Professor studies life in Kosovo

Associate professor Brian McCormick spent his sabbatical last fall working with the International Organization for Migration in Kosovo, Yugoslavia, rather than taking a break from his eight years as IU professor.\nMcCormick, who is a professor in the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, decided to use his sabbatical to work with a program that deals with psycho-social trauma response overseas.\nMcCormick's background is in community mental health and he said he'd always been interested in the state of affairs of people in post-conflict societies. The migration program works with populations following conflict, supports education and care for mental health and helps to rebuild communities.\n"I really didn't know what the state of affairs for people with disabilities was," McCormick said. "There were no official reports of the number of people with disabilities even. I wanted to try and understand the people that lived there, what challenges they were facing."\nIOM is based out of Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, where he spent time at the Shtime Psychiatric Hospital. McCormick said in the U.S., mental illness and mental retardation are distinguished as two separate things. But in Kosovo, all people are grouped together as mentally disabled and put in large institutions such as Shtime.\n"It is emotionally difficult to visit because the people there could be functional outside of Shtime but have never gotten the chance," McCormick said.\nCurrently, Shtime is undergoing a $3 million renovation but conditions are very poor. In fact the substandard conditions are of issue with Mental Disability Rights International.\nAccording to the MDRI's Web site, the program is calling for an end to the poor treatment of people with mental disabilities in Kosovo.\n"Everything is absolutely sterile," McCormick said, describing the condition of Shtime. "No picture, no nothing. There were just beds. There was very little going on in terms of meaningful activity."\nHe said the care staffs, not just at Shtime but in the entire Balkan region, need better training.\n"There is some idea of physiotherapy but few are trained," McCormick said. \nIn Kosovo, there used to be a social work system but it is not as strong now, he said. Much of McCormick's work was in training workers on techniques of therapeutic rehabilitation.\n"They are very slowly developing services for people with disabilities," McCormick said. "Staff members (at Shtime) are not evil, but they're untrained."\nFor example being a nurse, which is the bulk of the care staff, is just a secondary degree, meaning that after finishing grade eight, grades nine through 12 would be nursing school. Throughout the Balkan states nurses make only about 95 Euros a month, which works out to about $1200 a year.\nFor the first of his two months, McCormick was observing the conditions in Pristina. He met with parent group's members and representatives as well as non-governmental organizations.\nDean of HPER, David Gallahue praised McCormick for his academic experience.\n"Professor McCormick is known for his cutting edge research in therapeutic recreation especially in special populations." he said. "He was asked to do this and it is a tribute to him both nationally and internationally to be respected in this area of research."\nMcCormick said the biggest challenge facing Kosovo in its transition from centralized care to community-based care is the ability to generate funds within the community. In 1999, there were 600 NGOs providing support. At the end of 2002, there were 400. \nAt Shtime, McCormick also worked on designing work spaces and ideas on how to maximize usage area. Another task was trying to get resources for staff to learn how to use better techniques for therapeutic purposes. He said he had hoped to design a simple sensory stimulation activity for the severely disabled known as a wave machine, which consists of a container with baby oil and water with food coloring. But finding baby oil and food coloring proved to be difficult, causing McCormick to learn to adapt to Kosovo's culture change.\nHowever, advancements are being made in the country. Last year was the first year a child with mental retardation could go to school. He said that schools were not able handle these same students before since they learn at a different level than other students. \n"We've had 60 years to set our programs in place," McCormick said. "They're trying to do it in a decade"