​In order to strengthen the capacities of the human talent that guides and attends to the victims of the armed conflict in Colombia, SENA and the Croatian Embassy started the project "Development of capacities for psychosocial support: strengthening of Colombian professionals of attention to provide basic psychosocial services".

With this plan, 160 professionals from Medicine, Nursing, Psychology and Social Work from different regions of the country will be trained between February 13 and November 14, to provide comprehensive support to veterans, their families, civilians affected by traumas and other conditions and to promote the social reintegration of victims of the conflict. 

"Through the course we will strengthen this type of strategy in the productive sector that is responsible for providing psychosocial service to survivors of violence," says Ruth Mireya Suárez Porras, manager of the SENA health network. 

"Nine SENA teachers are part of the training process to later share knowledge with the health sector and our students," said the official.

The program has the support of the Croatian Society for Psychological Assistance (SPA), the government of Croatia, the Group of Experts in Psicotrauma Arq of the Netherlands. SPA, main executor of the project and SENA, as the company in charge of delivering training modules, with the coordination of the Corporate Relations area of this institution. 

The plan, with participants in cities such as Bogotá, Cali, Medellín and Barranquilla, is part of the actions of the European Fund for Peace in Colombia that aims to contribute to overcoming the negative effects of the internal conflict of more than 50 years that marked the country; it is based on attention to the special physical and/or mental health conditions of the reincorporated population and the victims of the conflict. 

For the strengthening of interdisciplinary procedures and interventions, the SPA experience is the basis for its previous work in countries such as Croatia, Serbia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Albania, Georgia and Ukraine; furthermore, the experience of the Dutch group of experts Arq in sub-Saharan Africa, Greece, Chechnya, Armenia, Democratic Republic of the Congo and other countries.