| FIELD REPORTS |
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| Year : 2010 | Volume
: 8
| Issue : 3 | Page : 245-254 |
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Psychological first aid pilot: Haiti emergency response
Alison Schafer1, Leslie Snider2, Mark van Ommeren3
1 provisional clinical psychologist working as a mental health and psychosocial support technical advisor for World Vision International. She is based with World Vision Australia's Humanitarian and Emergency Affairs Team
2 psychiatrist and international public health professional. She serves as Head of Programmes for War Trauma Foundation in the Netherlands
3 Scientist in the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse at the World Health Organisation, Geneva. He is WHO’s focal point for work on mental health and psychosocial support in humanitarian settings
Correspondence Address:
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None
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Psychological first aid (PFA) is an approach for providing basic psychological support to people in acute distress. It is now viewed as one of the primary early psychosocial interventions during, or immediately following, a crisis. World Vision International, War Trauma Foundation and World Health Organisation have developed a PFA guide for low and middle income countries (LAMIC) following acute emergencies. After the Haiti earthquake, World Vision International (WVI) undertook a pilot orientation to test the draft PFA guide and to provide some basic information on PFA for those assisting in an acute emergency. This paper documents lessons learned from the pilot within the Haiti context, including the use of brief PFA materials. The staff found PFA to be a useful, empowering approach to providing psychosocial support to people affected by the earthquake. One key lesson was that the full version of the draft PFA guide could serve as a comprehensive model (adapted to context), while a shorter version can be used as a generic resource in the immediate aftermath of an emergency. The draft PFA materials designed for LAMIC show promise as a resource for Haiti, and potentially other humanitarian contexts in the future.
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