The Kosovo Family Support Project: Offering Psychosocial Support for Families with Missing Persons

This article presents a case that illustrates the vital role that social workers and other mental health and public health workers provided to support families following the 1999 conflict between Serb forces and Kosovar Albanians in Kosovo. A public health and social work team from Bostonbased Physicians for Human Rights responded to an emergency postconflict situation by planning and implementing a community-based intervention that mobilized local mental health providers and established collaboration among national and international agencies, including the International War Crimes Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, to provide a support network for families with missing family members. The intervention included assessment of local resources, training, fieldwork, professional development of local staff, and the establishment of long-term local responsibility and autonomy.