Project: Organizational development grant from the Think Tank Fund26May2016
Discussion: Mechanisms of support to employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and of the Ministry of Defence
A discussion on the mechanisms of support to employees of the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Internal Affairs took place on Thursday, May 26, at 3pm on the CENTRE’s premisis.
CENTRE's aim was to encourage a broader debate about the results of existing mechanins of support and offer recommendations for their improvements. The motivation was twofold. Firstly, current finalization of a new National Action Plan for the implementation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 has not included assessement on mechanisms for fighting gender discrimination which were established in the previous NAP. Second motive was setting up the Department for Psychological Prevention and Selection in the Ministry of Internal Affairs which should support better the employees.
During the discussion, many questions were raised: whether individual mechanisms are defined as complement or they overlap; how much the employees are informed about the possibility to use the mechanisms, whether the mechanisms exist only de facto, seen as a current trend and created to meet requirements of international actors or they are indeed effective in providing the support. Last but not least, the question how their effectivness can be improved was discussed. The discussion also addressed mechanisms such as "persons of trust" and "colleague for support".
Participants of the discussion among others were: BIljana Stojkovic, Snezana Novovic, Milan Sekuloski, and Adel Abusara.
CENTRE considers that these questions should recieve more attention. It will publish a policy brief with recommendations aimed to strenghten support of empolyees. The authors of the policy brief are Marina Tadic and Svetlana Djurdjevic-Lukic. It will be published under the auspices of the institutional grant for organizational development from the Think Tank Fund of the Open Society Foundations
Also, Ms. Djurdjevic-Lukic was a guest at a radio show U sredistu Paznju (In the Centre of Attention), the Radio Belgrade 1 on Thursday. She together with Slobodan Spasic, psychological adviser at the Police Union in Serbia spoke about whether members of the military and police have on disposal right mechanisms to deal with the stress and pressure which they face at their daily work. They discussed mechanisms and efforts invested to decrease the rate of suicide, to enhance gender equality and to eradicate mobbing.
The editor of the radio show is Nenad Mlitarevic. You can listen to the podcast here.