The second task of a sending agency is to recruit the right people. Working with sportspersons who have had a traumatic experience is not easy. A sport development worker must, therefore, have the skills to bring this difficult task to a satisfactory end.

Selection criteria

When we asked trauma experts and experienced sport development workers which criteria they thought were important when looking for people to do this work, they came up with the following:

• social and communication skills
• sensitive, but not oversensitive
• motivated
• not too idealistic
• not traumatised
• sure of oneself
• working experience overseas
• having worked in a different culture
• flexible
• persevering
• not too perfectionist, having a high capacity to deal with frustration
• capacity to improvise

Jo Verhaegen