Basic assumptions

The goal of the training program is to improve the psychosocial climate of the school. A well functioning school offers a safe, supportive and motivating environment for all students. It also provides some basic psychological and psychosocial assistance to children with special needs, and to those who are traumatised.

This manual describes a psychosocial program for teachers in areas of armed conflict. It was developed within the framework of Slovene Philanthropy and carried out in Slovenia with Bosnian refugee teachers. During the war I also worked with teachers in Bosnia. Later, CARE International implemented the program in Kosovo, and in North Caucasus. After the creation of the Foundation ‘Together’, the program was adapted to post conflict circumstances to be implemented in Bosnia, Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Kosovo, North Osetia and Iraq.

Introduction

It is a Sunday morning and the group gathers in a hotel that has seen better days, on the outskirts of the small town of Prizren, south of Kosovo and close to the Albanian and Macedonian border. It is last day of a psychosocial training seminar for teachers who have been working in the poor and war-affected area of Skenderaj, a province north of Kosovo. Inside the rooms, it may look quiet, but this is only an illusion.

Foreign experts are often distant and alienated from the host culture in areas where they are working. It is a difficult task to be involved in a proper manner and yet maintain boundaries. In Kosovo such a mutual involvement is known as ‘besa’. It is not something that can be learned intellectually, but has to be created through daily practice. This paper is a personal account of the ways I have struggled with the dynamics of the process during the supervision of psychosocial counselling teams in the field,.

Key word: supervision