Australia's Operation Safe Haven with displaced persons from Kosovo and East Timor: the psychosocial and mental health perspective.

La Operación Australiana de Refugio Seguro con personas desplazadas de Kosovo y Timor Oriental: la perspectiva psicosocial y de salud mental

In may 1999, Australia commenced to implement a decision to evacuate 4000 Kosovo Albanians from refugee camps in Macedonia and provide them with a "safe haven" in Australia until the situation in Kosovo had improved sufficiently for them to go back home in safety. The preparations to assist what was expected to be a highly traumatized group included provisions to cater for their psychosocial and mental health needs. Torture and trauma services were identified as leading agencies for the provision of such services in most states involved in operation Safe Haven. Following the violence in East Timor after the August 30th referendum, a similar "safe haven" was extended to a group of over 1000 East Timorese who had taken refuge in the UN compound in Dili. The same range of services, including psychosocial and mental health services was extended to this group.

Operation Safe Haven constituted an unprecedented response in terms of Australia's commitment to international protection issues. It had a very prominent public profile and attracted a great deal of controversy for a variety of reasons. Originally introduced as an extraordinary one-off measure, this hitherto unprecedented solution was used twice within months for two different groups, prompting questions about its appropriateness and sustainability as a stock answer to international protection crises.

Operation Safe Haven also presented new challenges in a novel context for the delivery of mental health ands psychosocial services, which stimulated the development of new and innovative approaches to address them.

The paper describes the major features of Operation Safe Haven, particularly from a psychosocial and mental health perspective, drawing from the experience of STARTTS in NSW. The valuable lessons learned from Operation Safe Haven by the STARTTS team are discussed, as well the weaknesses and strengths of such model as they became evident during this exercise.

The paper concludes with a number of recommendations with the potential to improve the overall outcome of "Operation Safe Haven" if it were to be repeated. It also highlights the potential application of some of the lessons learned to other areas of refugee resettlement and temporary protection.