By Bruce Cochrane.
Growing numbers of disasters involving animals is fueling the need for standardized supports to address their negative psychological effects on responders.
"Human and Animal Welfare in Disasters-A One Welfare Approach" was discussed during the International One Welfare Conference in September in Winnipeg.
Dr. Gary Vroegindewey, the Chair of the OIE Ad Hoc Committee on Disasters, says we are only starting to understand the long term psychological stresses on responders to disasters involving animals.
Dr. Gary Vroegindewey-OIE Ad Hoc Committee on Disasters:
Two things need to be done to address the psychological issues that are involved with animal response particularly in livestock associated events.
One is to institute required training before the event.
Training seems to be ad hoc.
Some people will get some good in depth training, some may get just in time training, some may get none at all.
It should become a requirement that individuals have training to build psychological or behavioral health resilience before an event.
Things need to be put in place from an organization and operational standpoint that gives support and allows people to be able to have rest cycles, that allows them to relax, to move away into quiet areas, to be able to switch jobs.
Those that are happening somewhat on an ad hoc basis need to be institutionalized and put into standard operating procedures.
Finally we need to look at what sort of supports that they have available after they've been involved in an event.
Then for each of those, the pre-event support, in event support and post event support, we need to do some studies and comparisons to see what best practices are really in place to mitigate the effects and avoid the effects as we go forward.
Dr. Vroegindewey says the long term behavioral and psychological health of those involved in and who respond to disasters involving animals is a real issue that is becoming more recognized.
Source: Farmscape