expertise InterHealth has developed a brand new psychological Resilience Briefing service....

What happens when you stretch an elastic band to its limit?
It will either return to its natural length but without its original bounce or it will snap.

Our psychological resilience reacts in a similar way when exposed to high pressure and demanding environments.

The role of the relief and development worker is challenging. Testing conditions are experienced and human adversity is witnessed on a daily basis. Those on the front line deal with great pressures and demands, risking both their mental and physical health. As a consequence, evidence based studies now recognise that the psychological resilience of those working in these extreme settings is of paramount importance.

Many of our aid organisation clients have requested a new clinical service that will help them to support and strengthen the personal resilience and psychological health of their staff and volunteers. Based on cutting edge research and clinical expertise InterHealth has developed a brand new psychological Resilience Briefing service. This is designed to support the personal resilience of individual relief and development workers in the field.

The nature of our new service is threefold:

1) The self assessment resilience briefing is completed by the aid worker. This is based on five key areas which have a direct affect on psychological resilience.

• An individual’s psychosocial support network.
• The meaning and an individual’s motivation for undertaking an assignment
• Their adaptability and resourcefulness
• Their health and wellbeing
• Their personal preparation for the upcoming assignment.

2) The resilience briefing is reviewed by InterHealth’s specialist clinical team.

3) A tailored and helpful report is provided for the individual, and for them to share with their agency.

How it will help your staff?

Our new clinical service is designed to assist relief and development workers deliver the best quality work on the field. The Resilience Briefing will provide an opportunity for your staff to reflect upon their personal resilience and their ability to adapt, identify and make changes in areas of weakness. We envisage that our service will help those working in an international humanitarian and development setting come to terms realistically with stress and challenging situations; including the ability to adapt mentally to permanent loss and change which is an inevitable part of front line work.

The International Society of Travel Medicine Conference 2011, and the launch of our Resilience Briefing

Annie Hargrave, InterHealth’s Director of Psychological Health Services launched our new clinical service at the International Society of Travel Medicine conference in Boston in May 2011. The positive response was overwhelming. Our pilot Resilience Briefing will end in November and are service costs £85 for subscribers and £120 for standard clients.

If you would like to learn more about our Resilience Briefing, please contact our Client Relations Executive, Leanne on  [email protected] or call 020 7902 9006.


 

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