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Psychological First Aid and Psychosocial Support in Complex Emergencies


08/09/2017

On 8 September 2017 the Red Cross of Serbia organised a workshop as part of the EU supported project “Psychological First Aid and Psychosocial Support in Complex Emergencies”. The objective of the workshop was to facilitate exchange of experiences and good practice examples from this area of work through analysis of emergencies arising in Serbia over the past several years (flooding, earthquakes, landslides and migrant crisis). The workshop participants also talked about particular challenges and opportunities to overcome them as well as about the need to organise help to helpers. 23 representatives of various institutions working in emergency response participated in the workshop. In addition to the Red Cross of Serbia representatives, the workshop was attended by representatives of the Ministry of Health, Institute for Public Health “Dr Milan Jovanovic Batut”, National Institute for Social Welfare, World Health Organisation, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Faculty of Security Studies, Faculty for Media and Communication, Belgrade Institute for Gerontology and Palliative Care and Caritas. The State Secretary from the Ministry of Labour, Employment, Veteran and Social Affairs, Mujo Mukovic was also present, as was Angelika Scherzer, the representative of Austrian Red Cross – the organisation coordinating this regional project.

The Red Cross of Serbia is one of the partners in the project, with the others being University Innsbruck, Croatian Red Cross, Italian Red Cross, Macedonian Red Cross and Slovenian Red Cross. The project has a two year timeline and aims to improve the capacities of the Red Cross and partner organisations to respond to emergencies. This will be achieved through improving the competencies of staff and volunteers to provide psychological first aid and psychosocial support.