The Russian Red Cross is one of the few non-governmental organizations in Russia which provide not only humanitarian but also psychosocial support (PSS) to people affected by emergency situations. This was the case after the school shooting in Kazan as well as following a similar tragedy in Izhevsk. Psychosocial support is also available to the victims of the Ukrainian crisis. In late September the RRC started providing psychosocial support to mobilized Russians, their families and relatives.
We have spoken to Karina, Natalia and Alexandra, the three volunteers of the Russian Red Cross First Psychological Aid Hotline. The ladies told us how they got involved in volunteering, who most often asks for support and how they manage to avoid "burning out".
Every one of us has experienced apathy, tension and anxiety at least once. These are the times when people happen to be in a particular need of professional support. Anastasia Zvyagina, the RRC methodologist for psychosocial support, has also shared her advice on what each of us can do to help.
RRC hotline operators: who are they?
Karina learned about the Russian Red Cross in 2019. She took part in a training on psychosocial support at the A.I. Gertsen Russian State Pedagogical University where she was an undergraduate student. She is a student of Psychology. Alongside her studies, she has served as a volunteer on the RRC psychosocial support hotline since February 2022.
"I realised that there would be a need for people who could work on the hotline, so I decided to try my luck. I posted a message to the Russian Red Cross community in the VKontakte social network. Following that, I did a training and joined the hotline", Karina says. – “My specialisation is effectively what I do best. It’s easier for me to provide psychological support, that's why I purposefully opted for PSS".
Karina
Natalya lives in St. Petersburg. For a long time she worked as an accountant and she is now studying to become a software tester. She joined the Russian Red Cross by accident: she saw "For Reasons of Conscience" and decided to take a first aid course. The RRC were recruiting volunteers through their VKontakte community group, and Natalia applied. She has been a RRC volunteer for a year now.
Natalia
"First, I took first the first aid courses and did all the necessary training. I even went out to some sporting events as a volunteer who has the skills to provide this kind of aid. Then the psychosocial support methodologist invited me to join the team. I was getting good at it, so I settled into this role", she shared.
How the psychological first aid hotline operates today
According to Anastasia Zvyagina, Methodologist for Psychosocial Support of the Russian Red Cross, the demand for such support has increased manifold since February. Moreover, some very vulnerable groups are now in need of support - refugees and displaced persons. Since September we have also received many people who experience anxiety due to the mobilization announced.
"Previously, until February 2022, the Russian Red Cross experts and volunteers used to receive about 10-20 calls a day. These days we get 50-60 calls a day, and sometimes as many as a hundred," she shared.
Alexandra, our third protagonist, has served as a volunteer at the Russian Red Cross psychological hotline for over six months. She got involved as a volunteer during the COVID-19 pandemic. Just like Karina, she is a student of Psychology and she has recently been appointed psychosocial support coordinator at RRC -St. Petersburg.
She shared that the hotline shifts can be very taxing. "I once had a shift that started at 2pm. At 14:05 a call came in, at 15:00 it ended, in just 30 seconds I got another call. It lasted 20 minutes. Then again, in 40 seconds’ time I got my third call in a row. It's not easy to stay emotionally committed when one gets three tough calls in a row. Callers talk about their problems, their grievance and misfortune”.
Alexandra
All three respondents have reported that the hotline receives very different kinds of calls, including the ones fr om the wives, mothers and women in distress who are concerned about the mobilization and worry about their loved ones.
And, according to Natalya, "they almost never call with a direct enquiry to say: 'Hello, my relative has been mobilized, I am not feeling well.” As a rule, people only get to the core of the matter as they talk to a specialist”.
“I once had a call from a lady who said she was having problems at work and that she had to have a serious discussion with her boss. It took me about 20 minutes to discover that her son had been mobilized and she had had no information about him for two weeks. So initially it sounded as if she wasn’t aware of what really concerned her. It seemed to her that she was worried about some problems at work but in effect she was worried about her son. In addition, she was afraid to talk about it at work, which was also very stressful," she said.
Karina also shared a story from her experience: "One day a girl called and said she had a feeling of heaviness in her chest and didn't know what to do about it. We started looking into what kind of sensation that was and what it was like. She said it felt like a hot and a very thick stone. She felt she was unable to control it. I invited her to think together what we could do about it or if we could crush it or something. Eventually we concluded that the stone should become thinner and smaller if she drank some hot tea. She came up with this metaphor all by herself and she had a feeling it would work. I liked that spontaneous idea of hers and the fact that she was able to find a solution all by herself, even though she really wasn't in good shape. I was very happy for her”.
