There is a dreadful war going on in Ukraine that affects a vast number of its inhabitants. Being confronted with violence, death, destruction, having to flee, losing relatives; it all is happening on an enormous scale.
Amidst this all there are mental health workers (psychologists, psychiatrists psychotherapists, nurses etc.) trying to help those affected. For them that is a formidable task. First of all, they themselves are often “victims”. Living in affected areas, having fled and/or being personally involved in or witness of shocking events. Furthermore, the various problems of patients will be more complex than usual: Possibly multiple traumatizing events, combined with acute stress situations and insecurities.
To support those helping the Ukrainians, ESTSS organizes supervision and intervision for these professionals with colleagues and ESTSS specialists. (See:
https://estss.org/psychological-treatment-recommendations-for-clinicians/). The goal is for MH workers to connect, exchange experiences and discuss with each other and an expert supervisor the work that they are doing, the problems they face and to ask advice. The focus is both on helping them to help others and helping them to care for themselves under these extreme circumstances.
For this activity, ESTSS is looking for a number of experienced specialists in the field of psychotrauma and/or acute stress, who are also experienced in conducting intervision or supervision sessions in (small) groups and are willing to do so for a group of Ukrainians for one hour every two weeks.
Time and day will be agreed upon with these specialists. The activities will be online in English with simultaneous translation to Ukrainian available.
This activity will be on a voluntary base, until the end of 2022. Possibilities for continuation will be evaluated.
If you are interested, please contact the ESTSS secretariat at secretariat@estss.org with ESTSS4Ukraine in the subject line.
