Global Integrators--24

Resilience for Global Integrators
Staying the Course

Rwanda, refugee tents circa 1994; photo credit UNHCR

We think that the time is coming for a diversity of colleagues to join together intentionally, visibly, and practically on behalf of global integration (GI). GI put simply is how we skillfully integrate our lives and values on behalf of the issues facing humanity. Likewise we think that the time is coming for colleagues to carefully reflect and act on what it means to be good global learners-practitioners--to seriously consider what it means to be what we are calling global integrators (GI-People).

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You can leave a comment and share resources
at the end of this entry and on our Facebook page for:
 Member Care Updates and Global Integration Updates.

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"Human resiliency is the ability to face reality: to engage with and grow through life's challenges and adversities via inner strength, social support, coping skills, and core beliefs/values including life purpose and spiritual meaning."
Kelly and Michele O'Donnell

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This entry focuses on the need for resilience in order to remain effective as global integrators. It is a reminder that GI Involvement comes with a cost, and sometimes a great cost to our personal stability, sanity, overall health, and  relationships via critical incidents, cumulative stress, etc.

Resilience is a protective factor of resilience (defined above) which is necessary to stay the course over the long-haul in GI. There are certainly so many more perspectives, principles, and resources that can be shared. We invite you to add some of yours via the comments section. It would also be very helpful to do a survey to assess what global integrators (and different types of global integrators) do to remain resilient.

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Member Care Update—November 2015
Resiliency Toolkit–Strengthening Ourselves and Others: This Update focuses on developing resiliency. It provides practical resources to  promote well-being and effectiveness (WE) for workers in mission, aid, and development as well as for member care workers themselves. The resources include brief assessments and articles–core items in a versatile toolkit to strengthen yourself and others. 
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Periodically we do special Updates that feature items to put in such a member care toolkit. Five past examples are archived HERE: 12/2009 Resiliency, 8/2010 Self-Care, 3/2012 Work-Life Balance, 1/2013 Cool Tools, and 10/2014 Creative Healing. We finish the Update with a reflection on resilience from Pearls and Perils of Good Practice ( excerpt below--available now as an ebook) as well as one of our favorite resiliency songs, Ready for the Storm.

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“For the mission/aid community, helping can often involve staying sane—and alive—in unstable, insane places....It is not that mission/aid work always deals with life-threatening experiences, of course. Rather it is just that helping to relieve the “maims and moans” of creation takes its toll. Mission/aid workers, like the people they are helping, have some special challenges and needs for resiliency...”(pp. 2,3)

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Headington Institute—Resources

“The Headington Institute partners with humanitarian relief and development organizations and emergency responders, before, during, and after deployment in order to ensure the wellbeing of individuals. Our team of psychologists, many with over 30 years of clinical experience, bridge cutting edge academic research with practical application at the field level, in order to strengthen the impact of humanitarian response and promote the long-term wellbeing of humanitarian personnel.” (from website) Some examples of their resources:

--Resilience

--Stress and Burnout

--Trauma

--Moral Injury (blog entries, quote below)

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“I became interested in moral injury a few years ago when I worked with military veterans who were struggling to make peace with things they had seen or done, sometimes more than 40 years after the fact. Moral injury…is defined as the lasting impact of participating in, witnessing, or failing to prevent something that goes against deeply held beliefs and values. People who are helping others during an emergency or after a disaster don’t have the same experiences as those who go to war, but the nature of this work can bring people face to face with human suffering and tragic outcomes. An emergency responder might be haunted by a life that could not be saved, or an accident that could have been prevented.” Lisa Finlay, Guilt and Shame: The Messy Part of Moral Injury, 20 July 2015

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and maintain a good sense of humor...

