Psychosocial Intervention in Complex Emergencies: A Framework for Practice

Confusion exists about what psychosocial interventions are
and what they are not, about whether they achieve their goals,
whether they do harm rather than good and about what
principles should guide good practice of agencies. There have
been many debates about these and other issues amongst
practitioners in the field as well amongst academics who are
involved in developing and evaluating psychosocial
interventions. The confusion has been increased through the
existence of countless projects and interventions that describe
themselves as doing psychosocial work, yet have little in
common with one another. The absence of a common framework
that agencies can refer to when they want to initiate
psychosocial interventions has meant that agencies often find
themselves alone in their decision-making. In order to gain
clarity on some of these questions and to help agencies who
want to work in the field the Psychosocial Working Group (PWG)
was formed in 2000. The group has set about the task of
developing a common framework that summarises key
knowledge in the field and provides agencies with some ‘tools’
for making decisions about the type of interventions they can
implement. This document is a short account of the framework
that the PWG is proposing.