Mediation of daily stressors on mental health within a conflict context

Abstract

The Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Guidelines on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (IASC, 2007) promote the provision of basic needs and community/family supports as key approaches to improve the overallwellbeing of people aiected by crises, including con£ict. However, positive impacts and/or evidence base for these initiatives, seen through the lens of psychological theory and research, are limited. A World Vision AusAID livelihoods project in Gaza was qualitatively examined in order to explore this question of how psychosocial supports improve wellbeing for men, women and children. Results of the qualitative examination presented in thispapershowthat locally prescribed feelings of wellbeing improved through the reduction of daily stressors and supported the model ofamediating relationshipbetween traumatic events and mental health, as suggested by Miller & Rasmussen (2010).The paper also demonstrates thebene¢tsofamultidisciplinaryand integrated psychosocial support approachforprogrammesdelivered with a whole-of-family perspective, which has more broadly supported the psychosocial needs of this con£ict aiected community.The paper further re£ects on the important need for eiective measurement models in relation to ascertaining impacts of integrated psychosocial support approaches.