Work in Progress: Rethinking domicide

Dr Mel Nowicki is a Lecturer in Geography at Oxford Brookes. She introduces her research, which she will present at the Work in Progress seminar on Thursday 29 November at 4.30pm:

I'll be discussing the concept of domicide, or the intentional destruction of home. Reflecting on research conducted in London and Dublin with a range of people, from squatters to formerly homeless families, the talk will focus on the ways in which domicide is enacted not solely through the physical destruction of or displacement from the dwelling, but socio-symbolically through the delegitimisation of particular groups' rights to home. I do so through examining the ways in which the idealisation of homeownership in particular justifies stigmatisation of those unable, or unwilling, to confirm to these idealised constructions of home. 

The seminar will be in Abercrombie, third floor, Student Hub/White Space. This is the last Work in Progress session this semester. All are welcome.

Humanitarian Evidence Week: Long-term impacts of shelter programmes

Charles Parrack writes:

Earlier this year, in 2018, CENDEP hosted a one-day workshop on longitudinal studies in shelter at Oxford Brookes University. Attendees came from a wide range of backgrounds with experience in the humanitarian sector, shelter and academia.

The topic has been raised in various shelter cluster and non-cluster meetings over several years. At the Global Shelter Cluster meeting in Geneva 2017, the Shelter Projects working group found strong interest in longitudinal studies and, as a result, proposed to advance discussions on a more organised approach to methodology, procurement, dissemination and sectoral learning/evidence.

Longitudinal studies are by no means a new concept; indeed, evidence shows them to be a part of other sectoral practice, however they are something that the shelter sector does not yet embed into its own practice. Why is this? Some thoughts from the workshop suggested the answer to be a combination of rapid agency staff turnover, funding challenges, a lack of accountability and perhaps a fear of sharing programme failures.

Photograph: © Patrick Brown/UNICEF/Panos Pictures

Why are they needed?

Discussion ranged over the following questions: How would impact measurement benefit the sector? How would it benefit affected communities? There was a consensus that the outcomes of impact studies would encourage institutional learning particularly if disseminated and shared as best practice. There is a need within the sector to see the long-term consequences of our actions; to understand how beneficiaries take ownership of shelter and how safety is enhanced or reduced after implementation. Following up on programmes, two years, five years or even ten years after completion can enable agencies to better understand and engage with issues of prevention, sustainability, resilience and cost-efficiency which can feed back into and improve future programming. Whether it is the original agency who carries out the study, or an independent organisation, it is important that the results consider the context both past and present and are not a biased representation. Consideration of the learning opportunities for affected populations, implementers and donors drew an extensive list in the workshop highlighting a strong benefit for many actors.

Methodology

Longitudinal studies involve repeatedly gathering data on the same focus area over a long period of time. The unit of analysis, that is what is being measured, can be a person, shelter, household or community. It is important the unit of analysis is confirmed and remains the focus of the study as the methodology’s most important aspect is being able to compare in order to fully understand change overtime. Time is the best test of a programme’s viability, effectiveness and sustainability.

Shelter is delivered in various forms, both soft and hard interventions, and it is not necessarily a structure in the physical sense of the word. Perhaps 90% of what the shelter sector delivers is provided to meet short-term emergency needs. It does not take into account the future long-term consequences and may therefore, be difficult to locate, let alone measure. With this in mind, discussion looked towards certain shelter interventions that are quick and common enough for us to be able to find out what their impact has been, for example, transitional shelters. Transitional shelters are intended to be transformative in their nature, therefore it may be possible for us to track their transformation. The question of how their transformation may be followed and what exactly we may want or need to understand generated further conversation. What was voiced by many was the role of the affected communities in longitudinal studies; that perhaps it is the residents themselves who document their own recovery and their qualitative data can be understood by agencies in a more quantitative way if preferred. Participation from affected communities must continue to happen to institutionalise the process of learning so we, as a sector, can continue to develop and improve programming that meets the needs of the user. For shelter in the context of conflict, the journey of displaced populations may offer the opportunity to study soft modalities in the form of long-term displacement.

