CWS LAC envisions a two-phase approach to developing a staff care program in conjunction with strategic partners in the region. The goal of this program is to promote new staff care awareness, attitudes and practices, including self-care.

PHASE I: a short-term, low-cost web based approach. The most urgent need is to make culturally appropriate tools and information available to the broad community of caregivers and their supervisors. Therefore, in phase one, CWS seeks support for a fast and relatively low-cost response with a mostly web-based approach to make information and tools on staff care available at no cost to users across the region. Actions will include:

• Gather and edit testimonies: written and video, from workers on work-related stress, how they take care of themselves, and how their organizations take care of them.

• Translation of selected bibliography and resources from English to Spanish (with previous consent from the authors).

• Publication of the two CWS LAC studies: a concise synthesis in PDF.

• Generation and testing of materials and tools: e.g., diagnostics, fact sheets, guidelines.

• Web site creation: www.cuidadoparacuidadores.org (care for caregivers.org).

• Initial awareness-raising for NGOs and donor agencies.

• Dissemination strategy:  to ensure the site and program are widely used in the region.

Users and beneficiaries. Typical users of these resources will be a psychologist working with youth involved in commercial sexual exploitation, a social worker teaching life skills to young parents in low-income neighborhoods, a lawyer helping indigenous communities to secure land rights, or leaders of teams in government programs or NGOs serving vulnerable populations. The beneficiaries will include humanitarian workers; their co-workers, friends and families; and the people they serve.

Outcomes. The anticipated outcomes are growing awareness and concrete actions to care for those who work with vulnerable groups and populations taken by visitors and users; learning about what works best; and a platform for deepening and broadening this initiative.

PHASE II would include additional applied research on staff care issues, greater development and application of tools, increased awareness raising for donors and other stakeholders, and more workshops, trainings and accompaniment for groups throughout the region.