Institute Focuses on Global Support
 One of the core values in the Headington Institute’s mission statement is Responsibility. We feel a responsibility to direct our greatest efforts to local, national staff in countries where few resources exist.
There are at least two reasons we chose to adopt this particular goal. First, at least 80% of humanitarian workers are nationals in the country where they are working. One of the largest relief organizations, for example, employs approximately 500 international and almost 11,000 local staff in about 100 countries. In today’s global context, the ongoing success of most humanitarian organizations will depend less on the presence of skilled international staff and more on an organization’s ability to identify, recruit, and properly support local staff and their families.
Second, the available research suggests that national staff experience psychological distress at rates at least as high as those found among expatriate staff, and often higher. This is hardly surprising. In addition to the stress associated with their role as helpers, national humanitarian workers have usually survived whatever environmental or man-made disaster necessitated humanitarian assistance in the first place.
During the past several months, the Institute has had the privilege of helping support national staff members in several different areas of the world:
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In late May, Headington staff helped facilitate a retreat in Northern Indonesia for 30 Indonesians working in tsunami recovery and refugee assistance projects.
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In July, Headington staff facilitated a three day training and counseling retreat for 20 Haitian humanitarian workers in the Dominican Republic.
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In August, Headington staff traveled to Kenya to provide several days of training for Kenyans working to process refugees from all over East Africa. In that same trip, we also offered our first five-day Helping Kenya’s Helpers series of workshops and counseling sessions for mental health professionals from East Africa.
Thank you for your interest and support, as we continue to provide training and counseling services where they are most needed.
So Far This Year ...
The Headington Institute has:
- Provided hundreds of hours of orientation, counseling, and debriefing to humanitarian staff working in crisis situations.
- Conducted 13 training workshops on traumatic stress in humanitarian work.
- Completed Helping Kenya’s Helpers, a five-day training and counseling series in Nairobi for 40 mental health professionals and pastors in East Africa.
- Facilitated two retreats in Indonesia for humanitarian workers doing tsunami-relief work.
- Facilitated a retreat in the Dominican Republic for humanitarian workers in Haiti.
- Facilitated a retreat for a number of domestic relief workers involved in the Florida clean-up.
Also in the News...
- The Clinical Associates Program is underway! We have begun recruiting qualified candidates to join our counseling team.
- Dr. Lloyd McKay has agreed to join the Board of the Headington Institute. Dr. McKay is currently consulting for the World Bank in Somalia.
- See the latest Headington Institute Briefing, Helping Kenya’s Helpers, on our website …
From the Executive Director
 This is a photo of our youngest Headington Headlines reader, my two-year old son, Jonathan. He’s no doubt wondering what my face is doing there on the previous edition of our newsletter. (Just wait until he sees this one!) In our work with humanitarian relief and development personnel around the world, we’ve found that family relationships remain the single most important source of strength and purpose.
You can imagine the impact of frequent travel, illness and exhaustion, and emotional fatigue on these precious relationships. That’s why we regularly provide workshops and counseling sessions to promote strong family ties. We also work with humanitarian organizations to ensure that they adopt “family friendly” policies and practices. By helping relief and development personnel build strong marriages and relationships with their children, we’re enabling them to maintain the emotional hardiness and resilience needed for their work. We are doing all we can to help humanitarian workers care for their loved ones at the same time that they offer aid to victims of disaster and tragedy. Thanks for helping us help them help others. Jim Guy
Helping Red Cross Volunteers
As we focus on helping the helpers around the world, the Headington Institute is also supporting the helpers in our own neighborhood.
Recently, the Headington Institute facilitated a day-long workshop on The Role of Personal Spirituality in Understanding and Coping with Traumatic Stress for the Disaster Mental Health Team of the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Chapters of the American Red Cross. There were approximately 30 participants.
This workshop, supported in part by a grant from the Bank of America, focused on the different ways that humanitarian disaster work can impact an individual’s spirituality and values.
It is almost impossible to do humanitarian work without it affecting your worldview and spirituality, your sense of what’s important to you in life. Personal spirituality is a powerful asset in the struggle to understand and cope with traumatic stress. This workshop explored the positive and negative impact that traumatic stress can have on personal spirituality to help humanitarian workers prepare to meet and grow from the spiritual challenges inherent in their work.
Another Challenge For Us
The Headington Institute recently received a $30,000 grant from a major U.S. foundation for general operating expenses during the 2005/2006 fiscal year. Half of this grant is a “matching challenge.” This means that $15,000 needs to be matched by gifts and donations from other sources in order to be awarded. If we can meet this challenge, this will bring the total amount raised to $45,000!
Grants and gifts that cover operating expenses are particularly helpful for the Institute. They allow us to be strategic about planning and quickly executing projects we feel will be the most useful in supporting humanitarian workers around the world.
If you would like to help us meet this challenge please visit our website for more details about how you can give a gift online or by check.
Thank you for your ongoing interest and support.
Counselors Associated with Relief and Development
 The Headington Institute is in the early stages of developing the CARD Directory - an online directory of qualified and experienced counselors interested in supporting humanitarian relief and development personnel.
In a crisis situation, it can be very difficult to quickly locate trained and experienced counselors, especially in many of the countries around the world where humanitarian organizations are most active.
There is a great need to improve the availability and quality of information about the location and existence of such counselors.
The aim of the CARD Directory is to serve humanitarian organizations around the world by providing useful contact details and basic information on training and international experience for counselors interested in supporting humanitarian workers.
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The Headington Institute is a federally recognized nonprofit corporation with 501.C.3 status. All contributions are fully tax deductible. Please contact us for more information on how to become a partner in this important work.
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