Questions and challenges

As long-term studies are not standard practice in the shelter sector challenges and questions surrounding the implementation of such studies were raised:

-          What are the criteria for success?

-          Do long-term studies link with the localism agenda?

-          Changing the building culture takes time and is not part of the emergency     programme

-          How to fund studies with long-term intentions when the programmes are inherently short-term?

Conclusions

Long-term effects of shelter programming can be both positive and negative but these effects cannot be quantified in the end of a project evaluation; they require time to develop and change in response to the intended user. It is clear from this workshop and Global Shelter Cluster findings that many organisations have the willingness to carry out long-term studies, but do not have the time or indeed, the funding. Understanding the consequences of our actions will enable better design and implementation of improved shelter programmes for reduced costs and greater effectiveness.

The group suggested many ways we can measure shelter, from technical standards like the Sphere Standards to quantifiable measures like value for money; to less tangible, but just as important, indicators such as level of happiness and sense of ownership. The shortlist of these was; safe shelter and settlements, user satisfaction, enabling informed decisions, adaptability, saving lives and value for money. Uninterrupted sleep and beauty were shortlisted as overall proxy indicators of a successful shelter. In general, the discussants agreed that the Sphere Standards offered good indicators for identifying success when looking at; security, peace, dignity, security of tenure and protection from forced eviction.

Based on the day’s thoughts, it is likely that these studies would have a varied audience including funders, agencies and university courses with wide opportunities for learning and improving practice for all. Whether you prefer to call them ‘longitudinal studies’ or ‘long-term impacts’, the interest for putting them into action is strong and we look forward to continuing the conversation from the workshop.

Launching the humanitarian evidence guide

Photograph: © Patrick Brown/UNICEF/Panos Pictures

The Health in Humanitarian Crisis Centre (London School of Hygiene), the Alliance for Useful Evidence (Nesta), and Evidence Aid – with input with many collaborators from across the humanitarian and research community - have written a new practice guide to help humanitarian actors navigate the production, assessment and use of evidence in humanitarian settings.

                                                                                           

To celebrate the launch of the guide, we would be delighted if you could join us at one of three events on 21-22 November (Humanitarian Evidence Week).

21 November, 2pm: Save the Children, 1 St John's Lane, London EC1M 4AR. Speakers: Prisca Benelli (Save the Children), Jonathan Breckon (Nesta, Alliance for Useful Evidence) and Ben Heaven Taylor (Evidence Aid).

22 November, 11am: Parliamentary Launch, Houses of Parliament, Westminster, London. Speakers: Baroness Sheehan, Ben Heaven Taylor (Evidence Aid), Phil Davies (Evidence Aid) (tbc), and Jonathan Breckon (Nesta, Alliance for Useful Evidence) (tbc).

22 November, 5pm: University of Oxford (Kellogg College), 60-62 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6PN. Speakers: Prisca Benelli (Save the Children), Ben Heaven Taylor (Evidence Aid), and Kamal Mahtani (Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine). Chaired by Professor Carl Heneghan.

The Oxford event coincides with the timing of our Work in Progress seminar. This week's seminar is therefore cancelled and we urge those who are interested to attend the event at Kellogg College. Watch this space for further discussion of Humanitarian Evidence Week.

"Reciprocity is a human principle": Barbara Harrell-Bond as mentor and friend

Barbara Harrell-Bond and Fatima Hashmi

Fatima Hashmi writes:

The memorial for the late Dr Barbara Harrell-Bond is taking place on 24 November 2018, at the Simpkins Lee Theatre, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. It will be the perfect opportunity to celebrate her life and her pioneering work in refugee studies with her family, friends, colleagues and the millions of people whose lives were transformed, including mine. Writing this blog has been an emotional journey for me, but I want to share what I learned from her and how influential she was in my life.

