Section 7 - Support while serving

It is good practice to ensure that mission personnel are offered high quality support throughout their placement and that the sending organisations and supporting church remain in regular contact with them. Other marks of good practice include assistance with settling into their new culture, planning ongoing developmental needs, providing opportunities for personal review and dealing professionally with crises and problems.

Good practice includes:

7.1 Adjustment to the host culture

• Arranging for personnel to be met on arrival where possible
• Ensuring appropriate housing and transport are available
• Assisting with practical and bureaucratic matters
• Encouraging personnel to make a risk assessment of their house and its surroundings
• Providing a full induction to the location, team, local customs and role for all involved, and ensuring appropriate handover of responsibilities [i]
• Providing training for the whole family in areas such as health and safety, travel, child protection and crisis procedures
• Encouraging personnel to locate, visit and register at their nearest reliable health facility
• Ensuring time and facilities are available for language acquisition, as appropriate to their learning styles [ii]

7.2 Ongoing contact

• Following all the guidelines listed in core value 3 relating to support structures
• Discussing and reviewing the frequency and means of contact with personnel, both from the sending organisation and the supporting church, being sensitive to ensure demands are not excessive
• Ensuring personnel are aware of the relevant people to contact regarding general concerns, health and safety and child protection issues, and ensuring these contact persons are able to respond quickly when contacted and that contact details are kept up date
• Providing information about changes taking place in the sending organisation or supporting church(es)
• Offering member care visits as appropriate, ensuring they are not burdensome or inconvenient
• Encouraging personnel to have a named medical advisor accessible for advice. This would ideally be a someone with travel and/or tropical medicine experience [iii]

7.3 Ongoing developmental and training needs

• Providing ongoing training, mentoring, and financial advice from people equipped to give these
• Setting goals for personal, professional and spiritual development [iv]
• Ensuring that time and resources for this are built into the timetable and budget

7.4 Ongoing appraisals and reviews

• Following all the guidelines listed in core value 4 relating to accountability and direction
• Ensuring regular appraisals take place for personnel, involving both the sending organisation and the supporting church
• Encouraging personnel to appraise the sending organisation and supporting church, as well as to be appraised by them
• Providing regular reviews of the welfare and education of children
• Ensuring that personnel are not overloaded by: avoiding unnecessary bureaucracy and paperwork; providing assistance on work life-work balance issues [v]; encouraging annual leave and leisure time, and providing sabbatical opportunities

7.5 Crises, critical incidents and security alerts

• Ensuring that the sending organisation’s crisis policies and procedures are known and followed [vi] (see section 5.4)
• Providing personnel with the emergency helpline number for their travel health provider in case of serious illness or accident
• Ensuring extended family and key contacts are given accurate and timely information in the event of a crisis, and taking great care when conveying bad news [vii]
• Offering prayer, practical, medical, emotional and spiritual support for the whole family, as well as Critical Incident Stress Debriefing if appropriate and desired

7.6 Complaints against personnel

• Ensuring that a range of perspectives are obtained and listened to before conclusions are drawn
• Maintaining an appropriate level of confidentiality
• Ensuring that cultural issues, which may contribute to misunderstandings, are considered
• Dealing with the complaint according to the disciplinary code or grievance procedure

7.7 Problems

• Ensuring that the sending organisation and supporting church co-operate on the best way to deal with the problems
• Trying to find ways to resolve problem as quickly as possible
• Providing opportunities for personnel to discuss the issue with appropriate people
• Maintaining an appropriate level of confidentiality
• Providing outlets such as retreat, holiday, attendance at a course [viii]or mentoring as these can be immensely helpful in changing perspectives and responses
• Even when problems do not seem major, ensuring that personnel feel they have been listened to and supported in prayer
• Offering help with negotiation and reconciliation [ix] in situations of conflict
• Offering help through therapy or counselling when the difficulty appears to be due to significant personal problems (see Appendix 1) and liaising with personnel about where they would prefer to receive such help
• Making resources available that provide insight into similar problems
• Supporting families and children as required
• Budgeting for financial provision to help at times of difficulty and ensuring that personnel, the sending organisation and the supporting church work together to find solutions to financial difficulties
• Considering relocation or other options if issues cannot be resolved in the current location
• In situations where it is unclear whether or not the placement should continue, ensuring that there is clear communication between all parties, professional advice is sought and there are clear procedures for making decisions

[i] For guidelines on induction, briefing and handover, see Policy guidelines: induction, briefing, handover by People In Aid and Enhancing quality in HR management in the humanitarian sector by J. Henry & People In Aid. Available from www.peopleinaid.org

[ii] For teaching methods, see Learning to listen, learning to teach by J Vella and for learning styles, see www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/styles/honey_mumford.html

[iii] See InterHealth www.interhealth.org.uk or Healthlink360 www.healthlink360.org

[iv] A mentor, spiritual director and retreats can play valuable parts in helping with personal and spiritual development. Examples of goals might be attendance at an annual professional conference, and taking one day per month and one week per year for a spiritual retreat

[v] See Supporting staff responding to disasters: recruitment, briefing and on-going care by D Lovell-Hawker available from www.peopleinaid.org

[vi] See ‘Guidelines for crisis management and prevention including working in high risk areas’ by Global Connections available from www.globalconnections.co.uk/standards.

[vii] A booklet entitled “Breaking bad news” can be downloaded free of charge from www.dartcenter.org.

[viii] Operation Mobilisation offers a course called “Face to Face” available to any mission personnel and held in various locations across the world Contact: membercare@ict.om.org

[ix] See www.mmct.org/MMCT-Communique-Nov-08.pdf, Conflict by J Huggett and The peacemaker by K Sande