Care4Caregivers+

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Humanitarian workers and professional caregivers are the frontline task force in alleviating human suffering and promoting the best interests of humanity. Their work is invaluable, but not without occupational hazards.

Over time, the stress of caregiving, whether one works with victims of torture directly or indirectly, can have detrimental effects on both mental and physical health and reduce our capacity as caregivers for torture survivors. For staff members of torture rehabilitation organisations, repeated exposure to stressful and traumatic triggers without consistent mitigating support lead to conditions such as vicarious trauma, PTSD, compassion fatigue, burnout and other harmful work-related conditions.

CREDIT: GCMHP; STAFF AT WORK IN GAZA, 2025

“We are the warriors for justice, we need support.”

LELA TSISKARISHVILI, former IRCT President and Executive Director of Georgian Centre for Psychosocial and Medical Rehabilitation of Torture Victims (GCRT).

Care4Caregivers+ is about building mutual support for resilience within the human rights field by supporting staff wellbeing interventions. When rehabilitating torture victims, a ‘caregiver’ refers to any individual involved in the process of identifying, preventing, or treating an illness or disability.

The ‘+’ in Care4Caregivers+ reminds us that staff members who may not be in direct contact with the victim, e.g., cleaning, monitoring, finance, and administration staff, also play an integral part in the victims’ rehabilitation journey and are thus also susceptible to trauma.

IRCT’s Global Standards on Rehabilitation (GSR), which are the world’s first comprehensive set of internationally agreed best-practice standards refers to staff safety and care in paragraph 11 and 12.

Introduction to Care4CarEgivers+ by IRCT’s Health Advisory Board

“If our caregivers are struggling with the secondary effects of being in a caregiver role, most critically, compassion fatigue and burn out, we really can’t adequately serve survivors of torture and trauma.”

DANIELLE BERNAS, Advocate Programme Director, Crisis Services, USA

Insights:
What Is Work Related-Trauma?

How Are You Doing?

Are You Feeling Stressed?

Not sure? Take the Professional Quality of Life (ProQOL) test

Understanding the positive and negative aspects of helping those who experience trauma and suffering can improve your ability to help them and your ability to keep your own balance.

The ProQOL is the most commonly used measure on the negative and positive affects of helping others who experience suffering and trauma. The ProQOL has sub-scales for compassion satisfaction, burnout and compassion fatigue.

The Professional Quality of Life (ProQOL) test is available in more than 30 languages on IRCT’s member centre, Center for Victims of Torture (CVT’s) website here.

The (ProQOL) SELF-SCORE test

How to Get Help:
Care4Caregivers+ Programme

The IRCT’s Care4Caregivers+ programme is designed to strengthen the resilience and well-being of staff supporting victims of torture.

It provides a critical educational foundation, empowering centre leaders to recognise and mitigate the impact of occupational hazards such as vicarious trauma, PTSD, and compassion fatigue. By raising awareness, the programme enables leaders to better safeguard their teams’ mental health.

Beyond education, the programme offers direct, expert assistance. When a centre identifies a need, the IRCT facilitates a connection with a vetted expert from its global network. This external support – which can be tailored to include capacity development, virtual counseling, specialised training, and external supervision – is crucial for boosting staff well-being and maintaining high-quality care.

External Supervision

A formal, ongoing relationship where a supervisor monitors, supports, guides, and evaluates a supervisee’s clinical work to ensure client welfare and promote the supervisee’s professional development and wellbeing.

Individual Counselling

A collaborative, one-on-one relationship where a counsellor helps a staff member resolve issues, overcome challenges, and improve mental well-being, easing vicarious trauma, PTSD, burnout, and compassion fatigue.

Group Counselling

Trained counsellors work with a small group (6–12 staff) to facilitate interaction, support, feedback, and shared learning, promoting individual growth and reducing vicarious trauma and burnout within the group dynamic.

Training / Workshop

A structured, time-bound process where a well-equipped centre shares staff wellbeing knowledge with another centre to improve practices and policies, achieve measurable outcomes, and enhance organisational capacity and sustainability.

Mentorship

Mentorship is a flexible, relationship-driven process where an experienced centre guides, supports, and advises a less experienced centre, fostering professional growth, wisdom sharing, and organisational capacity development.