I got to know Barbara in 2014, through the Development and Emergency Practice (DEP) Masters course at Oxford Brookes University. It was Richard Carver's human rights module when I was introduced to the name of Dr Barbara Harrell-Bond. Yes, as strange as it may sound, I had never heard of her, let alone know what a legend she was in refugee studies. Richard mentioned that the students could take the opportunity to intern with her, which will be very beneficial for us, particularly for our dissertations. I casually said her name to my friend who had recommended the DEP course. Given that my friend worked in UNHCR in Islamabad, his response was 'this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to work so closely with the pioneer of refugee studies’. It was exactly that!

The first day I met her was at her famous flat in Oxford for the induction as an intern for the Rights in Exile Programme. Her way of teaching involved watching videos and real-life testimonies of refugees, which I must admit have stuck with me to this day. Her unwavering dedication for the voices of refugees to be heard and for the protection of their human rights was so infectious that I spent the entire day at her flat, long after the induction was over.

As an intern, I quickly learned the importance of writing coherent refugee testimonies, which Barbara advocated endlessly. It was hard to be detached from the (most often unbearable) stresses the refugees’ experienced. Given her anthropological background, she had developed a unique way of conducting refugee testimonies. It was instead a life history interview. The moments considered not as significant by the refugees were the ones Barbara would delve into deeper. No doubt, the majority of the cases were successful because of this method of approach towards conducting testimonies.

Over the next few weeks, I witnessed Barbara’s generosity and her continuous compassion for refugees for whom Barbara provided her flat as a sanctuary or a transit point. The ones who found refuge at her flat never felt as though she was doing them a favour because she firmly believed that ‘reciprocity is a human principle!!’. They in return would help cook delicious meals and also became interns for Barbara. I also had the opportunity to meet many intellectuals, academics and refugees from around the globe over dinner parties at her flat.

Anyone who knew Barbara would agree to her love of spicy food. To thank her for how much she had transformed my life, I started cooking Pakistani dishes for her. One of her most favourite dishes was Chicken Biryani. But Barbara felt uneasy that I always brought her Pakistani food. In one of our email chats she wrote ‘I miss you but don't dare tell you since you ALWAYS cook and won't let me pay’. And in the same email she introduced me to Marcel Mauss ‘The Gift’ and her essay on ‘The Experience of Refugees as Recipients of Aid’. This is how she taught me, through real-life experiences, which I would then put to use towards my essays and my dissertation. I found her so fascinating that I wanted other students to learn from her as much as I was learning. Any opportunity I got or whenever a colleague, friend, a Hazara community member asked me anything related to the topic of refugees, I would introduce them to Barbara, and she helped them with the same vigour.

As I was spending a lot of time with Barbara, she realised that I did not have a car and to make it easier she even insured me on her daughter’s car. From that moment on, there were endless dinners, drives and long chats. She had so many fantastic anecdotal stories (from the most light-hearted, fun, quirky ones.... unique to her.... to the most serious). We went everywhere, from hospital visits for her eyesight to court visits for refugee hearings.

At Fatima's graduation

During my time as an intern, I had several amazing opportunities to learn as much as I possibly could in the short time that I knew Barbara. I remember how she would insist on making the most of her knowledge and her connections in helping refugees. Like with everyone else she knew, she was gifted in pushing people to achieve the best versions of who they can be. Barbara was also my mentor, who helped me not only in my dissertation but also throughout the Master's programme. Needless to say, she also came to my graduation ceremony. I remember I was upset that my parents were not able to attend and she simply asked me to mark the date and time on her calendar.

One of the first things she said to me was ‘you have to get a distinction if you want to do a PhD’. The thought of a PhD had not occurred to me until that day. Barbara became an important figure in my life, as she did with all the people who knew her. She had an infectious personality, I included her in all of my major life decisions, and she was always seriously involved in making those decisions together. Given her teaching career at CENDEP, Barbara suggested that I should pursue my PhD at CENDEP because of the excellent support structure I already had in place, regarding the supervisory team.

