Dedicated support

Supporting the supporters operates much like health and safety often does within an organization; it is everybody’s responsibility, considered in all we do, but to be most effective there are roles dedicated to creating and supporting the framework, expectations and systems, for raising awareness, providing training, monitoring levels and measuring the effectiveness of initiatives put in place. Likewise, staff support needs to be both systematically integrated and simultaneously attributed its own space with dedicated roles, resourcing and processes.

Building relationships, trust and an understanding of the local situation is a critical success factor of a dedicated staff support person. A dedicated person assigned by a funder across their funded organizations could play this role if it was clear that their role was to support worker wellbeing rather than representing any other funder agenda. In larger organizations, Human Resources might play a role, as it does for British Red Cross.

If there is no identified person looking at this… In the absence of anyone being identified to take care of people then they will just keep working. Diane Ryan – American Red Cross

Second someone to the team with the role of staff support; holding the staff welfare in mind with a good understanding of the work. Dr Rob Gordon - Consultant psychologist in emergency recovery

It’s not tacked onto someone’s role. It’s given credence with its own role. Sarah Davidson – British Red Cross