Members


	Salli Saari The Finnish representative and convenor of the Standing Committee on Disaster, Crisis and Trauma psychology, Salli Saari Ph.D, is working as clinical psychologist in Student Health Service in Helsinki. She has worked among university students and taking care of their preventive mental health more than 30 years. Nowadays she is concentrated only in acute crisis among students, such as suicides of parents, friends, boy- or girlfriends, different kind of accidents, violence, for example rape or former traumatic experiences like sexual abuse in childhood, bulling, violence among parents etc. She is teaching disaster, crisis and trauma psychology in universities for students of psychology and leading also the postgraduate training in this field for psychologists. She gives a lot of training in the field in hospitals and in public health care organisations. She also works as supervisor for many local crisis teams and different organisations working in the field of disaster and crisis psychology. She is still leading the special team of crisis psychologists in Finnish Red Cross for large disasters and she has in this role organised psychosocial support and services in all more than 20 major disaster which have happened in Finland since 1993, when this team was grounded. M/S Estonia disaster and tsunami have been the greatest catastrophes she has worked with. She has been 11 years president of Finnish Psychological Association and four years a member of EFPA Executive Council. She has been convenor of EFPA Task Force on disaster and crisis psychology since 1997. She has written a book on disaster, crisis and trauma psychology, published in Finnish 2000 and in English 2005. The name of the book is “A Bolt from the Blue; Coping with Disasters and Acute Traumas”.
	Isabel Fernandez The Italian Representative is a clinical psychologist, working in Milan. She has been trained in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and has been in the faculty of the Italian School of Cognitive Behavior Therapy for 6 years, providing specialization training in psychotherapy. She has worked as a Consultant psychologist at the Psychiatric ward of Niguarda Hospital, conducting research projects in the clinical field. She is a Lecturer at the Catholic University of Milan and Rome and at “La Sapienza” University of Rome. At the present time is the Director of the Psychotraumatology Research Center of Milan and has published many papers, articles and books on trauma, on EMDR and on research projects in this field. She is EMDR Europe Approved trainer and chairman of the Italian Association of EMDR and belongs to the Board of directors or the Italian Federation of Scientific Psychological Societies. She has directed and organized interventions of Emergency Psychology in natural and incidental disasters (Milan's aircrash on Pirelli building and Molise's earthquake) and has worked in cooperation with Civil Defense and Fireworkers for Debriefing and psychological support on stress of emergency workers. She has been training Psychology graduates, post-graduates and clinicians on trauma and crisis interventions.
	Eva Münker-Kramer The Austrian representative Mag. Eva Muenker-Kramer is clin. psychologist, organizational psychologist, psychotherapist (BT, EMDR, traumatherapy), EMDR-consultant and facilitator, disaster and emergency psychologist. She works in a private practice and is partner in the EMDR-Institute Austria and Center of Applied Psychotraumatology Vienna. She lectures in the fields of clinical psychology, psychotraumatology, disaster and emergency psychology, traumatherapy, EMDR e.g. in the Academy of further Education of the Professional Assoc-iation of Austrian Psychologists, in courses of the University of Vienna in cooperation with the Academy of Further Education in the General Hospital Vienna, in the Austrian Federal Railways Association, in the Austrian Fire Brigade Association, in the Austrian Red Cross, at Danube University Krems, the general hospital Vienna, and in numerous other areas. She is also author of journal and book articles in the above mentioned fields. She is chair-person of the Austrian Association of EMDR and an EMDR Europe approved EMDR trainer. She was co-founder and headed the Austrian Association of Disaster and Emergency Psychology (2000-2003) and was in the executive committee of the Professional Association of Austrian Psychologists (1993-2001). She is one of the founders of the Psycho-Social Team for Disasters and Emergencies Lower Austria, is member of the scientific committee of the post-graduate Academy of the Professional Association of Austrian Psychologists, member of the task force “Acute Trauma” of the German-speaking Association of Psychotraumatology and member of the Lower Austrian Ethics Committee by order the Lower Austrian Government.
	William Yule The British representative William Yule retired in October 2005 after 36 years continuous work at the Institute of Psychiatry where he was Professor of Applied Child Psychology and Consultant Clinical Psychologist to the Bethlem and Maudsley Hospital. In that time he worked with and wrote on many diverse topics including training parents, foster carers and classroom teachers in managing children’s behaviour, the effects of lead pollution on children’s development, the epidemiology of childhood disorders, specific reading disorder, school, refusal, autism and many other childhood disorders. He has been Chair of the Association for Child Psychology and Psychiatry, a founder member of the Society for the Study of Behavioural Phenotypes, and is currently Chair of the Foundation for Children and War. He has published over 300 scientific papers and 10 books. Since 1987, he has been involved in studies of traumatic stress in children. He was an advisor to UNICEF in Bosnia, and the manuals written with the Foundation for Children and War have been used in many war and disaster affected countries in recent years. He was a member of the Guideline Development Group for the UK National Institute for Clinical Excellence’s Guidelines for the treatment of PTSD. In 2005, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies for his work with PTSD in Children.
	Magda Rooze The Dutch representative, MA in Psychology and MBA in Business Administration, is senior advisor of the trauma expert group Arq and she was the director/corporate executive of the Impact Foundation, Dutch Knowledge & Advice Centre for Post-Disaster Psychosocial Care, which she founded in 2002. Under her management, the organisation developed a strong vision of post-disaster psychosocial care, a professional online database with relevant scientific publications, public information and experts in the field of psychosocial care. She opened up the network at the local, European and international levels. Magda was responsible for achieving several important guidelines for the field that are now used as standard practice. Many practical products were also developed under her management. The publications from her organisation have contributed to a good agenda setting and promotion of the vulnerable field of psychosocial care. Magda was able to acquire a large number of national and European projects for the knowledge centre. She strongly promotes international cooperation in which disaster aid should take shape.
	Jana Malikova The representative for the Czech Republic, Mgr. Jana Malikova works in the Ministry of the Interior as a psychologist and is specialised in providing crisis intervention to police officers and rescue workers within the posttraumatic intervention care in Police of the Czech Republic. She focuses on forensic psychology and disaster and crisis psychology. She is a member of a psychology assistance team of the Czech airlines company. She participates in training (preparation) members of crisis assistance teams of CSA and pre-dispatch preparation of experts working in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In case of a large disaster she participates in coordinating psychosocial activities and providing support to victims and affected people.

