Colleagues across Borders
Colleagues Across Borders was established in 2013. It is a small project within Pásalo. It provides, via remote platforms, professional support and mentoring for refugees who, since leaving their home countries, have trained as psychosocial workers, interpreters and teachers, and who have been affected by their traumatic experiences.
Colleagues Across Borders was established in 2013. It is a small project within Pásalo. It provides, via remote platforms, professional support and mentoring for refugees who, since leaving their home countries, have trained as psychosocial workers, interpreters and teachers, and who have been affected by their traumatic experiences.
This intervention is delivered pro bono via Skype (and other remote platforms), by senior mental health practitioners, interpreters and teachers who act as mentors to recently trained refugees. The intervention is a conversation between the mentors and the mentees. Because all of this work can be done with remote platforms there are no unnecessary expenses due to people travelling and having to be accommodated, which can cause problems for the host countries. It also means that these conversations can be conducted from the mentors' and mentees' homes and fit easily into their schedules.
The support we offer in these conversations, includes information-sharing ranging from models of trauma and loss, to glossaries of medical terms in different languages. The support also involves listening to the mentees’ own distress and frustrations and bearing witness to the sense of despair and inadequacy that accompanies those who are trying to help in desperate circumstances.
Although Colleagues Across Borders began with an attempt to support psychosocial workers, it soon became clear that much of the psychosocial work is conducted with interpreters. And interpreters have similar experiences. Interpreters are their clients’ voices. Their role is crucial – sometimes life-saving. But the impact on them is often overlooked and they have few outlets and relief from the work.
In 2016 we trialled a project providing similar remote support for interpreters working for Medical Justice – which is an organisation that provides medical help to immigration detainees. That project continues, and other collegiate pairings with refugee interpreters working in the Arab world, are taking place. A report on the project can be found here: Self-care as an ethical responsibility: A pilot study on support provision for interpreters in human crises
The support we offer in these conversations, includes information-sharing ranging from models of trauma and loss, to glossaries of medical terms in different languages. The support also involves listening to the mentees’ own distress and frustrations and bearing witness to the sense of despair and inadequacy that accompanies those who are trying to help in desperate circumstances.
Although Colleagues Across Borders began with an attempt to support psychosocial workers, it soon became clear that much of the psychosocial work is conducted with interpreters. And interpreters have similar experiences. Interpreters are their clients’ voices. Their role is crucial – sometimes life-saving. But the impact on them is often overlooked and they have few outlets and relief from the work.
In 2016 we trialled a project providing similar remote support for interpreters working for Medical Justice – which is an organisation that provides medical help to immigration detainees. That project continues, and other collegiate pairings with refugee interpreters working in the Arab world, are taking place. A report on the project can be found here: Self-care as an ethical responsibility: A pilot study on support provision for interpreters in human crises