Another thing I learned from Barbara was that field notes were a significant source of documentation, which today thanks to Barbara, we have the Refugee Studies Programme Documentation Centre, specifically archiving such documents. When I was conducting my research on the Hazara community in Oxford, Barbara organised for my visit to the RSP Documentation Centre. As we all know, Barbara struggled with remembering names and appointments, but she never forgot the important events. For example, she remembered that there exists one such field note from Quetta on the Hazaras forced migration from Afghanistan to Pakistan. Rightly so, I found that document dated from the 80s. In fact, there is no mention about Barbara’s work with the Afghans. During the 1980s, with the escalation of the Soviet War, Barbara had travelled to Quetta to attend a historic meeting with the Mujahedeen, who had battled against the Soviets. She also mentored one of the most notable figures in Hazara literature, Sayed Askar Mousavi and because I was conducting my research on the Hazaras, she arranged for me to meet him.

All the interns gained tremendous knowledge from her and today most of them are working in the humanitarian field, particularly in refugee studies, including many in the UNHCR. I too had the opportunity to attend the UNHCR Annual Consultations with NGOs, the very first year Barbara had to miss due to her health and insisted I stayed with her son David and her daughter-in-law Brigitte in France. They welcomed me in their home as a part of their family. What I loved about her the most was how much trust and faith she had in all of her interns. We were her troops, getting ready to continue her legacy.

Barbara’s steadfast professionalism, astuteness, brilliance and pragmatism was always a joy to watch. When my parents met with Barbara, the first thing my father mentioned was how energetic she was for her age and were shocked to see her working round the clock, to which she responded, ‘I don’t believe in retirement!’. Rightly so, in one of her most recent emails, she wrote ‘I don't have lots of time yet, losing my voice and my eyesight!! So, use me while I am still here’.

Work in Progress this week: refugee hosting in Amman

Zoe Jordan writes:

Since 2015, Europeans have become more familiar with programmes that ask city residents to offer a spare room to asylum-seekers and refugees. Yet refugee hosting exists beyond the borders of Europe. In countries around the world, sharing accommodation with IDPs and refugees is a widespread and longstanding practice, offering vital support to thousands of people displaced by conflict and disaster. As humanitarian action moves increasingly into urban areas, we need to better understand how such community support mechanisms work and the impact of external actions on them, including the unintended consequences of humanitarian policies.  

In such contexts refugee hosting is rarely mediated by an NGO or other external facilitator. Rather, the people involved create these relationships, often independently or perhaps with some support from an organisation or institution already present in their lives – a religious organisation, a community leader, or a local group. In many cases, displaced people may live with extended family members, but this is by no means universal.  

My talk is based on research with young, single, Sudanese men living in urban Amman, Jordan. These men arrived without pre-existing connections, to an environment that is largely hostile towards them, where they receive little to no humanitarian support. Under such conditions, learning to negotiate the urban environment and forge their own support networks is essential. In this talk, I will explore how and where they make connections with their hosts, why they decide to live together, and how they experience living in a hosting arrangement. 

Time: Thursday 15th November at 16.30

Place: Abercrombie building 3rd floor, white space/student hub (Oxford Brookes University)

Please find details of the entire Work in Progress seminar series here.

Graham Saunders, 1961-2017

This obituary by Ian Davis, visiting professor at CENDEP, and Maggie Stephenson , independent consultant, first appeared in Disasters journal.

Graham Saunders, a prolific peer reviewer for and a very good friend of Disasters, died on 6 November 2017. He leaves in place the architecture of a humanitarian shelter sector that he developed and promoted over the past 20 years. His contribution is broad in scope, including institutional mechanisms for coordination and collaboration and a broader understanding of the significance of shelter for survival and recovery in crises.

In the messy world of shelter, housing, and settlements, Graham worked tirelessly to develop coherence and shared principles. He communicated the significance of where and how people live, to donors, governments, and the media, as well as to the people involved in planning and implementing shelter programmes.

Graham was committed to learning, and to mentoring young, new, and local people. He was dedicated to research, to sharing knowledge, to improving practice. He was sceptical of innovation for its own sake, of supply-driven solutions, and of high-cost ‘best practice’.