	Anders Korsgaard Christensen The Danish representative, Anders Korsgaard Christensen, is Head of the Unit of Crisis Psychology at Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen University Hospital. Anders is a specialist and supervisor in Psychotraumatology, and has been at the Unit for the last 20 years. Anders Korsgaard has been active in The Danish Psychological Association in creating and setting standards for the postgraduate training to become a specialist in Psychotraumatology. He does extensive teaching and workshops in Psychotraumatology both on a graduate and post graduate level. Anders has for several years been teaching Crisis and Disaster psychology at Copenhagen University. Unit of Crisis Psychology at Rigshospitalet offers help to traumatised individuals and groups, who have been exposed to sudden and often life threatening events. The trauma can be workplace trauma or sudden serious illness, often as a result of accidents or major incidents. Debriefing of the helper professions is also an integrated part of the work in Unit of Crisis Psychology. Unit of Crisis Psychology has a special obligation on a national level in case of disasters in Denmark or disasters concerning Danish citizens affected by disasters outside Denmark.
	Eva Håkanson The Swedish representative, Eva Håkanson, is working at the Unit for Traumatic Stress and Disaster Psychology at Stockholm County Council, Sweden. She is a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist working in the field of crisis, trauma and disaster psychology since more than 20 years. In 1984 she together with colleagues started an outpatient and consulting clinic for traumatized people, their relatives and medical staff at Huddinge university hospital, Stockholm County. In 1996 the unit became a regional centre for training and research in crisis, trauma and disaster psychology for the Stockholm County Council. In 1988 she initiated the establishment of an organization for the County Council concerning psychological and social care in case of disaster. This psychological disaster management organization as integrated into the medical disaster preparedness became a model for the health care system in Sweden 1991 through guidelines from the National Board of Health and Welfare. She has been a member of the task force group writing the guidelines and revising them in 1995 and 2004-2005. As a member of the regional medical disaster management team she has been leading the psychological organization working in connection with disasters which have affected the Stockholm area of which the tsunami was the latest. She has designed educational and training programs of various levels for people working with crisis support and psychological disaster preparedness and lectures in the Stockholm area as well as in other regions of Sweden. She has worked as a consultant to different groups and institutions in the Stockholm County Council and to public authorities having responsibilities in case of disaster. She has written several information pamphlets about bereavement as well as traumatic stress reactions and is involved in several research projects concerning traumatic stress, methods for supporting survivors of accidents and disasters and bereaved, work strain and development of supportive methods to medical staff.
	Marc Stein The representative for Luxembourg, Marc Stein, is a clinical and organizational psychologist working for Luxembourg Police. Beside supporting police officers experiencing psychological problems in general or after traumatic events, he is called to intervene during acute crisis situations such as suicides or major disasters. He is also giving training about conflict & stress management and victim aid at Luxembourg Police School. Since 1997, he developed together with Luxembourg Civil Protection a national disaster plan called SAI (Service d’Accueil des Impliqués) which aim is to supply psychological first aid to relatives, unwounded victims and intervention teams after a major disaster. This plan revealed its effectiveness after a hostage taking in a children day care centre in 2000 and an air crash in 2002.

Georg Pieper

The representative of the German psychological association (BDP) Georg Pieper, PhD is a clinical psychologist working in his own office for treatment of traumatized people. He is also leader of the Institute for coping with trauma (Institut für Traumabewältigung). The institute is a training-center for advanced training of psychotherapists in psychotraumatology.

Georg Pieper was one of the first German psychologists working with the bereaved after major disasters. He started in this field 1988 after the cole-mine-disaster in Borken, where 51 coalminers lost their lifes after an explosion in the mine. In 1998 he took care of the bereaved after the railway ICE-disaster in Eschede where 101 people died. 1999 he attendet to a school in Meißen, where a pupil had killed his teacher with a knife attac for the first time in Germany. In 2002 he organized the psychological aftercare following the school-shooting in Erfurt with 17 victims.

He gives a lot of trainings for different organisations like police, army, airport, prisons in the field of psychological first aid.

He has develloped a manual for treating traumatized people, the “Seven-Step-Program” and gives trainings for psychotherapists in this methods as well in his own institute as in different clinical institutions both at home and abroad. The title of his dissertation is: Relief for victims of disasters and school violence : a concept for psycho-traumatolocical aftercare. In this book the following study four catastrophes respectively school violence were selected and analyzed: the coal-mining disaster in Borken in 1988, the train accident in Eschede in 1998, the killing of a teacher in Meißen in 1999 and the school shooting in Erfurt in 2002. This paper integrates all of the available reports, empirical data and event-related documents. A concept for psychotraumalogical support of acutely traumatized people is presented and is structured based on the experiences of these relief efforts. In addition, the organizational circumstances of psychosocial emergency first aid are dealt with and recommendations to cope with future events of such magnitude are made.