Since 2007, the Centre for Refugee Rights (Australia) has provided workshops on community development and refugee rights to refugees from Myanmar (Burma). Described herein is one, five-day counselling training programme, which was one component of the workshops, developed for participants from community based refugee organisations who were living in New Delhi and in Aizawl, Mizoram. The author presents an approach to teaching counselling, both within a workshop format, and a refugee context. The components of the counselling workshop are outlined, followed by the author's reflections on providing a counselling training in this context.

Modern day Bosnia suffers from widespread ethnic segregation, solidified by the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords that ended the Bosnian war. This has resulted in a lack of intergroup contact and the deepening of ethnic divisions. Using the ‘contact hypothesis’ that was developed in the field of social psychology, this article highlights the need for intergroup contact as an essential element for reconciliation initiatives, and addresses challenges to intergroup contact in the Bosnian context. The author suggests three practical ways to improve meaningful intergroup contact in Bosnia and Herzegovina: 1) develop and support interethnic special interests groups that create a common ingroup identity among members of different ethnic groups in the pursuit of a common, overarching, cooperative goal;2) increase knowledge of ‘the other’, for example through interethnic education for youth and young adults; and 3) the productive use of intergroup problem solving workshops for grassroots community leaders, supplemented with public communication training for participants not already in a position to have their voices heard by their communities. Initiatives, such as these, can contribute toward eventual reconciliation among the ethnic communities in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

A major feature of the Liberian conflict was the extensive use of children as soldiers. In 2003, by the end of the conflict, thousands of former child soldiers were in need of urgent economic empowerment, and social and psychological support. This paper examines the various methods employed in providing support for these children by the relevant stakeholders. The study was carried out through field research, conducted in Liberia, which involved direct observation, interviews with various stakeholders and questionnaires administered to former child soldiers. It was found that educational support, skills acquisition and family reunification are the main methods of reintegrating former child soldiers in Liberia. These methods face a number of challenges, such as funding, inadequate infrastructure in the educational sector, weak economic capacity of families to support these children, and ineffective follow up mechanisms by implementing agencies. Therefore it is recommended, among others, that adequate funding of the educational sectors and provision for poor families in the reintegration programme will assist in keeping former child soldiers within their immediate families. Also, specific programmes should be designed to reach out to the children that cannot be absorbed into a family setting.

In the past decade, evidence-based practice has led to a more critical approach towards professional practice in the humanitarian working field. Many agencies have increased their capacity and resources to research intervention effectiveness and programme impact. When evaluating psychosocial interventions, practitioners and researchers are often not only interested in intervention outcomes, but also in the external factors that influence effectiveness, the intervention process and the views of its beneficiaries. This requires a practice-driven approach that takes into account the (cultural) reality in the field, collects relevant process information and provides a framework to reflect the views of the participants. This paper explains how War Child Holland developed a participatory Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) tool to evaluate I DEAL, its psychosocial life-skills intervention. The aim of the tool was to research intervention effectiveness by collecting process information with children as the key informants. The participatory M&E tool comprises a range of qualitative and quantitative measures, such as setting personal goals, themed quizzes, module evaluations and impact mapping. The tool was piloted with 510 children and 120 parents in Northern Uganda. It was found that the M&E tool has potential to strengthen ‘evidence-based’ evaluative practice and to involve children in meaningful evaluation, but it was found to be difficult to gather more data for impact evaluation without further quantifying and expanding the tool.

Somaliland, in the Horn of Africa, declared independence from Somalia in 1991, but is yet to be internationally recognised as a sovereign state. The region has a significantly weak health sector, with poor service provision and scarce human resources for mental health, despite huge mental health need. Therefore, mental health care has been incorporated into an international health link (long term, mutually beneficial partnerships) between Kings College London and institutions in Somaliland, known as KTSP (Kings THET Somaliland Partnership). In addition to strengthening mental health skills and competencies within Somaliland, in the absence of any practising psychiatrists or specialist mental health nurses in the public sector, KTSP has promoted selected junior doctors (interns) to be mental health representatives in order to actively integrate mental health care into the existing health systems. This paper describes, in detail, the recruitment, roles, strengths and pitfalls of this strategy.

In order to increase access to mental health services in low and middle income countries, the World Health Organization has developed the mental health Gap Action Plan Intervention Guide (mhGAP-IG). This practical guide aims to assist non-specialised health workers in making clinical decisions for people with mental, neurological and substance use disorders. It is now a major challenge to get this guide implemented in all corners of the world. Therefore, this article provides an overview of different ways to convey the content of the guide to potential users. The author argues that ‘conventional’ training approaches, such as distributing printed versions of the guide and organising face-to-face (classroom) trainings, need to be complemented with other distribution channels such as e-learning, smart phone apps, SMS (Short Message Service) or voice platforms. Within the global mental health field, such new, simple and low tech solutions are rarely used, but other health fields offer feasible and inspiring examples of such use.

This field report offers some examples of donor related, and management induced, stress among local humanitarian staff in northern Sri Lanka. These examples were identified during staff care interventions held with a dozen nongovernmental organisations in the region. In this report, the authors discuss approaches to staff care. They conclude that individual, stress management focussed training does not adequately answer the needs of staff members (partially) burdened by unnecessary, work related stress. Concrete action may be based on staff members making and carrying out their own action plans for improving staff care, through using mechanisms of social support that are common within their own cultural environment.

Cet article présente une méthode de formation en counselling sous forme d’atelier dans un contexte de réfugié. Cet atelier de formation a été conçu pour des anciens réfugiés de Birmanie (Myanmar) vivant à New Delhi et à Aizawl, Mizoram, issus d’organisations communautaires de réfugiés. Cet article décrit le programme de formation en counselling de 5 jours, qui s’est inscrit dans une série d´ateliers sur le développement communautaire et les droits des réfugiés organisés tous les ans pour les réfugiés de Birmanie par le Centre pour les droits des réfugiés (Australie) depuis 2007. L´auteur de l´article expose tout d´abord les composantes de l´atelier, puis fait part de ses réfl exions concernant la fourniture de cette formation en situation de réfugié.

Este artículo presenta un enfoque para la enseñanza del counselling dentro de un formato de taller en un contexto de refugiados. Fue desarrollado para participantes, refugiados de Birmania (Myanmar), que viven en Nueva Delhi y en Aizawl, Mizoram, procedentes de organizaciones de refugiados basadas en la comunidad. El escrito describe el programa de counselling de cinco días de duración. Esta actividad fué uno de los componentes de una serie de talleres sobre desarrollo y derechos de la comunidad de refugiados que han sido proporcionados por el Centre for Refugee Rights (Australia) a los refugiados de Birmania cada año desde 2007. Se indican los componentes del taller de counselling, así como las refl exiones del autor respecto al desarrollo práctico de esta formación en el contexto de los refugiados.