Human Rights Committee

John Rolland

Kosovar Family Professional Education Collaborative

As part of the Kosovar Family Professional Education Collaborative, a second team, comprised of four AFTA members, Corky Becker, Jim Griffith, John Rolland (team leader), and Kathy Weingarten, plus Van Griffith, returned to Prishtina for one week, September 3-10,. It was an incredibly rich and intense experience. In short, we and our Kosovar colleagues feel the project really "took off."

To refresh memories, during the first visit in May and based on the training needs, we decided that the next four visits would have the following foci with issues of trauma and loss addressed throughout: (1) Family Assessment & Treatment Planning (9/00); (2) Brief Treatment Models & Techniques (planned 11/00); (3) Family Intervention: Child and Adolescent Mental Health, Issues of Substance Abuse (1/01); (4) Family Intervention: Chronic Mental and Physical Illness, Multiple Family Discussion Groups (planned 3-4/01). The September visit focused on the initial family interview/assessment and treatment planning.

Activities between first and second visits.

Training Activities. As our Kosovar colleagues decided at the end of our first visit, they formed two core training groups, each with six members and six "assistants" that met weekly for one hour for seventeen weeks to discuss some core readings we brought for translation, have a family case presentation, follow-up on previously discussed cases, and reflecting on personal reactions to doing family-based work. The training groups found chapters from Froma Walsh's book, Strengthening Family Resilience, the most useful at this point. Monthly, the two groups met together for a case presentation and discussion. There was periodic communication by e-mail between each group's appointed English-speaking leader and John Rolland and Jack Saul. At the present time, the training groups have enlarged. There are 36 persons (12 teams of three members each) involved in the training: these include psychiatrists, psychiatry residents, psychologists, social workers, and nurses. Given the unbelievably trying circumstances of our Kosovar colleagues professional and personal lives, we can't underscore enough the incredible motivation and commitment this represents.

The Writing Group, which includes Griff, Corky, and Steve Weine, were also very successful in completing their projected goals. Griff and Shqipe took leadership in writing up a case description, which included: how the family came to the health worker; the present complaint; the course of services; family problems and challenges; the strengths, resources, and competencies of the family and its members, the living conditions- urban, rural, displacement, housing; who is in the family; family history of events; and how the health workers have helped. The American and Kosovar teams worked collaboratively. Griff and Shqipe wrote up their cases, met with their team to discuss the writing and revised based on the team's comments. They then sent the writing to the other team to be discussed. Two people from each team wrote a response to the other team's writing. The two responses concerned questions which raise cultural or theoretical issues. The result will be two additional perspectives on each case. Each team is reading and discussing the case and commentaries of the other team to create a final draft for publication.

Activities during our Visit.

Training: Lectures and Small Group Case-Consultation Workshops. The first day of training was open advertised, including in the newspapers, to all interested health and mental health professionals. About 70 attended. The second and third days of training were designed as intensives for the core group of 36 (twelve three person teams). A notable addition this time was the inclusion of eight psychiatric nurses and 4-5 mental health professionals from other regions of Kosova. A 123 page syllabus was prepared and translated into Albanian. This included an overview of the project, outlines of all lectures by American and Kosovar colleagues and several chapters from Froma's book. Their efforts to make this happen were nothing short of awe-inspiring. Evaluation forms designed collaboratively were filled out by participants. They will be summarized and used to guide future training visits.

Summary of Training Group Meetings/Planning. Our Kosovar colleagues had divided into twelve teams of three members each. We refined their weekly meeting structure to include more discussion of the "experience" of doing family work as part of the case presentation/discussion. Also, we agreed that more access to us as experienced family therapists concerning cases and basic questions was crucial. We agreed that Jack, Kathy, John, and Corky would each take responsibility for communication with three teams through a designated English-speaking Kosovar colleague on a bi-weekly basis. Further, they would keep record of the supervisory questions and responses, which could be centrally located and consulted by all the teams, and so that they might be incorporated later into the overall training manual. We agreed on the desirability of doing more family consultations & initial interviews to incorporate the current visit's training. Monthly, there will be a large group meeting to discuss a family case. We were all struck with their natural incorporation of a systemic approach as well as their talent and the sophistication of the questions and dialogue. We agreed that a syllabus would be prepared for each visit with outlines and readings made available for translation in advance.

Summary of Writing Group Meetings/Planning. The writing Group met four times during the September visit to Kosova. We had more than enough material to discuss. In addition we worked on an exercise aimed at increasing everyone's comfort and confidence with writing. In this exercise they described their observations of a discrete event during a family meeting, followed by their thoughts and feelings about it, with reflections about what these observations might teach. Three people wrote something interesting which we asked them to write up. For purposes of efficient organization, the people in the writing group will also be in a training group together; they will meet once a month to discuss writing, twice a month to discuss cases, and once a month in the large group with the other training groups. Mimosa is the official English speaking liaison of the training/writing group. As the numbers of written pieces increases, the challenge is to design the time with our Kosovar colleagues in a way that responds to completed pieces, and provides time in the group to work on writing confidence and competence.

Future International Conference. There was further discussion of the University of Prishtina, the Academy of Arts and Sciences, and KFPEC sponsoring a multi-disciplinary conference on the Kosovar family in Kosova hopefully in September 2001. In addition to health and mental health professionals, this would include: anthropologists, ethnographers, historians, and sociologists. There is very strong interest in this conference. More definitive planning for this conference will occur during the next visit at the end of November.

By all accounts this visit went extremely well. We and our Kosovar colleagues are excited by all the work that has already been accomplished. Most important, their morale as professionals has been very positively affected by our presence and commitment to this collaborative project. We are treated so warmly and with deep appreciation for our efforts.

The third team went to Kosova at the end of November. Steve Weine (team leader) and Jack Saul from the original team will be joined by Judith Landau and Melissa Griffith. Training will focus on: Brief Treatment Models and Techniques.

The fourth will go tentatively in January. John Sargent (team leader) and Corky Becker from the original team will be joined by two AFTA members with expertise in children and adolescents.

Additional funding will be sought to support an international conference on the Kosovar family.