(A54) EU Project: European Guideline for Target Group Oriented Psychosocial Aftercare-Implementation

Abstract

Although most victims of disasters recover on their own, a minority of survivors, uniformed services, and relatives develop long-term disaster related psychic disorders such as Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Especially this subgroup should receive timely and appropriate psychosocial help. In many EU countries is offered post-disaster psychosocial care by a variety of caregivers (i.e. professionals and volunteers, NGOs, church or commercial organizations). Therefore, European standardization of providing post-disaster psychosocial support is currently required. The presentation describes the project supported by the European Commission and named European Guideline for Target Group Oriented Psychosocial Aftercare – Implementation (EUTOPA-IP), supported by the European Commission. EUTOPA-IP has integrated two materials: German “Target Group Intervention Programme” and Dutch “Multidisciplinary guideline”, also with the experiences of experts in the area of psychosocial support from the EU countries. Main target is to develop a guideline for the uniformed services on the basis of the Multidisciplinary guideline for early psychosocial interventions, the adaptation of the Target group Oriented Intervention Program (TGIP) to the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) and preparation and implementation of training program for various professional groups. The project aims at standardization of psychosocial aftercare in case of disasters as well as at the development of European network based on current findings in psychotraumatology. Early screening, supportive context, early preventive and curative psychosocial interventions, management of interventions, implications for the clinical field and future research are topics discussed in the project. Project consortium:

• – City of Cologne (Germany)

• – Centre of Psychotraumatology (Germany)

• – Impact (The Netherlands)

• – Spanish Society for Psychotraumatology and Traumatic Stress (Spain)

• – Charles University in Prague (Czech Republic)

• – Capital City of Dusseldorf, Department of Public Health (Germany).