Important role Sport development workers and trauma experts both agree that the agencies that recruit sport development workers and sends them to posts in the field have an important role to play in the entire process. They are responsible for the welfare of the sport development workers and their activities in the field. They must create a climate in which a sport development worker can do his or her work well. This is certainly true of a complex area, like a refugee camp where sport development workers are confronted with, for instance, sportspersons who come from different ethnic or political backgrounds, or who have been trough a traumatic experience of some kind. The agency has a very important role to play in the preparation of a posting overseas (fact finding, recruitment, preparing the sport development worker for his time in the field), in the field (coaching/supervision), and afterward (debriefing). Entire process Unfortunately and in practice, not all organisations are sufficiently equipped to prepare and guide sport development workers. Some sport development workers have indicated that their organisations did not prepare them for the work they had to do with traumatised individuals. Guidance in the course of their time in the field had also been found wanting, little coaching of questionable quality had been available. And in some cases a debriefing hardly took place. The result of all this was a great deal of problems and stress in the field. For this reason, it has been decided to also include a number of practical pieces of advice and tips to the sending/posting agencies. These will be helpful to meet the conditions for a position overseas to be successful. These tips cover the entire process, from fact finding, through recruitment, preparation, field work and debriefing.  Jo Verhaegen |  Jo Verhaegen |