While those around him might have been overwhelmed by the acute and complex demands, Graham could always be relied upon to be strategic and positive in finding solutions and was boundless in his energy to implement them. His passionate enthusiasm, incisive intellect, and warm sense of humour were applied to any undertaking.

Born in London in 1961, Graham described his significant early influences in Humanitarian Architecture: 15 Stories of Architects Working after Disaster:

Neither of my parents had a professional background, although my father was an optical
craftsman and ingrained in me an interest in how things are made and the skills, tools, time
and application required. I was also certainly aware that the world wasn’t necessarily an
equal place, and that hardships could be experienced by family and friends as well as those
in the headline news. My mother grew up in London during the Second World War, in
the latter stages of which her home was bombed and she had to be dug out of the rubble.
She was effectively an internally displaced person for the remainder of the war and having
lost everything, was dependent on relief assistance to provide her and her family with clothing and temporary shelter (Charlesworth, 2014, pp. 157–172).

After studying Architecture at Liverpool University and the Architectural Association, Graham worked for Michael Hopkins and Partners from 1983–88, notably on the Mound Stand at Lord’s Cricket Ground. Later he worked with Roger Zogolovitch and undertook part-time teaching at the University of Cambridge.

A great cyclist and adventurer, Graham embarked on long trips in his twenties, including across Africa and Eastern Europe and remote areas of northern Russia, seeing first-hand the diversity of locally built environments, from Soviet apartment blocks to African huts, as well as the extent of need in many places for better housing, facilities, and services. His experience prompted him to seek opportunities to deploy his architectural expertise in development contexts.

Graham made a radical career change in 1993 when he signed up to work for CAFOD. He was posted to Tirana, Albania, to assist with rehousing former political prisoners and displaced people after the collapse of the Communist regime. In 1996, he was one of the first humanitarian construction professionals to work in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) after the end of the war, living there for eight years and dealing again with displaced people. His subsequent global role with CRS saw him eventually deployed in Nairobi, Kenya, leading projects such as the rehousing of families displaced by the eruption of the Nyiragongo Volcano in Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

In 2006, the IFRC was invited by the United Nations to form the Global Shelter Cluster, an inter-agency coordination mechanism to support people affected by crises by giving them the means to live in safe, dignified, and appropriate shelter. The Secretary-General of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) sought to appoint a person with the best global experience in the shelter and settlement field. The search inevitably led towards Graham. Graham accepted the challenge and set up the Cluster, together with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and co-led it for 10 years.

Graham played a vital role in helping architectural professional bodies to widen their focus of concern to the humanitarian field. His contribution led to the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) becoming a founding member of the Global Alliance for Urban Crises. On behalf of the IFRC, he supported the creation of the UK Built Environment Advisory Group, a collaboration between architectural, planning, and structural engineering professional bodies. In recognition of his engagement with the sector, Graham was made a RIBA Fellow in 2016.

As a strong advocate for research and academic partnerships, Graham contributed to the establishment of the IFRC’s Shelter Research Unit and partnerships with universities in Australia, Spain, and the United Kingdom. He was committed to accountability and collective responsibility, promoting the importance of measuring impact and outcomes in shelter interventions.

One of Graham’s greatest strengths was his unerring ability to analyse complexity, to consider the long-term consequences of any project, and to apply a developmental approach. He promoted a settlements approach to shelter and a multidisciplinary way of working. He built coalitions between emergency response and urban development, between education and practice, between businesses, professional bodies, and NGOs, between health, livelihoods, and housing. He always looked forward. He saw an urbanising world and urban crises as an opportunity to harness a wider range of actors and resources in humanitarian response, but he was also aware of the risks of fragmentation, frustration, and irrelevance and the increasing importance of coordination.

