West Bank mercy visit of Dr Ian Barron
A Dundee University expert is about to make a second trip to the West Bank to help children traumatised by the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
Nablus from Mount Gerizim.
- By Grant Smith
- Published in the Courier : 06.10.10
- Published online : 06.10.10 @ 04.05pm
Education psychologist Dr Ian Barron has volunteered to oversee the training of school counsellors in Dundee's twin town Nablus, where almost half the population is under 20.
Many young people have suffered years of stress and developed a range of emotional and behavioural problems that could scar their lives without proper support.
Dr Barron said, "The population in Nablus and across the West Bank is one that has suffered a great deal of trauma, and there are clear signs of the effect that has had on hundreds of children.
"School counsellors working over there are dealing with a child population that shows very high levels of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) arising from the terrible things that many young people have had to live with as the result of conflict in the region.
"We see children living with high levels of anxiety and suffering flashbacks to traumatic events. These are issues which can lead to mental health problems as they get older, and with such high levels of incidence of these issues across the population it is a very serious problem.
"The key concern raised with us by the Palestinians is a lack of hope for the future among young people there."
Dr Barron, from the university's school of education and social work, first visited Nablus last year to support work being done locally to train counsellors to identify, assess and treat the symptoms of PTSD.
He said, "The school counsellors have been working with around 200 children and the results have been very encouraging.
"What we are doing now is expanding the range of training for those counsellors, specifically in the area of violence prevention and trauma recovery training, working once again with the Centre for Applied Research in Ramallah."
Dr Barron will also be taking materials from the Violence Is Preventable programme which was developed by Dundee charity Eighteen And Under.
These have been converted into Braille and will be delivered to children at a school for the blind in Bethlehem.
Pictures used under Creative Commons licence courtesy of Flickr users upyernoz (Nablus) and notallpotatoescanswim (Child).
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