3.3 Staff and skills required The range and number of staff for rehabilitation services vary according to context, needs of survivors and local population, availability of appropriately qualified and experienced staff, and resources. Skills necessary for rehabilitation services:  It is good practice to ensure that the staff and skills required for each service/centre are based on a thorough needs assessment.  It may be that what is needed is unrealistic to obtain, and in this situation, it is good practice to ensure that strategic priorities for each service centre inform which skill-sets are to be prioritised.  There are a range of skills which are found to be essential to establishing and delivering rehabilitation services for torture survivors. It is good practice when prioritising which skills are most important to consider what would enable optimal functioning and effectiveness of the centre service at any given point in time. At different stages of a centre’s development, the priority for these skills will change, and a periodic organisational review is advisable. Skills necessary to establish, develop and deliver rehabilitation services for torture survivors include:  Management and strategic leadership skills  Operational systems development skills  Information and Communication Technology skills  Assessment (medical, psychological, psychiatric, social/welfare, legal) skills  Intervention skills (medical, psychological, psychiatric, social/welfare, legal)  Documentation and report-writing skills (medical and psychological)  Advocacy skills (legal policy)  Training and capacity-building skills  Communication and dissemination for awareness-raising skills  Monitoring, evaluation and research skills  Where appropriately-qualified and skilled staff is not available, it is good practice to consider essential skills required (as above) and to develop or secure appropriate training to enhance the professional development and competency of existing staff to reach required standards.  To avoid providing only short-term or incoherent training, since the systematic development of knowledge and skills is hindered, leading to gaps and inconsistencies in practice and standards. Also the absence of strategic training is likely to severely compromise the quality and sustainability of rehabilitation services provided by staff. Suggested reading: Keeping Safe When Preventing Torture (Power point presentation, 822Kb) MATESO, Kenya http://tinyurl.com/qgslp9n Focus on Forensic Examination (in Spanish. Power point presentation, 3mb) 15