Communication challenges when working with children affected by violence: OSCE conducted training for 112 staff
At the initiative of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), training was organized for Kyiv 112 staff on effective response to appeals of children affected by violence.
As you know, due to the war, the level of domestic violence has sharply increased in Ukraine, so such classes have improved the skills of employees to communicate and respond to relevant appeals of children.
Thus, within the framework of the project “Building the capacities of national partners in providing social support and psychological assistance to injured people during the war and in the post-war recovery period”, four two-day trainings were held, during which the personnel of Service 112 mastered new mechanisms of response and communication with dialing those who will contact the emergency number.
“Service 112 performs a response function, which is why the idea arose to carry out such a first pilot project. This training deals with responding to appeals of children who are in difficult life circumstances, in particular those suffering from violence. Unfortunately, in the context of a full-scale war, the number of appeals for violence against children has increased significantly. In general, the level of aggression in society is at a fairly high level. That is why, through the staff of Service 112, we want to show children that there are many adults, entities and structures that can help and protect the child promptly. It is clear that Service 112 is just a prototype of an adult who can be trusted,” said one of the trainers of the course, director of the National Hotlines and Social Assistance Department of the Public Organization “La Strada Ukraine” Alyona Kryvulyak.
Thus, during the training, those present in the form of a game worked out certain requests with which the victims could contact them and analyzed how to react correctly to the situation.
“We practice calls in practice. We have a trainer playing the victim and calling, and someone from the operators has to take that call. Based on this, it is considered whether the center employee responded correctly to the call and how it would be more expedient to hold a conversation with the victim,” said Olesya Bondar, project manager in the field of “Human Security”.
According to the organizers, accepting the challenge it is important to understand the age of the victim and his emotional state, because further communication depends on this.
“The main task is to train the operators of the 112 Service to respond qualitatively to appeals from children, to teach them to communicate with children taking into account their age and psychological characteristics, to support the conversation qualitatively and to redirect according to the police or ambulance. It is worth noting that the operator of Service 112 is the first instance and if the conversation goes in a good way, it means that the child's anxiety level has decreased,” Alyona Kryvulyak added.
At the end of the trainings, the participants summed up the results of the work and received the relevant certificates from the OSCE.
In the future, the same trainings are planned to be held in other 112 Centers, in particular in Lviv.
Department of Communications of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine
