1. School role in social reconstruction of the community in crisis
by Lina Ќostarova Unkovska
Center for Psychosocial and Crisis Action - Skopje, R.Macedonia

2. Location, time, duration …
Country – region (s): Republic of Macedonia -
multiethnic post conflict community (city of Tetovo) &
five other towns…
Time: Project starts in a year after a severe
interethnic conflict between the Albanian rebels and
Macedonian armed forces - to end in 2006
Place: Seven (all) Tetovo’ elementary schools & five
schools from The Macedonian Health Promoting
Schools Network, with more schools joining the project

3. Research - intervention questions
School role in social reconstruction of the community in crisis
Research - intervention questions
What is going on in a community of prolonged crisis? contextual /field conditions/ level
Where to start to stop the deteriorating processes imposed by the crisis? Could it be the school?
capacity /potentials/ level
How can the school community activate development towards positive community change?
resiliency & competency for action level
Center for Psychosocial and Crisis Action - Skopje, R.Macedonia

4. Immediate individual' versus community' response to community crisis
1. What is going on in a community of prolonged crisis?
Immediate individual' versus community' response to community crisis
Individual in crisis
Consolidate
Physiological:
Basic needs adjustment
Behavioral:
Pro-active, playful, alert, repetitive,
regressive, avoiding, isolative, passive,
withdrawn etc
Cognitive:
Selective, negating, idealizing,
confabulating, symbolizing…
Emotional:
numb, over-controlling, impulsive
aggressive
Community in crisis
Conflicting /disorganized
Threatening life conditions
Old patterns’ falling apart
Lack of valid information
Lack of guidance and relevant decision making
New overwhelming events
Lack of trust, collaboration and support
Catastrophic prediction etc.
Center for Psychosocial and Crisis Action - Skopje, R.Macedonia

5. Individual versus Community Capacity in Prolonged Community Crisis
1. What is going on in a community of prolonged crisis?
Individual versus Community Capacity in Prolonged Community Crisis
Individual level
Physiological
(show: endurance, increased capacities for survival, arousal, pro-active)
Cognitive
(search for: structure, order, logic, understanding & meaning)
Psycho-social
(need for: safe and stable environment, support,
belonging, recognition - identity)
Community level
Physiological
(tense, risky, impulsive,
unbalanced, disconnected etc.)
Cognitive
(disorganized, disoriented, confused, destructive ,meaningless)
Psycho-social
(threatening and fearful ; mistrustful, lack of recognition; isolated, identity confusion)
Center for Psychosocial and Crisis Action - Skopje, R.Macedonia

6. 1. What is going on in a community of prolonged crisis?
Crisis as contradictory process of change
Individual
Pro-active - constructive
Adult - Child
Teacher - Pupil
Parent - Child
Community in crisis
Pro-active -destructive
Community
(Unsafe, discriminative, poor – war zone, collective centers, multiethnic)
School
(Authoritarian, threatening, impoverished, chaotic)
Family
(Separation, divorce, abuse, neglect)
Center for Psychosocial and Crisis Action - Skopje, R.Macedonia

7. 2. Where to start to stop deteriorating processes ?
Can it be the school?
Individual
Adult & Child
Parent & Child
Community
Unsafe, discriminatory,
threatening, chaotic
Why the school?
It is a place of great potential - for learning and growth
It represents all community members
It offers a structure, sense of belonging, recognition, comparisons
It provides a framework for regaining the lost control and meaning
Family
(separated; divorced; neglectful, abusive, manipulative, depressed)
Center for Psychosocial and Crisis Action - Skopje, R.Macedonia

8. Creating new processes of change
3. How can the school change the vicious circle for the better and activate development …?
Creating new processes of change
Individual
Adult & Child
Parent & Child
Community
New relationships, better informedness, community participation, leadership
Teacher - Pupil - School
restructuring the school community leadership – forming the crisis teams with shared responsibilities; inclusion of all school members with new roles and responsibilities, creating new school ethos - pupil –teacher participation in the HPS projects; continual support;
school linking and networking
Family
(unified, renewing parental roles and responsibility; sense of belonging, meaning, caring,)
Center for Psychosocial and Crisis Action - Skopje, R.Macedonia

9. Deciding on conceptual framework … Is it a health promotion?
3. How can the school start stimulating development towards positive
community change?
Deciding on conceptual framework … Is it a health promotion?
Need or Right based Programs
Democratic instead of Moralistic
Development versus Intervention
Center for Psychosocial and Crisis Action - Skopje, R.Macedonia

10. Need or Right Based Program ?
Deciding on conceptual framework…
Need or Right Based Program ?
determination of needs vary according to the situation, individual and environment
address symptoms
welfare, charity – short term provision /filling gaps/
voluntary – private initiative
partial goals /as possible/
providing services
basic human /children/ rights are universal /the same everywhere/ - public, moral and legal responsibility, duty
address root causes
legal entitlements, claims, equality, freedom - long term goals
mandatory – political, moral
all children (are entitled to )
empowering
Center for Psychosocial and Crisis Action - Skopje, R.Macedonia

