Life as a humanitarian is tough.
You help some of the world's most vulnerable people. And every day your work exposes you to challenges that can leave you feeling stressed out, burnt-out, ineffective, and overwhelmed.
That's where Resileo comes in.
We are two psychologists from opposite sides of the world who have joined forces to help you protect yourself as you work to protect others: Dr. Rebecca Dempster, a clinical psychologist from Canada and Yesim Arikut-Treece, a counseling psychologist from the United Kingdom.
That’s us congratulating one of the graduates of our community mental health helpers training in Khanke Camp, just outside of Dohuk in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, where we met in 2018. Our work there – providing therapy to Yezidi women survivors of genocide – was incredibly intense. It took a lot of skill and a lot of support from each other to maintain our own wellbeing in the midst of it. And those are the skills, support, and experience that we share with you here through Resileo. We share a lot of them in our Happy Healthy Humanitarians free video series so make sure you subscribe - just click here to enter your email address.
We're optimists by nature.
Most therapists are. To do therapy, you have to believe passionately in people’s capacity to change and to grow. You have to believe that it’s possible to overcome hardship and horrors. You have to believe that anyone can have a good life, no matter where they’re starting from.
And we do. We believe all those things. We believe that you can recover from trauma. We believe that you can work with the world’s most vulnerable people without becoming vulnerable yourself. We believe that you can do humanitarian work and stay happy and healthy over the long-term. You may need support to do it, but we believe you can.
Our optimism is one of the driving forces behind our work. Here’s the full list of what inspires us:
We're evidence-based.
Our content is based on scientifically researched methods. We don't recommend it to you unless we know it works.
We think broadly.
We understand that your work affects your whole life. We call it the humanitarian lifestyle - the moves, isolation, and job insecurity - and we address it all.
We get it.
Our real world experience in the humanitarian sector means we understand the challenges firsthand.
We're accessible.
We work online so you can access our services wherever you are.
We're practical.
Our strategies are easy to digest and even easier to implement. We give you concrete skills that you can use right away.
We're optimistic.
We believe that everyone has the capacity to learn and grow. We focus on small steps that lead to big changes.
We apply these same principles to our mental health and psychosocial work with refugees and displaced people. If you’re interested in our work in MHPSS programming, you can read all about it here.
Official Bios
Dr. Rebecca Dempster is a clinical forensic psychologist with experience in assessment, treatment, program development, and training. She earned her Ph.D. from Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada in 2002. She worked at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto, Canada, where she provided assessment and therapy for people struggling with suicidal urges, problematic anger, substance abuse, self-harm, and sexual offending. She was the Senior Clinical Lead on a collaborative project with Corrections Canada to develop a trauma-informed substance abuse program for female offenders and provided consultation to British Columbia Mental Health and Addictions Services on the development of a specialized concurrent disorders program for forensic psychiatric patients.
In 2008, Dr. Dempster began her humanitarian career as a consultant with UNHCR on psychosocial issues in the aftermath of post-election violence in Kenya. Based in a field office in Nakuru, Dr. Dempster worked with local mental health professionals to build capacity in providing culturally sensitive trauma-informed support to survivors of violence. In 2009 she worked as a Senior Staff Welfare Officer for UNHCR, providing support to UNHCR staff and their families in the East and Horn and Great Lakes regions of Africa. Since 2010 she has consulted with humanitarian agencies and organizations, including UNHCR, UNICEF, GIZ, UNDSS, OSCE-ODIHR, OHCHR, International Medical Corps, and numerous other NGOs. From 2016 to 2018, she was the Director of Mental Health and Psychosocial Support for HIAS, supporting programs across the globe in delivering services for refugees. In 2018, she worked as a front-line psychologist with Free Yezidi Foundation, providing individual and group therapy for Yezidi women in the aftermath of the 2014 genocide against their community. Her areas of expertise include clinical assessment and therapy, staff resilience and well-being, designing and delivering training on investigative interviewing, working with survivors of trauma, designing and implementing mental health and psychosocial programming with a particular focus on community mental health and staff well-being, and conducting investigations into allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse. She is a certified SEA Investigations training with CHS Alliance. Her work has taken her to Africa, Asia, Europe, the Americas, and the Middle East.
Yesim Arikut-Treece is a Chartered Counseling Psychologist (British Psychological Society), EMDR practitioner (EMDR Europe) and DBT therapist with more than 15 years of experience. She specializes in trauma therapies, working both with individuals and in groups for short- and long-term therapy. She is experienced in clinical supervision, teaching and training, leading community mental health and psychosocial projects, service development and capacity building in low income countries and crisis situations.
Her most recent role was as the lead psychologist at Free Yezidi Foundation, working both in Khanke and Sharia IDP camps in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. She led the Trauma Team supporting Yezidi survivors of genocide, providing MHPSS and offering psychotherapy both individually and in groups. She helped build local capacity by training Yezidi women and girls as community MHPSS workers and supervising their work in the camps providing psycho-social support to the Yezidi community. She has supported these teams throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and continues to provide clinical supervision and support remotely.
Prior to moving to Iraq, Yesim worked as a Senior Psychologist and DBT Team Leader at a NHS Primary Care Psychological Therapy Service in the UK and in a private practice in the United Arab Emirates.