The Kosovo Family Support Project: Offering Psychosocial Support for Families with Missing Persons

This article presents a case that illustrates the vital role that social workers and other mental health and public health workers provided to support families following the 1999 conflict between Serb forces and Kosovar Albanians in Kosovo. A public health and social work team from Boston-based Physicians for Human Rights responded to an emergency postconflict situation by planning and implementing a community-based intervention that mobilized local mental health providers and established collaboration among national and international agencies, including the International War Crimes Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, to provide a support network for families with missing family members. The intervention included assessment of local resources, training, fieldwork, professional development of local staff, and the establishment of long-term local responsibility and autonomy. Key words: assessment; collaboration; human rights; international social work; missing persons; psychosocial support; war crimes ********** The aftermath of war presents numerous challenges for societies attempting to recover and rebuild. Among the most difficult are locating and identifying missing people who died during the conflict. Based on its work worldwide, the Boston-based group, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), has recognized the importance of providing support to families searching for missing relatives. Providing families psychosocial assistance and education about the identification process is an essential part of all forensic investigations involving recovery of human remains and identification of bodies. The role of social workers and other mental and public health professionals is integral to the success of that task. The following case example of a collaborative effort between the PHR family-support team working with local staff to provide culturally appropriate assistance and a forensic team from the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) illustrates an effective emergency intervention and the role of social work in providing family support in this war-induced traumatic situation. After the 1998-99 conflict in Kosovo between Serb forces and ethnic Kosovar Albanians, who represented 90 percent of the population, thousands of people were reported missing. Forensic experts from the ICTY began investigating reported mass gravesites within days of the peace settlement in June 1999. The U.S. Department of State asked PHR to help the FBI, the United States' forensic investigative team collaborating with the ICTY effort, by serving as the family liaison between the forensic teams and the families searching for their missing relatives. PHR public health and social work professionals trained local staff and social workers as interviewers to collect antemortem data from families (data that provides descriptive physical information about the missing person and personal effects, such as clothing and jewelry, at or before time of disappearance or death) to help in the identification process. Recognizing the need for a long-term strategy, PHR also conducted a needs assessment of local social work, mental health, and forensic resource capacities. Although a system of community-based multidisciplinary Centers for Social Work existed in Kosovo, their services were intermittent and fragmented. During the tumultuous 10 years preceding NATO bombing in 1999, Serbs had excluded Albanians from university training and leadership positions in most professions. PHR provided training on postwar trauma and forensic investigation to local social work and forensic professionals, with a goal of developing local long-term sustainability and responsibility. Background The issues about the derivation of the conflict in Kosovo are complex and beyond the scope of this article. A brief description of the situation during the past decade merits mention as a framework for the case description. …