From top to bottom, left to right: Kim Brice, Danya Chaikel, Kathleen Roberts, Alexa Koenig, Myrna McCallum, Maxine Marcus, and Mais Katt.
In the second episode of our miniseries on secondary trauma, we look at how issues surrounding mental health have been viewed in the international justice field – both historically and how things are changing now. With lawyers, journalists and trainers we discuss whether stigma has been a big barrier and what not to good coping mechanisms are common in the field.
We also explore how the shift from on-the-ground documentation to digital sources has forever changed the daily lives of many investigators what that could mean for their exposure to traumatic material and the ways they can protect themselves from the risks of secondary trauma.
And we get practical tips on how to prepare for an investigation, what to look out for to see whether it has affected us and what best practices we can all put in place to minimise harm. And it turns out community is key – and that was one of our favourite takeaways.
We dived into all that with the help of Myrna McCallum, the host of “The Trauma-Informed Lawyer” podcast and a trainer on trauma-informed engagement; Mais Katt, investigative journalist and media trainer from Sirya, based in the Netherlands and focusing on the Middle East; Alexa Koenig, Co-Faculty Director of the Human Rights Center, Director of HRC’s Investigations Program at UC Berkeley School of Law; Kim Brice, co-founder of The Self-Investigation, where she provides personal leadership coaching and mindfulness-based stress reduction and resilience training to a broad public, including journalists; Danya Chaikel, who worked in the Hague for international institutions like the International Criminal Court and the International Federation for Human Rights; Maxine Marcus and Kathleen Roberts, founders and co-directors of Partners in Justice International.
Some resources from our guests: Danya recommends the 2021 International Bar Association report “Mental Wellbeing in the Legal Profession: A Global Study”. And we highly suggest reading the book Graphic by Alexa Koenig and Andrea Lampros, to get deeper into the best practices for safely navigating our digital world.
