The Project
The number of persons in Europe suffering from PTSS is likely to increase in the years to come. The most important causes this project will address include (1) conflict-related refugee flows and other migratory trajectories, (2) Covid 19 and its consequences, and (3) natural disasters like earthquakes, fires, floods, and volcano eruptions.
Thorough needs analyses tell us that especially in the public sector many professions are confronted in their work with clients who have PTSS. These professionals have their specific professional experience but no medical or psychiatric training on how to deal with a person who suffers from PTSS.
Consequently, they frequently misjudge their clients. A trauma-informed approach recognizes the presence of trauma symptoms and acknowledges the role that trauma has played in an individual’s life and requires a change in paradigm from asking ‘What’s wrong with you?’ to asking ‘What has happened to you?’. Implementing trauma-informed counselling helps service professionals to recognize, understand and appropriately respond to the effects of trauma.
This project has a three-fold objective: (1) to raise awareness about the occurrence of PTSS with professionals working in the public sector, (2) to equip them with skills for identifying PTSS among their clients, promoting their inclusion, and reducing barriers linked to discrimination, and (3) to improve the service and counselling work by professionals working in the public sector.
To reach these general objectives, the specific objectives are:
- To compile user-oriented Guidelines for professionals working in the public sector to raise their awareness about the occurrence of PTSS among their clients, and
- To develop a Catalogue with Case Studies Collection illustrating the most common work situations which shows examples how to react to clients who are suffering from PTSS;
- To develop training materials related to the respective chapters of the Guidelines and the particular Case stories;
- To enable networking and exchange of experience through the implementation of an e-platform for the access to all contents and training materials;
- To give immediate access to the products through development of mobile applications for smart phones;
- To achieve sustainability by providing access to the project’s outputs for at least five years after the end of the project, i.e., until 2028.
The theme of this project requires a holistic approach which includes expertise in psychiatry and medicine, social work, law and justice, adult education, media competence and, last but not least, advanced IT know-how, to provide the contents in an attractive way to the target group. This will be achieved by the cross-sectoral collaboration and, in order to reach as many European countries as possible, by the transnational partnership. This will especially be facilitated by the multiple networks in which the partners and the key personnel of this consortium are engaged.
The project will also allow the project partners to establish themselves in their respective countries as leading centres of expertise for knowledge and training in relation to dealing with posttraumatic stress symptoms in the population.