11. Democratic versus Moralistic approach
Deciding on conceptual framework …
Democratic versus Moralistic approach
Looking for potentials - not for deficits
Conditions are subject to change - not the person, or behavior…
Promotion instead of correction
Active (interactive) versus passive (one sided, directed)
Social-cultural instead of individualistic
Holistic (all inclusive) versus exclusive /marginalization, labeling…/
Empowering not threatening
Center for Psychosocial and Crisis Action - Skopje, R.Macedonia

12. Development versus Intervention
Deciding on conceptual framework …
Development versus Intervention
What makes the difference ?
Long - term processes of change … Open ended & Participatory … Playful and exciting … Structured and deliberated within limits… Socially - culturally embedded… Interactive and supportive, encouraging… Life long learning … resilience building… crisis anticipatory & uncertainty open…
Center for Psychosocial and Crisis Action - Skopje, R.Macedonia

13. Health Promoting School in Crisis Community
School role in social reconstruction of the community in crisis
Health Promoting School in Crisis Community
Field conditions – under continual change…
Community - daily incidents in the neighborhood
Schools – overcrowded, poor, neglected, powerless,
Teaching methods (contents) – traditional, didactic, moralistic, irrelevant
Teachers – afraid, overwhelmed, demotivated, threatened, underpaid, intolerant,
Parents – afraid, hurt, distrustful, angry
Children – traumatized, separated, isolated, marginalized
Center for Psychosocial and Crisis Action - Skopje, R.Macedonia

14. Health Promoting School in Crisis Community - Aims
School role in social reconstruction of the community in crisis
Health Promoting School in Crisis Community - Aims
Aim 1:
Decrease the feeling of insecurity and mistrust among the school community members of different ethnic background, by encouraging pupils and teachers for joint participation in the school & community health promoting projects …
Aim 2:
Empowere schools for linking and networking with other school communities, and getting out of closed circles of self-destruction and isolation …
Center for Psychosocial and Crisis Action - Skopje, R.Macedonia

15. HP School Project Strategy
School role in social reconstruction of the community in crisis
HP School Project Strategy
All schools’ active inclusion in the Project (new school & inter-schools organization & structure)
Continual training, consultation & support monitoring, interactive supervision & evaluation
Linking and networking of all kinds among teachers, pupils, children - adults, school – community (team building, group work, interschool collaboration)
= teachers and children create and run their own school promoting projects/
In the micro enviornment teachers and children create and run their own school promoting projects/

16. Development Project Structure /interrelated/
School role in social reconstruction of the community in crisis
Development Project Structure /interrelated/
Pre-phase – screening & understanding the field
- preparation for change – 6 months
Research and vision phase - redefinition
- new perceptions and images – 12 months
Action and change – empowerment
- experience of participation in change – 12 months
Linking and networking – creating meanings
- getting out of isolation - 18 months

17. Children’s involvement in the project
School role in social reconstruction of the community in crisis
Preparation
- Building safe and stimulating micro- environments
- Creating conditions for democratic participation and decision making
Five step /S-IVAC/ approach
- towards increasing children’s self-confidence and competence for participation in change
School linking and networking
Center for Psychosocial and Crisis Action - Skopje, R.Macedonia

18. Examples of a safe micro-environment building
School role in social reconstruction of the community in crisis
Examples of a safe micro-environment building
Class work
Project team work
Inter-schools activities
Multiethnic summer schools

19. What is a S/P- IVAC approach?
School role in social reconstruction of the community in crisis
What is a S/P- IVAC approach?
It is a developmental strategy
of involving children as active
participants in the changes,
through the following phases:
S/P - Selection/Preparation
I - Investigation
V - Vision
A – Action
C – Change

20. Four phases of children’s participation
School role in social reconstruction of the community in crisis
Four phases of children’s participation
Selection/Preparation
Investigation
Vision
Action

21. School Linking & Networking - the way out
School role in social reconstruction of the community in crisis
School Linking & Networking - the way out
Linking and creating partnership between the schools of different regions /multiethnic with single-ethnic; rural with urban; local with distant; domestic with foreign/
Children and teachers interschool collaboration on joint health /community/ promoting projects
Involvement of the new IT as a tool for inter school communication, performing, learning & friendship building

22. School role in social reconstruction of the community in crisis
From the evaluation
Positive changes: in teachers’ new roles – ready to listen, assist and support pupils’ initiatives and actions … in pupils’ competences and commitment as well as in their new position in the schools – increasing participation, tolerance, responsibility & achievements… in school atmosphere - dynamic, visionary, caring…
Weaknesses: lack of linking with system institutions – absence of mechanisms of support and recognition for the schools, teachers and pupils; absence of monitoring and evaluation, and relevant policy decision making; critical absence of interest, or/and understanding for the processes of the school active role in health, social & educational change.

23. Project realization and support
School role in social reconstruction of the community in crisis
The Project was carried out in
by the Center for Psychosocial and Crisis Action
Skopje, R. Macedonia
In collaboration with
The Macedonian Bureau for Development of Education
&
With financial support from
The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation
Center for Psychosocial and Crisis Action - Skopje, R.Macedonia