Confronting trauma [PTP.2024.12E]
The overall aim of this module is to introduce the international humanitarian, development and UN communities to the large unmet need for psychological trauma care and therapy. It starts by describing the different types of stress and trauma and the dire consequences these can have. After the description of the magnitude of the problem, the module then presents some recent innovations in the field of psychology that have opened up dramatic new possibilities, which hold the promise of an effective response at scale. Going to scale, in turn, poses new challenges and opportunities to the main stakeholder audiences for this module.
Trauma is a global burden, adversely affecting human development, world development, and even world peace. Trauma has not received the attention it deserves, or treatment the support it needs. The contribution large-scale trauma healing could make to enhance social, economic and cultural productivity, as well as individual educability, creativity and well-being, could well be historic. Recent developments have the potential to bring on this large scale healing, for humanitarian and peace operation staff, and for the global population. This open, self-paced advocacy presentation aims to raise awareness and influence policy decisions to support and implement these new developments, and help bring an end to the insidious and unnecessary suffering that trauma wreaks worldwide.
At the end of the course participants will be able to:
- Describe the four types of stress and traumatic stress;
- Illustrate the global burden of trauma;
- Describe three approaches to trauma care/treatment used in this course;
- Describe three factors that facilitate scaling up of trauma treatment;
- Summarize why global trauma should be included in the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs);
- Recall elements of a successful World Plan for Trauma Treatment;
- Argument for the expanded treatment of trauma to key stakeholders.
The course is composed of five lessons:
- Lesson 1: Psychological stress and trauma
- Lesson 2: The global burden of trauma
- Lesson 3: Traumas: prevention and treatment
- Lesson 4: Scaling up therapy
- Lesson 5: Towards a world plan for trauma treatment
The average work time is estimated at 1 hour.
This advocacy course is a self-guided, self-paced, web-based course that is on-going and can be accessed at any time. The material is presented in text format with visual aids and web-based reference resources. Regular activities allow the participant to test their understanding of and reinforce the message of the course.
Primary audience: The course is designed for high level decision makers who can help shape global policy on trauma treatment, including diplomats, policy makers, politicians, donors, journalists, humanitarians, civil society and other human development leaders.
Secondary audience: The course is also geared towards students and any persons or groups with an interest in understanding and advocating for the better treatment of trauma worldwide.
Participants are not expected to have any prior experience or knowledge to take this course, other than:
- Having a good command of the English language (reading and writing);
- Being computer literate.
Technical Requirements
UNITAR recommends the following as a minimum in hardware and software to take our e-Learning courses. Please consult your Network Administrator or Systems person to ensure that you have the following:
Hardware requirements
- Desktop or laptop computer with Windows 10 or MacOS version 11 and later
- Tablet or mobile devices are not fully supported on some course tools
- Stable LAN or Wifi Internet connection
Browser
- Latest version of Mozilla Firefox (download for free at https://www.mozilla.org)
- Latest version of Google Chrome (download for free at https://www.google.com/chrome)
- Microsoft Edge or Safari (included in your computer)
Other software
- PDF reader (download for free at https://get.adobe.com/uk/reader)
- Microsoft Office for Windows or MacOS (compatible software can be downloaded at http://www.openoffice.org/)
- Video player (Quicktime for MacOS, Windows Media Player or compatible video player)
- Anti-virus
Other requirements
- Disable Pop-up blockers
- Enable cookies and java
- webcam and audio headset for courses that will require online meetings
- additional storage in case you need to download course materials
You will receive an email within 48 hours with the detailed information on how to proceed. Please kindly check your spam or junk inbox.