Technical Guidance

Detailed, specific advice, instructions, or recommended procedures from an expert from a different centre to ensure that a particular technical task, process, product, or service meets established requirements, standards, or best practices.

Services that can be facilitated by IRCT between centres in need of staff wellbeing and centres with expertise in a given field.

How to Get Help or Assist with Expertise

If you are a centre in need of staff wellbeing (Care4Caregivers+) assistance, emergency or otherwise, or an expert/professional with the time and expertise to potentially assist centres in any of the services listed above then please email Lindiwe Dhlakama, the Care4Caregivers+ Programme Manager at IRCT on ldh@irct.org

Lindiwe Dhlakama

Programme Manager, Care4Caregivers+

As programme manager for IRCT’s Care4Caregivers+ programme, Lindiwe works with the Health Advisory Board and IRCT member centres, to create interventions that seek to safeguard the mental health and wellbeing of staff members around the world.

Insights:
What IRCT Members Say

IRCT’s Care4Caregivers+ Survey

In 2024 IRCT conducted a survey among all member centres to ascertain which challenges staff members may experience. A total of 85 centres responded.

The graph shows that 72% of the centres reported fatigue as their greatest challenge, followed by anxiety (40%), boundary setting (35%), and motivation (29%), which can lead to high staff turnover which was reported by a third of the centres.

Team Building Exercises

Insights:
How IRCT Members Care4Caregivers+

“Burn out is the cumulative stress that builds up after staff members have engaged in work that is traumatising and stressful”

Listen as Technical Lead, William Omondi at the Independent Medico Legal Unit (IMLU) in Kenya explains how they care for their caregivers by offering them clinical supervision for support, gym memberships for physical exercise, and days where they work from home for work / life balance.

Team bonding exercises is one of the ways carers are encouraged to let their hair down and have fun at Legend Golden Care Foundation (LGCF) in Nigeria.

It is well known that team building enhances workplace dynamics by strengthening communication, cultivating trust, and encouraging collaboration.

These improvements boost morale, drive productivity, and deepen interpersonal connections among staff.

“These moments of peace help us recharge so that we can continue walking alongside survivors with compassion and resilience.”

Whether it is a quiet moment of reflection, grounding, and renewal in the Healing Garden or caring for plants in the office, Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International (TASSC) focuses on the strength which is built together through connection and collaboration.

“Remember, above all, you cannot pour from an empty cup.“

Tarwirei Nyamukondiwa, a psychosocial counsellor from the Counselling Services Unit (CSU) in Zimbabwe explains how reflective supervisions, built-in peer debriefs, mental health days, and fostering a culture that values emotional safety is pivotal in their Care4Caregivers+ philosophy.

In Action:
Care4Caregivers+

Supported by the Heath Advisory Board, the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims’ Care4Caregivers+ programme links staff of member centres in crisis with external experts who support them as they do the crucial work of providing services to torture victims in their countries, whilst also developing regionally appropriate staff wellbeing frameworks.

Blue icons represent peer to peer support in which a member centre in need receives Care4Caregivers+ support from another member centre.
Orange icons represent member centres with a Care4Caregivers+ grant or whose grants include an aspect of staff wellbeing.

In Focus:
Frequently Asked Questions About Care4Caregivers+

The IRCT consulted staff and managers across member centres worldwide to identify their most pressing questions about staff wellbeing and selfcare. Experts in relevant fields were then invited to provide answers to the most frequently asked questions. The questions have been organised into two main categories: those from staff and those from managers.

Frequently Asked Questions By Staff

Frequently Asked Questions By Managers

Global Standards:
Members Experiences

Gaza: ‘Care for Caregivers Has Become Crucial’

GLobal Standards on Rehabilitation (12) Care for Staff in Africa

GLobal Standards on Rehabilitation (12) Care for Staff Explained

“At TPO Nepal, how we do care for caregivers is by building it into our programmes… into the proposal and also into the budget.”

Dr. Kamal Gautam, Executive Director, TPO Nepal

Health Advisory Board:
Members

Dr Kamal Gautam

Board Convenor