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Final Reflection

I finish this entry by citing a medley of quotes which appeared in my first entry on Global Integration, back in  January 2015. The quotes are basically exhortations to help us stay the GI course with integrity and skill.
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"Persevere as you pursue areas that you are passionate about and stretch yourself into new areas of interest as part of life-long learning.  As in most human enterprises, there can be political agendas, power dynamics, territoriality, and dysfunctional behaviors to navigate” (O’Donnell, 2012, p. 201).  Keep in the forefront the opportunities for “selfless moral struggle” in partnering with others (Patel et al. 2011, p. 90) and the “duty and choice to risk your own rights and well-being” on behalf of fellow humans (O’Donnell, 2011, p. 187). “Embrace lifestyles that reflect commitments to equality, justice, and wellbeing for all” (O’Donnell, 2012, p. 201). Develop your personal character and professional competence as a responsible global citizen committed to “seeing reality clearly… [including] physical and mental suffering due to human cruelty… [without giving up] our dream for a more loving and peaceful humanity” (Mollica, 2013, p.15). Connect with a supportive caravan of colleagues for your Global Integration journey in the service of humanity. Remember that in all you do and in whatever comes your way, “your task is to be true, not popular” (Luke 6:26, The Message)." 
 

Member Care and Lausanne 3: Blog Six

Managing Stress for Mission/Aid Workers:

Self-Assessment Tools

The Lausanne 3 Conference brought together some 4000 people this past October (2010) in South Africa. Here are excerpts from one of the seven MCA blogs on the Global Conversation portal at Lausanne 3.

The main question of this particular blog: How can we support mission/aid workers so that they are as healthy and effective as possible? Are sending groups doing a good job supporting their national/local and international staff? Yes, No, or Probably?!

(Video clip from Humanitarian Policy http://www.humanitarianpolicy.org/)

“Effective pre-mission training must begin with instilling awareness of the need for security and psychosocial support in the culture of organizations. Patched together, ad hoc, or solely programatic efforts will have only minimal impact. Security and support must be integrated, both structurally and functionally, into the mainstream of pre-field mission operations: mission planning, staffing, and budgeting.” Yael Danieli, Sharing the Front Line and the Back Hills (2002), p. 383

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Stress Assessment

Here is a stress assessment tool (13 items) from ta booklet by the International Federation of the Red Cross, Managing Stress in the Field (2001).  It is based on “The Relief Worker Burnout Questionnaire” in Coping with Disaster, 1999, by John H. Ehrenreich. http://helid.digicollection.org/en/d/Js2897e/6.html

Instructions: Rate each of the following items in terms of how much the symptom was true of you the last month. 0 = Never 1 = Occasionally 2 = Somewhat often 3 = Frequently 4 = Almost always

__1. Do you tire easily? Do you feel fatigued a lot of the time, even when you have gotten enough sleep?

__2. Are people annoying you by their demands and stories about their daily activities? Do minor inconveniences make you irritable or impatient?

__3. Do you feel increasingly critical, cynical or disenchanted?

__4. Are you affected by sadness you can’t explain? Are you crying more than usual?

__5. Are you forgetting appointments, deadlines, personal possessions? Have you become absent-minded?

__6. Are you seeing close friends and family members less frequently? Do you find yourself wanting to be alone and avoiding even your close friends?

__7. Does doing even routine things seem like an effort?

__8. Are you suffering from physical complaints such as stomach aches, headaches, lingering colds, general aches and pains?

__9. Do you feel confused or disoriented when the activity of the day stops?

__10. Have you lost interest in activities that you previously were interested in or even enjoyed?

__11. Do you have little enthusiasm for your work? Do you feel negative, futile, or depressed about your work?

__12. Are you less efficient than you think you should be?

__13. Are you eating more (or less), smoking more cigarettes, using more alcohol or drugs to cope with your work?

Total Score: (Add up scores for items 1-13)

Interpretation: No formal norms are available for this measure. Based on the content of the items, a score of 0-15 suggests the delegate is probably coping adequately with the stress of his or her work. A score of 16-25 suggests the worker is suffering from work stress and would be wise to take preventive action. A score of 26-35 suggests possible burnout. A score above 35 indicates probable burn out.

Notes:

**See the CHOPS Adjustment Inventory (in several languages) and other free assessment tools at our MCA Reality DOSE web site.

**See the 2010 update of the Operational Security Manual in Violent Environments, from Humanitarian Policy Network (download it for free---discuss and apply!)

Reflection and Discussion
1. What did you think about the video clip on safety for humanitarian workers? What were the main points and how effective was it?

2. Take the assessment tool above on stress assessment. What did you learn about yourself and how might you better manage stress?

3. How can some of the above resources be used in your setting?