Self Care for Journalists

Supporting journalists and humanitarian workers by developing their practical skills is vital – but supporting their resilience and self-care is perhaps even more important.

We are just back from Moldova, where we worked on an incredible project with the Thompson Reuters Foundation, to bring journalists, teachers and professors together from across Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Ukraine.

The idea was to forge connections between people teaching high-quality journalism, newsgathering and fact-checking skills across the region, a task growing ever more urgent given Russia’s growing influence and use of disinformation, cyber-attacks and propaganda to further its interests – as well as the continuing war in Ukraine.

Our aim was to support their skills by focussing on contemporary advances in journalism practice, as well as invigorating their teaching. They are working in difficult conditions. Our colleagues from Ukraine have had to relocate, and the war has had an enormous impact on their physical and human resources. Other colleagues reported that, given the situation in the region, their students risk becoming disengaged and distracted, with little optimism about their future.

It became clear to us that, as well as practical ‘hard’ skills, it was also vital to support our colleagues – all of whom have extraordinary determination and resilience – in their own self-care, an aspect which can easily get lost in the desire to support and care for others. We wove in space for some simple but powerful ideas and techniques, and found that creating the opportunity to reflect and talk was highly valued by our colleagues – as much so as the ‘harder’ skills we focused on.

Quattrain have decades of experience working in crisis situations. Our team includes a chartered psychologist experienced in trauma work, as well as coaches and mentors. Get in contact if you’d like to know more about our ‘self-care and resilience’ courses.