FIELD REPORTS

This article describes a mental health program in the Aceh Province, a conflict area in Indonesia, after the tsunami. The intervention aimed to normalize community life, through activities such as the construction of a volleyball field and the organization of a tournament, as well as organizing talking groups to reinforce solidarity and mutual support. On an individual level, offering counselling services supported normalization. The beneficiaries appreciated the communities based group activities the most.

In the north eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), an area affected by war and armed conflicts, a sensitization campaign about (coping with) traumatic stress has been carried out. This campaign has positively influenced the awareness of key community members to traumatic stress. In this paper, the campaign and its results are presented.

In 2003, a community based psychosocial programme for children in Iraq was started. Psychosocial activities were implemented in primary schools and in primary health care settings aimed at child mental health protection. This field report describes the programme and some of the difficulties that were encountered. It concludes that even in circumstances as difficult as they are in Iraq it is possible to run psychosocial programmes – if reliable partners are involved.

The author trained 49 peer counsellors in two refugee camps, over the course of 2004, and traced the impact of their work until the end of 2005 at the request of CARE International in Jordan. The article gives an overview of the training content and strategies, as well as the process of integrating peer counselling as a self-help tool into a community that is affected by ongoing stress and trauma.

Correction
The Use of Consensus Methodology in Determining Key Research and Practice Development Questions in the Field of Intervention with Children Associated with Fighting Forces; Intervention 5.2,124-129.
A typesetting error introduced some ambiguity in the above paper.

The 20 year conflict in northern Uganda between the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the Government of Uganda has resulted in a severe humanitarian crisis. Agencies working in the sector of psychosocial support over the years have developed a concept to work closely with community members who are made responsible for many of the community based activities. This article describes the experiences of these community volunteer counsellors (CVCs).

Asylum requests by victims of torture who have fled to the Netherlands are often rejected. In these cases, the torture stories of the asylum seekers have failed to convince officials judging their asylum request. The author studied the cases of asylum seekers whose claims were first rejected, but then supported by Amnesty International, and eventually, after a court appeal, received residency.

Colombia is one of the first countries in the world to implement the IASC Guidelines for Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Emergency Settings in the form of a ‘case study’. It was shown that the guidelines are in general terms applicable and adaptable to the Colombian context.