The Silent Crisis: The mental health pandemic amongst aid workers

Starts On: 24th February 2022 02:00 pm
Ends On: 24th February 2022 03:00 pm

Delivery Mode: online
Event Fee: Free
Event Type: Webinar

Event Description:
The correlation between humanitarian aid work and mental health disorders (MHD) has been well documented. However, despite improvements in guidelines aimed at protecting aid workers, there is still a worryingly high prevalence of MHDs amongst this population and subsequently some of the lowest staff retention figures of any industry. Our webinar on 24th February at 2PM (GMT) / 3PM (CET) / 9AM (EST) will dive deep into the state of mental health amongst aid workers. The mental health problem is real and certain places such as South Sudan see a prevalence rate of 24% for PTSD, 39% for depression, 35.5% for hazardous alcohol. This has a direct impact on the aid work itself, studies have shown 63% of aid workers who had experienced mental health problems believed that it had negatively impacted their work, and a further 79% had considered leaving the aid industry altogether. With no humanitarian specific stress model, how can aid organisations turn the tide on this mental health pandemic? This webinar will invite a panel of experts to discuss the growing mental health pandemic in humanitarian aid work. Our panel will formulate realistic action points to inspire meaningful change within aid organisations such as the UN, Red Cross/Red Crescent and NGOs to reduce staff mental health disorders and protect aid workers. Register for the webinar here.

Discussion points and solutions from the webinar panellists and live audience will be collected and drafted into a ‘letter of recommendation’ to be presented to the leading aid agencies. When completed, the document will also be distributed to all live attendees of this webinar.