How do you protect yourself while saving others?
Volunteers who provide psychosocial support are also under stress and experience different emotions. But they also need to be able to switch their emotions and to recover quickly in order to be able to go on with their work. We asked each of our protagonists how they manage it and what gives them strength and prevents them from burning out.
Karina confessed: "At times the hotline itself can be very empowering and supportive. And sometimes you need some time to recharge your battery after work. For example, we take walks with our fellow volunteers after our shifts. We can also ask for a supervision session and get some support there, we can attend these sessions together. There is no such thing as being abandoned on the hotline left all by yourself to stew in your own juice with your own feelings and thoughts. I like it that there are ways of helping us recover our emotional resources”.
Like Karina, Natalia believes that working on the hotline keeps her going and gives her strength: "By helping them, I am helping myself. I have read somewhere that keeping busy is the best way to fend off anxiety. If after talking to me my callers say 'Thank you, I feel better now,' it makes me feel better too.
The ladies also find distraction in their daily activities: working, studying, being in touch with their loved ones. Alexandra supports herself with sleep, sweet treats and a change of activity. She works at a hotel and, she says, "it's not bad for a change of scene”. Natalia does yoga in her spare time, and after her hotline shifts she sees her friend for a coffee.
But it's not just simple things like walking, listening to music and sweet treats that keep them going. Alexandra noted that a good psychologist should not absorb other people’s grievance: "I can stay empathetic, share my feelings, but I don't take any personal responsibility for other people's problems. Because if we fully absorb them, we won’t be able to function as professionals, and people turning to psychologists seek an outside perspective.”
Be there, listen and guide: the three pillars of psychological first aid
In this article we would like not only to share the stories of the volunteers who provide psychosocial support to dozens of people on a daily basis, but to also see how each of us can support our loved ones.
According to Anastasia Zvyagina, "Psychological first aid skills are just as critical these days as are the first aid skills for injuries, wounds and burns. This is due to the fact that any changes in people’s living conditions are stressful because one gets to adapt to the new conditions. It is not at all times clear how one should go about it or how to build one’s a life around them. That is why, as our respondent noted, "at this moment it is important that there should be someone close to you who can help, listen and support – that is, to provide psychological first aid". "If a person has been under stress for a long time, they can develop some specific disorders and it may take them a long time to adjust them with some professional help," she says.
Anastasia Zvyagina
To make sure this doesn’t happen, we all need to have the psychological first aid skills and to be prepared to support our loved ones.
Anastasia told us what lies at the heart of psychological first aid and how anyone can support their loved ones who are under stress. According to her, “being there, listening and providing guidance are the three pillars of psychological first aid'.
"In the first place, we need to show people that the stress they are experiencing is a normal reaction to extraordinary situations that occur. Also, the person seeking psychological help needs to feel that they are not alone, that there is someone there for them who is ready to listen and support them. In addition, it is critical that the needs of the person who has sought psychosocial support be identified. People may be in need of legal assistance, they may need some information or some psychiatric counselling, they may have some social and household needs. Our role is to refer the person to a place wh ere they can get the appropriate help and have their issues addressed.
Contacts of other psychosocial support providers
The Russian Red Cross psychosocial support hotline number is 8 (800) 250-18-59. In addition to the hotline, psychological support is available at the regional branches of the Russian Red Cross, as well as at the Russian Red Cross mobile support point in the Belgorod region. Karina has recently visited it to provide psychosocial support to the refugees and displaced persons.
According to her, as a novice consultant, she could not say no to this trip: "I went there because it seemed to me that there would be a major influx refugee who had just crossed the border. And if there is an opportunity to give them some kind of support right away, to give them a sense of security, to explain something to them, then we should take advantage of it. It seemed very important to me, so I just couldn't turn down that offer”.
Besides, please feel free to call the 24-hour hotline for support. At 8 (800) 200-34-11, psychological counselling is available for mobilized people and their relatives.
A free psychological support chat-bot is also available a daily basis from 9 am to 9 pm Moscow time on Telegram, Viber and VKontakte.