Human Resilience

 Yesterday I was listening to my usual Saturday morning radio and on the news were reports of the results of research conducted on UK troops on UN peace missions. It seems that they have lower rates of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder than most other nationals on similar deployments and states that differences in culture and operational practices may account for lower rates.

This initial finding piqued my interest and so I went to the BBC website and had a look at the kinds of things that were being said.

Here are a few pointers that I found interesting:

• The King’s College study said UK officers and married personnel were the least likely to suffer PTSD symptoms
• The accepted practice in the UK is to give military personnel at least a month to talk to family, friends and colleagues before suggesting professional help
• “UK armed forces rate their military leaders more highly than troops from many other nations - with previous studies showing that such perceptions can play a positive role in preventing PTSD.”
• The report said that those who had left the military were more likely to suffer from PTSD than those who had remained in it.
• BBC defense correspondent Caroline Wyatt said the study appeared to show that immediate psychotherapy after potentially traumatic events could be counter-productive.

These points are not unusual in my experience of organisational trauma and of talking to police and Fire-fighters; however I had not realized that the army employed these strategies following service.

I then had a look at the Kings College site to see if I could get more specific information and found their military health page. On it was some more information that I felt very heartened by.

 Recent studies undertaken by Kings College report that:

• “Research on the impact of peacekeeping and peace enforcement operations confirms that most service personnel prefer to use informal sources of psychological support within their own social networks.”
• “Further work on the cohort has looked at the consequences of the increased operational tempo, sometimes called “over stretch” in the Armed Forces, and the effects on family life. Qualitative research has been completed on the impact of deployment on families, using interviews with both serving personnel and their partners before, during and after a difficult deployment.”
• “We carried out a survey in the week after the July 7th London bombs, looking at how 1,000 ordinary Londoners reacted to those outrages. In the most part people coped well by utilising their own social networks, and did not wish to, or need to, turn to professionals….”
• “….and confirmed our general theme of the resilience of ordinary people, and that facing adversity the first needs are for practical support such as information and communication”

 

Relevance for Human Factor business continuity planning

If we translate the ‘conducive culture and operational practices’ from the military to the

business environment then all of the evidence places importance on the social network, informal support and information and normality found within family units and contact with friends and colleagues.

At HR I feel we have a really good understanding of this on a small and large scale. The development of in-house schemes for informed volunteer supporters meets this need during the aftermath of trauma be it ongoing as part of the role or something unexpected and catastrophic, we have a training called AleRT™  (Alert and Response Training).

It is based on a sound understanding of practical response to traumatic incident support for individuals and groups and teaches volunteers how to connect, normalise and refer if necessary and is used by a range of organisations from financial institutions to the transport sector

This training also equips people to recognise and support the ripple effect of trauma experienced by families and colleagues, which is an area that is underdeveloped outside of the forces. They have made really good use of the World Wide Web to keep contact and share information.

There will be more information on this in the near future, meanwhile contact us if you are interested in knowing more or have ideas to discuss around this topic.