Support Peer Counseling Program, NPPA Urges

The National Press Photographer's Association www.nppa.org is encouraging journalists to make use of and support a new peer counseling program that helps them deal with trauma.

NPPA past president David Handschuh says photographers have to acknowledge that they are allowed to cry and be angry about what happened on September 11. They should talk with family and friends, the clergy, therapists or colleagues in the media about troubling issues.

Last June, NPPA set up the Critical Incident Response Team and trained seven photographers to serve as peer counselors to their fellow photojournalists. These counselors are available to help those photojournalists coping with the September 11 attacks; visit www.nppa.org/wtc/cirt.html for contacts of volunteer counselors or send an email to 911@newscoverage.org . Handschuh says: "[The counselors] ar

NPPA has teamed up with Newscoverage Unlimited to run the counselling program and the Permanent Trauma Fund, which helps photojournalists and newspeople exposed to the effects of covering the September 11 attack and traumatic events. Newscoverage is a charity that organizes peer support and referral for journalists who have witnessed horror while working. Executive director Robert Frank says it's important to understand that there are needs "beyond New York, D.C., and Pennsylvania."

More volunteer counselors are needed and the first training session with trauma experts will be held October 24 to 26 at Columbia University in New York, says Handschuh. There are also plans to set up a drop-in center in the city. Photographers looking to become peer counselors should sign up at www.nppa.org/wtc/cirtapp.htm or go to to www.nppa.org/wtc/news/fund2.htm to contribute to the fund.

Frank says: "Journalists have not recognized traumatic stress for more that a decade. In fact, it is so-called `tough guy' occupations like the police, firefighters and the military who recognized the reality of traumatic stress more than a decade ago, and started to do something about it. Newspeople are only just beginning to deal with it." Handschuh says: "It's time to put the chest puffing macho nonsense behind us. You can take on that character for certain amount of time, till the sounds, the images and the smell of the horror catches up with you."