A joint effort training of “Staff Care and Support for Humanitarian Actors” was held on 21 March 2018, conducted through Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Sub Working Group (MHPSS SWG), IOM Capacity Building Unit and Staff Counsellor of Humanitarian Hub.

A total of 29 participants from IOM, UNICEF, Plan International and Save the Children attended the session.

Staff care refers to self-cares and institutional responses to stress among humanitarian actors in particularly difficult and stressful environment.

It is also related to create a healthy and productive workforce, well-being among staff and improve the quality of his/her work by promoting cognitive, emotional, spiritual and physical health. In her opening remark at the training, the IOM MHPSS project officer Pauline Birot said “the objective of the training are to understand the important of managing staff care and learning from the local context of Northeast Nigeria, to recognize sources and symptoms of stress among the humanitarian actors and understand on how to manage the stress, and develop resilience and positive coping strategies, and know when to seek further professional support.” Participants considered the relevance of resilience and positive coping strategies for staff’s daily work, the important knowledge on identify the symptoms of stress and the useful practical self-help activity of breathing techniques and progressive muscle relaxation.