Understand your reactions, assess risks and support your team: How trauma-informed leadership training works for Ukrainian media professionals

In November and December, Dart Center Europe in partnership with UNESCO and with the support of the people of Japan, worked with Daily Humanity to organize three training retreats for media professionals on trauma-informed leadership and building resilience. The training helped several dozen media leaders and professionals understand trauma better and learn how to support their teams in times of war to be ready to inform and moderate the discussion in a society impacted by trauma.

The events combined trauma-related briefings, strategy sessions, and retreat elements. Participants were able to get away from their work routine for three days to focus on learning, sharing experiences, and networking. Editors, media managers, psychologists, and HR managers were also invited to participate alongside journalists so that they could better understand the challenges faced by media professionals and learn how to work with them.

“I really liked the format: a group of people with whom it was easy and free. I trusted them, even though I didn’t know most of them before. I understood a lot of what was covered at the training intuitively, but it was important to discuss it with my colleagues,” says Liubov Rakovytsia, manager of the Novyny Donbasu publication.

Rakovytsia’s editorial team writes about the events in the region, most of which is occupied and the rest is still affected by fighting. She also heads the NGO DII-Ukraine, which supports media and organizes one of the largest media conferences in Ukraine, the Donbas Media Forum.

“The training helped me see and comprehend things I hadn’t thought about before, such as the secondary trauma of news reporters, designers, and editors who deal with traumatic news. The topic of countering online attacks and crisis communication was also relevant to me personally. Here I could share my own experience,” says Rakovytsia. She is already using some of the techniques she learned at the training in her daily work and plans to share her knowledge with her colleagues.

“Not every journalist appreciates general mental health advice, even if it is high-quality and useful,” says Gavin Rees, Senior Advisor for Training and Innovation at the Dart Center who led these events: “At these workshops, we are exploring these issues where they arise in the process of work. This is a conversation about our profession as much as about our mental health. What helps a journalist get an interview back on track if they feel suddenly overwhelmed by a distressing detail? Or how can a newsroom create a culture where journalists routinely put protective measures in place which help them work with graphic images more safely and in journalistic terms, effectively.”

Rees believes there are plenty of simple, practical steps that newsrooms can take. “During 25 years of work with newsrooms around the world that faced crises, we have learned how crucial a role newsrooms play as potential incubators of staff resilience,” he says. “The problem, of course, is that during war, everyone is under such a physical and emotional strain that it is easy to lose sight of what can help.”

Space away from work gave the participants an opportunity to reassess and take on board new ideas. Anastasiia Isaiienkova is a news producer at UA:PBC. She, like her entire team, works at a frantic pace, often in extreme conditions. “For the past three years, I had no time for myself. I couldn’t stop, think, and analyze my condition,” Isaiienkova says, “Instead, I had to find time to provide emotional support to journalists and editors. But will I be able to do this in the future if my psyche finally says ‘enough’ at some point?”

The trauma-informed leadership training helped Anastasiia understand that she should follow the first aid algorithm: first check your condition, help yourself, and then start helping others.

This was the same path of thinking that Kateryna Sergatskova, the co-organizer of these workshops, followed herself a few months after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Sergatskova, head of Zaborona media and mother of two, realized she could no longer take it. Stress, a constant sense of danger and fear for her loved ones, and a stream of depressing news made her life unbearable. Kateryna saw that her colleagues in the newsroom were going through something similar, but she didn’t know how to help them. This was the same path of thinking that Kateryna Sergatskova the co-organiser of these workshops had followed a few months after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“I realized that human resources are not unlimited: people can burn out and simply not be able to continue working,” Sergatskova recalls. “Psychologists often tell journalists: ‘Oh, your job is so hard, you are exposed to all the horrors of war, so maybe you should change your profession?’ But we don’t want people to quit. We want people to stay, to understand themselves, and to be able to help themselves.”

Sergatskova decided to research the topic of mental health. She temporarily quit her editorial job and co-founded Daily Humanity, a Danish-based NGO that helps media professionals take care of their physical safety and mental resilience. “We adapted the Dart Center program on trauma and developed a risk management system for the newsroom that takes mental health into account,” says Sergatskova.

During the training, Isayenkova talked to colleagues from other media outlets and came to the conclusion that many Ukrainian newsrooms lack a culture of support, and the Suspilne news producer says it is “Our task as managers to do everything in our power to ensure that people have access to resources and work in the best possible conditions.”

“Am I able to change everything after the training? No, because this is a matter of collective responsibility of managers and a comprehensive approach. But I will try to be an active listener for colleagues who need it,” Isayenkova continued.”It is not about saying “Take a vacation” or asking “How are you?” but about finding out from people what they need now. And, if it is in my power, to provide it to them.”

Although Rees emphasized to the participants that this training was not a therapy session, the opportunity to share challenging emotions and experiences that arise from work was clearly beneficial.

“Our main achievement is that people were able to speak out loud about their problems, some of them did that for the first time in their professional life and realize that they are not alone,” Sergatskova says. “Almost all managers face burnout. But now they realize that quitting the job is not the only way out of this situation.
“We have several success stories,” she continues, “Editors were able to bring people back to the team after participating in this program.”

Thanks to the educational and awareness-raising efforts of NGOs operating in Ukraine, mental health, resilience and self-care are increasingly on the agenda of the media community. However, in general, this topic remains taboo and under discussed, and the level of knowledge is low.

Many media professionals do not understand what is happening to them, do not know how to deal with it, and do not dare or do not consider it necessary to talk about it. According to Sergatskova, this is a double threat: journalists do not solve their own problems and do not prepare to cover the problems of a society where no one has escaped the impact of war. Many people may develop long-term post-traumatic stress syndrome. But, explains the course co-organizer, “By learning more about trauma, journalists can be part of Ukraine’s recovery process. They will understand not only themselves but also, for example, veterans returning from war.

According to Rees, one of the challenges of promoting trauma awareness in journalism is that people may find the word “trauma” itself off-putting because the topic makes them worry about their own health. In Ukraine, as in other countries, there is a tendency to assume pathology rather than see the discussion as a path to increasing one’s skills and knowledge of working with hard, potentially painful material.

“We encourage news teams to talk about trauma reactions, rather than symptoms,” Rees explains. “People, including journalists, will have reactions to situations that involve death, injury, or sexual violence. The closer they are to the center of those events, the bigger and more challenging the reactions are likely to be. Journalists get a dose of exposure from working with distressing images and content. But these reactions don’t necessarily imply long-term psychological illness.”

“The more understanding and awareness we can bring to our own reactions, the more equipped we are to manage them,” Rees continues. “Pushing the topic away, however, reduces the opportunity to become more effective while working with difficult stories, managing colleagues who need support, and looking after ourselves with more insight and compassion. Awareness and knowledge-sharing is the first step.”