Webinar on Watchful Waiting organised by VSE and ARQ
It is our pleasure to announce that Victim Support Europe and ARQ National Psychotrauma Centre are organising a webinar on Watchful Waiting Screening and early interventions after traumatic events. The webinar will take place on Tuesday, 1 March 2022, 14:00-16:00 CET.
The interactive webinar will promote the sharing of participants’ experience, and will also present several experts’ presentations. We are still awaiting final confirmation from speakers,
If you wish to participate, please register for the event via the following link. You will receive the Zoom link to this webinar in the coming weeks.
Watchful waiting
Watchful waiting is a practice of psychosocial support at times of a disaster or crisis. In the Annex of the EU Handbook for Victims of Terrorism, it is described as a way to monitor the needs of victims. Current approaches in crisis intervention and in mental health care sometimes recommend a period of ‘active monitoring’ or ‘watchful waiting’ as a first step in assisting individuals who deal with mild symptoms after a crisis.
Watchful waiting involves an active decision of a clinician and patient to not immediately treat the condition but, instead, to intermittently reassess its status after a certain period of time. It means keeping in touch with victims, and actively monitoring their wellbeing and recovery, informing them about possible support and offering/referring to support if and when they need it.
We know from research that most victims of disasters, terrorism or other shocking events recover on their own merit. Since immediate treatment may not always be necessary in resilient patients, watchful waiting may prevent over-treatment and reduce healthcare costs. It is often the first step in a stepped-care approach, in which subsequent treatment components are offered by order of intensity.
Some victims need professional support immediately, while for others it is not clear when or what kind of support, they will need.
Timely intervention is essential. Timely screening and care are necessary, but inappropriately-targeted therapy can compromise recovery and could even instigate post-traumatic stress symptoms, particularly if treatment is initiated before grief reactions subside.
Watchful waiting is a very sensitive practice. It is difficult to determine where exactly lies the threshold between intervention and the need for treatment. It is important not to fail to meet the needs of survivors, providing unsafe, inefficient, untimely and or unequal response.
In this webinar, we will discuss when watchful waiting is appropriate and how it can be put into practice. What should be done immediately after an event, and what needs waiting. Which conditions have to be met and how does it relate to quality criteria of psychosocial support: need-centeredness, safety, effectiveness, efficiency, timeliness and equity.
By presenting some examples of situations where watchful waiting has been applied in practice or how it is addressed in training professionals on psychosocial support, we will discuss the above-mentioned topics with an emphasis on the balance between resilience, specialised therapy and those affected by traumatic events.
