The tragic events unfolding in Oslo this weekend remind me of the great responsibilities that can fall to Directors of Social Work when we least expect them to.
I can picture some of the terrible activities that some of our colleagues will be doing. Opening up at the weekend, checking registers, sitting with bereaved and a larger number of worried, potentially bereaved, desperate to know if their son or daughter has been found. Helping with the management of the army of families, spectators the worlds press. Providing support for identification of fatalities, counselling of bereaved and practical rest centre management will all be underway as I write.
These terrible duties came my way twice when working for Nottinghamshire in 1989, in a period of four months. First there was the British Midland flight 92 which crashed on the M1 motorway in what became known as the Kegworth Disaster in which 47 died and 74 were injured. It was a Sunday evening and my colleague, David Whitham who ran social work at the Queens Medical Centre, saw the news on TV and drove to work just to see if there was anything he could do to help. He ended up not going home for six days and nights and being engaged with our support, for some three months. Just as that was standing down, Nottingham Forest met Liverpool FC at Hillsborough in Sheffield on April 15th. I was Area Director for the Forest ground and we noticed in the following days that huge crowds of people were gathering in shock and distress. Apparently many of them had been booing and jeering the dying at the other end of the ground, believing that they were rioting and holding up the start of the match. Realising that this was not the case and then discovering the true horror of 96 dead was too much for many to bear. They came to their home ground, laid tributes and wandered around dazed and bewildered.
I went down to the stadium and talked to Brian Clough about it. He agreed to make some Executive boxes available to us and to open up the ground to us so we could offer a service to these 'dazed and confused' football fans. It proved to be a good arrangement as these largely male, largely unfussy people were able to get a coffee and a biscuit, then sit looking straight ahead at the football pitch and - using it as an analogue for Hillsborough could say "I was seated there, the Reds were over here, we saw them coming down....." and so on. The didn't need to offer eye contact and gradually they could talk their story out to a stranger they were not likely to see again and go home a bit brighter (and safer). For most the service was complete in a couple of weeks but for others the need was much greater and for a small few a clinical need was discovered.
Clough was not an easy man, and unlike Kenny Dalgleish he didn't want to acknowledge what he saw as 'mamby pamby fussin'. But he let us do it and was good enough to acknowledge that it had been important.
That was an incredible period when in 1988 Aberdeen had the Piper Alpha Disaster, later that same year in Dumfries and Galloway the Lockerbie Air Disaster and then in 1996 the Dunblane massacre which occurred within the last month of Central Regional Council's existence. These and other events raised the profile and importance of the welfare dimensions to emergency response and a wider acknowledgement of the damage that can be done by post traumatic stress if supposedly hard men are left to stifle their emotions.
I am sure we are all thinking of Oslo this weekend and I shall write on our behalf to Kari Skive Stuvoy, my Norwegian equivalent this week to share our solidarity and our condolences.
Andrew
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