Perhaps Graham’s interest in exploring the wider context of every problem grew from his diversity of interests and his delight in relationships. His wife, Sarah, noted that he was:

extremely proud of the organisations he worked for and with, and the work he was involved
in. Most of all, he really enjoyed working and learning with people, whether team members
or programme beneficiaries. He also had many interests outside the office. His family,
books (his aim was to read every book ever written!), art, films, theatre, music, history,
and politics, getting out and about on his bikes and in his Triumph Stag soft-top classic
sports car, and watching a whole day’s worth of Tour de France, cricket test matches, and
endless rugby games.

At Graham’s funeral service, Tom Stewart, an architect in Berwick-upon-Tweed, noted that he and Graham cycled more than 17,000 kilometres together over the years, often sharing tears of laughter over the absurdity of the situations that they found themselves in when way off the beaten track.

Graham’s IFRC Shelter and Settlements Programme colleague, Sandra D’Urzo, underlined the rich human qualities he brought to his vocation and his commitment to the Red Cross and Red Crescent movement:

You always led by example: with your charisma, outstanding professional rigour, your contagious enthusiasm. You demanded much from us as a team, but first of all from yourself. You worked tirelessly, leaving your footprint in the major disaster responses, from Haiti to Pakistan, from the Philippines to African countries. If an initiative succeeded you would congratulate all of us; if it failed, you often blamed yourself and would try it differently. You would never give up. You would never let us down. . . . Be reassured that the legacy you left behind will continue and grow. Inspired by your example, new generations of architects will leave their well-funded jobs in London city to improve the living conditions of slums in Nairobi and rebuild after disasters.

Many more actors will join the shelter network you’ve started, and, in turn, thousands of families will have dignity and safer living conditions thanks to the alliances you built. Talented young professionals from less fortunate places will study in Oxford thanks to the scholarship established in your name.

Graham was particularly supportive of the work of the Centre for Development and Emergency Practice (CENDEP) at Oxford Brookes University and fostered a long-lasting and strong collaboration between CENDEP and the IFRC. Consequently, Graham’s family have expressed a wish to set up a scholarship in his name at CENDEP.

We wish to thank Graham’s family, friends and colleagues for their valued contributions to this obituary.

Graham is survived by his wife, Sarah Hargreaves, and their two children, Kezia and Joel.

Reference:
Charlesworth, E. (2014) Humanitarian Architecture: 15 Stories of Architects Working after Disaster. Part Three: Interview with Graham Saunders. Routledge, Abingdon.

If you would like to remember Graham Saunders by supporting a CENDEP student, please give online by going to: www.brookes.ac.uk/support-cendep

Safeguarding the welfare of detainees in police custody

John Kendall, Visiting Scholar at Birmingham Law School, writes about his Work in Progress presentation:

This seminar will look at the aftermath of arrest in the UK: detention by the police. This is a common experience for refugees everywhere. No special knowledge of UK criminal procedure is necessary for an understanding of the issues. 

The seminar explains what it is like to be detained in police custody - lengthy, boring, isolated, and risky; and why safeguards are needed. Some 25 detainees lost their lives in custody in 2017. Who is looking after the detainees? The police have that duty, but there needs to be a check. The police are largely self-regulated, and the only outsiders to get to see the detainees in their cells are custody visitors. They are volunteers, with no expertise in criminal justice. and they find it almost impossible to challenge the police. The visitors are not independent of the police, and the visitors are affected by the power of the police. The work of the visitors is ineffective, and this is the result of government policy. Radical reform is needed.

John Kendall is a retired commercial lawyer. Without any intention of writing about custody visiting, he worked as a volunteer visitor for three years. He found it puzzling, and he looked for academic treatment of the visiting scheme. As there was none, he decided to do the research himself. He wrote a PhD thesis at Birmingham University about the scheme, and his book is the result: Regulating Police Detention: Voices from behind closed doors, Policy Press 2018.

You can read more about his research here.

The seminar will be held in the student hub on the third floor of the Abercrombie building (Headington campus). Please see here for further details and for a list of the entire seminar series.

