[psych-hr] A first attempt to draft some policy recommendations

To: psychology-humanrights-l@hrea.org 

[***Moderator's note: 

With this e-mail we are moving the IPPN internet discussion on Psychologists 
and Human Rights into an interactive mode.

-- This e-mail, from Anne Anderson, presents some draft policy 
recommendations that could become the beginning of a larger set of 
recommendations that this discussion group could eventually present to a 
wider audience. Topics the recommendations could address would be the role of 
psychologists in designing, implementing, and evaluating human rights 
programs in conflict and post-conflict societies and/or some key 
psychological principles which facilitate effective human rights education 
programs. Anne asks us, below, to review her first crack at formulating 
policy recommendations, agree with them, change them, add new ones as 
appropriate. 

-- In another e-mail, to be issued today or tomorrow, I will outline-- based 
on the IPEDEHP discussion plus side communications with several of 
you--several topics for future discussion among our group; each eventually 
contributing to the objective of our discussion group which is listed above. 
The purpose of this e-mail is to get you to "vote" on which of these topics 
(as well as any others) you would like the IPPN discussion group to take up 
for discussion starting in September.

Regards, Marcy****]

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Dear fellow discussion group members,

Thanks to our moderator for the excellent work of summarizing our 
discussions! I found the summary a useful tool for focusing my thinking on 
my next contribution to this discussion. 

PURPOSE OF THIS E-MAIL

This e-mail attempts, based on the discussion to date centered on the IPEDEHP 
case study, to formulate some draft policy recommendations that our IPPN 
discussion group can share with members of our two sponsoring organizations 
-- Psychologists for Social Responsibility and the Peace and Conflict 
Division of the APA (Division 48)-- at the discussion hour that we have 
scheduled at the American Psychological Association Convention on August 20. 

Please review these draft recommendations and let me know if you agree with 
them as I would like Marcy, who we have asked to guide the discussion on 
August 20, to provide those present with an update on where we are, including 
any progress we might have made on policy recommendations. I welcome your 
suggestions for modifying these recommendations, eliminating any (if you 
think this is appropriate) and for adding any new ones that you believe arise 
from our discussion to date but are not included below. Please feel free to 
respond to/comments on each others e-mails as we would like make this an 
interactive discussion.

It would be helpful if you could respond to this e-mail as soon as possible 
so that we can have as rich, and as interactive, a discussion as possible on 
this topic before the August 20 date where we presenta progress report at the 
APA convention.

BACKGROUND

As some of you who know me might expect, I am thinking very practically--next 
steps--and the next event on my mind at this point is the American 
Psychological Association Convention, where we have a conversation hour 
scheduled in the official program sponsored by PsySR and the APA Division of 
Peace Psychology, our two sponsoring organizations. Since the memberships of 
the two groups are most interested in how our experiment is going, I have 
asked Marcy Bernbaum, with Joanie Connors chairing, to share what our IPPN 
group has accomplished to date with those who attend the discussion hour. I 
expect that there will be some lively conversation. 

I know that many of you will not be able to be there, and I would therefore 
like to be very sure that the kinds of things that we have to report are 
fully representative of our discussion to date. So, in order to do that I 
want to use a "tried and true" PsySR process for seeing if we have some 
consensus on our Steering Committee when we are working on a policy issue. I 
call it looking for red flags.

DRAFT POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS FOR YOUR REVIEW AND COMMENT

Below are some DRAFT policy recommendations that I am drawing from our 
discussions. I invite you to take a look at them and tell us what would be 
wrong with putting that idea forth as a policy recommendation from this 
discussion group.

-- How would it NOT work with the communities you have worked with?

-- What makes you uncomfortable with any statement below?

-- What kinds of things do you wish you knew in order to sign on to a 
statement?

-- Even if you agree with a statement fully, are there parts of the 
psychological community who would have trouble with this statement? 

-- Finally, what needs to be added, subtracted, changed, corrected, 
deleted,as far as you are concerned?

Since we haven't done this together before, please note that our purpose is 
to identify the points of consensus and comfort and to find the places where 
our thinking does not come together so that we can explore those. I expect 
to find a richness of perspective that will help us refine and perhaps even 
complicate our consensus so that we eventually come out with a 
product--recommendations--that stand up to scrutiny and tests of different 
situations.

Let me hasten to add that I do not expect to do all this by August 20, 1999, 
the day of our conversation hour at the APA convention. In fact, if we 
eventually are comfortable with some recommendations by NEXT year at APA 
(which will be in Washington, DC, and which will have a PsySR Policy Day for 
policy makers, NGOs,etc., hopefully on Capitol Hill), then I will feel well 
satisfied. BUT, I would like us to try it now so that we can see where we 
are and report about it this year. 

So, here goes:

1) Human Rights Education can be made more effective through the skilled use 
of interactive, personal experience-based techniques and materials that allow 
the participant to discover their own human rights. Therefore, training in 
how to use those techniques should be provided, with ongoing supervision and 
back-stopping included in the training protocol. 

2) Inherent in a successful human rights education campaign is a solid 
community network that is supportive of the individuals participating in the 
process and is ready to back them up when they try to put some of their 
learning into practice. Therefore, the process of establishing and running 
such a campaign should include plans for developing, fostering and 
maintaining such networks as are appropriate to the situation.

3) In addition to the fostering of networks in general, there seems to be 
great value in the process of providing ongoing individualized support for 
participants, once they have finished the original training. Therefore, some 
kind of mentoring system should be included in the overall design of a human 
rights education campaign.

4) The provision of materials and skills in the IPEDEHP workshop which 
people can take home with them and put to use immediately with their families 
and friends seems to be a key element in the process of empowering the 
participants to take additional steps to use their knowledge in their 
communities. Therefore, human rights education campaigns should ensure that 
they have doable, effective activities that participants can take home with 
them and use immediately.

5) The role of the affective experience, telling of the story, expression of 
feeling, through a number of different media (words, song, art, drama, etc.) 
seems be a key element in the success rate experienced by IPEDEHP in 
providing a healing process that empowers people in their lives. Therefore, 
such community-based, interactive programs should be promoted by 
psychologists and other mental health professionals as constructive 
approaches to building cultures of peace.

Well, I am sure I have others to offer, but these are ones that come to mind 
at this point. There is something about the diversity of the participants, 
both in culture, gender, class, status, etc. that seems important, but I am 
not able to formulate a recommendation at this point.

I suspect that there are also things to say about the care of the trainers 
and mentors, the need to pay attention to how culture affects the work, and 
perhaps something about backup psychological help for participants who find
themselves responding more to their trauma and are unable to move on to 
empowerment, but again, I do not have the recommendations clear. Maybe one 
of you does.

Let me repeat, please do not just say okay to these things. They are very 
much trial balloons, probably overly simplistic, just to move the discussion 
along. Please play with them, give me examples from your experience that 
Demonstrate at least ONE time when something I just recommended would not 
work....etc.

Looking forward to hearing from you-all.

Peace, Anne

Anne Anderson
National Coordinator
Psychologists for Social Responsibility
2607 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20008
(202) 745-7084
(202) 745-0051 fax