The Next Evolution of Humanitarian Safety
Kate Roberts, Senior Director, Global Staff Care & Well-Being, World Vision International, reflects on how our understanding of humanitarian safety continues to grow.
Every year, World Humanitarian Day reminds us of the extraordinary people who choose to serve others, often in some of the world’s most difficult places. This year’s #ActForHumanity campaign comes at a time when humanitarian workers continue to face growing insecurity, increasingly complex crises, and sustained operational pressure. It is a timely reminder that protecting humanitarian workers is not simply a humanitarian issue; it is a human one.
Over the past couple of years, I’ve found myself thinking about that question differently. The shift didn’t begin with a report or a new framework. It began with the conversations arriving at my desk.
There was a time when many requests focused on helping individuals manage stress or build personal resilience. Those conversations still matter. Increasingly, though, leaders have been asking different questions.
One communications leader preparing teams for another demanding emergency wanted to know how to create an environment where people felt safe to speak honestly and where managers could recognize early signs that someone might be struggling. Another leader, following a significant period of organisational change, wanted to rebuild trust and better understand how leadership could help people move forward together. Those conversations made me pause.
Humanitarian work has always been demanding, but many of today’s crises last longer, overlap with one another, and unfold alongside organisational change and sustained operational pressure. It makes sense that our questions are evolving too.
Working within World Vision’s Safety, Security & Resilience (SSR) department, where our Global Staff Care & Well-being team sits, has also shaped my thinking. I’ve had the opportunity to work alongside colleagues in Security, Fleet, Crisis Management, and Organisational Resilience, and one thing has become very clear to me. Protecting people starts long before an incident occurs. It is built through preparation, planning, training, strong systems, and thoughtful decisions that reduce risk before it becomes harm. Much of that work happens behind the scenes, yet it enables humanitarian teams to serve safely every day.
None of this lessens the importance of physical safety. Around the world, colleagues continue to work in contexts where insecurity and violence are an everyday reality. The work of Security, Fleet, Crisis Management, and many others remains fundamental to protecting our people.
At the same time, another question has stayed with me. If preparation is essential for physical safety, what might it look like to prepare for the psychosocial realities of humanitarian work?
That question has gradually shifted my attention further upstream. I’ve become more interested in the conditions people work in every day: how leaders lead, how work is designed during prolonged emergencies, how teams experience change, and how trust is built and maintained. None of these removes the realities of humanitarian work, but they can influence how people experience those realities over time. When humanitarian workers are healthy, supported, and able to sustain their work over time, children, families, and communities benefit too. But for me, that isn’t the beginning of the conversation. It’s the outcome of recognizing the humanity and dignity of the people who serve.
We don’t have all the answers. But what encourages me is that we’re asking better questions.
Across World Vision, I’ve seen growing openness to conversations that might once have remained in separate parts of the organisation. Staff surveys, lessons learned from incidents, and other organisational data are prompting us to look beyond individual experiences and to become more curious about the workplace conditions that shape them. Many organisations now refer to these conditions as psychosocial risks.
Those same conversations have naturally influenced the development of our Staff Care & Well-being work. Supporting colleagues through difficult experiences remains central to what we do. Increasingly, though, we’re also exploring prevention, healthy work design, leadership, and the everyday conditions that help people stay healthy before they reach a point of distress.
Within SSR, we’ve started to describe this broader perspective as whole-person safety. To me, it’s a reminder that people don’t experience physical safety separately from everything else. Leadership, relationships, the way work is organised, opportunities for recovery, and physical safety all contribute to the daily experience of humanitarian work.
What has encouraged me most isn’t that we’ve figured it all out. It’s the openness I’ve seen across our Partnership to keep learning.
Some of the most valuable conversations I’ve had over the past few years have been with colleagues you might not immediately associate with staff well-being. Legal. Risk & Compliance. Communications. Operations. Alongside colleagues across SSR, each has brought a different perspective and challenged my own thinking. They’ve reminded me that humanitarian safety has many experts, and we’re strongest when we’re willing to learn from one another.
As we mark another World Humanitarian Day, the humanitarian community is calling on all of us to #ActForHumanity. For me, one way we answer that call is by continuing to broaden our understanding of what it means to protect humanitarian workers. Not only because healthy organisations strengthen our ability to serve others, but because every humanitarian worker is first and foremost a person, deserving of dignity, care, and protection.
Humanitarian work will continue to evolve. I hope our understanding of humanitarian safety evolves with it, because the people who dedicate their lives to serving others deserve organisations that are just as committed to learning as they are to protecting them.