We Are Failing To Care For Our Aid Workers’ Mental Health: Evidence For A Poor Mental Health Culture Within Aid Organisations

AJ Jones (DEP 2017-18) writes:

“I’ve had many discussions with fellow aid workers who really feel this humanitarian response has not been very humanitarian to them” – Participant F

Photo by Maranatha Pizarras on Unsplash

Did you know, that as an aid worker today you are more likely than not to experience a mental health disorder as a result of your work? Burnout, primary and secondary trauma, depression and anxiety disorders are fast becoming the norm, and mental health problems are increasingly being seen as an occupational hazard. What is worse is that numerous studies show that when these disorders are not addressed they can lead to negative coping strategies, such as absenteeism, alcohol and drug abuse, and suicide.

This needs to change. But most organisations have been slow to respond to their staffs’ mental health needs despite the fact that everything we do for our beneficiaries is planned, monitored and evaluated through a psychosocial lens. Why is this, and why are we failing to care for our aid workers’ mental health?

To answer this I conducted an exploratory study into the mental health culture within some aid organisations by interviewing a range of aid staff. The study’s participants either worked, or had worked, for agencies in conflict and non-conflict settings all over the world, in a field or office-based role. Their responsibilities ranged from delivery level volunteer to country director. My research found that unhelpful donor and management attitudes were significant contributors in creating a poor mental health culture in most organisations, and that this culture acted as a powerful barrier to staff seeking help. 

The problems with poor donor and management attitudes

“One of the hindering points for having staff mental health services… is that they [the donors and management] focus on the beneficiaries overlooking the needs of the staff” – Participant A

In most aid agencies I observed a poor mental health culture. Specifically, I found that managers and donors had little-to-no understanding, or awareness, of mental health issues and their impacts on staff, and in most agencies I found a complete absence of any support or services for aid workers at all, especially among national staff and volunteers. Moreover, I found that most staff felt replaceable and this generated fears of discrimination in their roles or careers if they divulged a mental health issue. And in some aid agencies I found a worrying lack of mental health awareness in general, alongside the absence of any published information or studies about aid worker mental health to help inform and raise awareness.

Poor donor and management attitudes towards mental health were largely to blame for creating this culture. Many donors and managers either did not know enough about aid worker mental health to tackle it effectively, or had not considered it an area that needs addressing, or were not incentivised or interested in confronting it – this was especially the case in the Middle East where mental health is still widely perceived as a Western construct.

But it’s not all bad…

“My employers are very understanding… we have a very good director… he knows how to put our needs first” – Participant A

I was pleasantly surprised to see a positive culture in some organisations, and where staff mental health care is taken seriously it can have positive effects. When managers were supportive, understanding and proactive in addressing staff mental health care I observed positive outcomes. This ranged from informal and formal team bonding, to beliefs that aid work can be a positive experience, to reports of personal growth and recovery after suffering from a mental health illness. Some consequences of this positive culture were that services and support were made available, which staff could, and did, access; employees were more productive and loyal; and staff felt valued and rewarded for their hard work. This should, logically speaking, improve the organisation’s performance.

However, a positive mental health culture appears to be the exception rather than the rule, and this needs to change. If we want the aid we deliver is to be as effective as possible then we need to be doing more to address aid workers’ mental health. This starts with rigorous research informing positive action.

There is an urgent need for further research

First, we need to better understand why some donors and managers hold these attitudes towards staff mental health care. Second, we need to understand in what ways staff mental health care initiatives impact on overall organisational performance. Third, we need to conduct a larger longitudinal study. This research would provide valuable academic contributions to the wider debate on aid staff mental health, and raise awareness across all levels to help deconstruct poor mental health cultures across the sector.

We cannot continue as we are

It is no longer enough for organisations to have policies and services in place to react to disorders as they emerge; donors and managers need to create and maintain a proactive mental health environment in which mental health issues are understood and taken seriously by everyone, and help seeking is encouraged. This means fundamentally changing how some donors and managers understand and respond to staff mental health care, and this needs to happen soon. We cannot continue as we are, otherwise our beneficiaries, the aid we deliver, and the people who deliver it will all suffer a great deal more.