Funding: European Commission
Project duration: 2021–2023
Total funding: EUR 225,555.00
PROJECT CONSORTIUM
The project consortium consists of a multidisciplinary team that includes legal, social and medical and research organisations, experts in teaching and media literacy and a professional institution for ICT communication.
Coordinator:
KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN, Leuven Institute of Criminology, Belgium
Partners:
CONNEXIONS, Information Communication Technologies for Education and Social Impact, Greece
INSTITUTO POLITÉCNICO DO PORTO, Escuela Superior de Saúde, Portugal
INTEGRA, Institut Za Razvoj Clovekovih Potencialov Velenje (Institute for Development of Human Potentials), Slovenia
QUALED, Občianske združenie pre kvalifikáciu a vzdelávanie (QUALification and EDucation), Slovakia
UNIRI, Sveučiliste u Rijeci, Medicinski fakultet (University of Rijeka, Faculty of Medicine), Croatia
WIN, Wissenschaftsinitiative Niederösterreich (Science Initiative Lower Austria), Austria
Project manager:
Assoc. Prof. Marina Letica Crepulja, MD, PhD
Associates:
Prof. Tanja Frančišković , MD, PhD
Asst. Prof. Aleksandra Stevanović, MA, PhD
Project description
The project will build upon the successful Erasmus+ project “Post-traumatic Integration – Low-level Psychosocial Support and Intervention for Refugees”. This project had been met with great interest and received the distinction as a best practice project. During their dissemination activities, several partners had been asked if the project could be extended to serve as support for various professionals who are in their work in contact with clients or people who suffer from post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) but do not have professional training. The number of persons in Europe suffering from PTSS is likely to increase in the years to come. Migration from war-torn countries will continue, and the current Covid-19 pandemic has not just negative physical but also negative mental health consequences because of psychotraumatisation. People who suffered from serious COVID-19 illness and potential death; family members and healthcare workers who have witnessed others’ suffering and death; those who have learned about the death or risk of death of a family member or friend due to the virus or those who have experienced extreme exposure to aversive details (volunteers, social workers, journalists etc.). In other words, increased numbers of people have been exposed to COVID-19-related traumatic events and represent a group exposed to the specific traumatic experience in need of adequate recognition and response to their trauma on all levels. Based on a thorough needs analysis, we found that especially in the public sector many professions are confronted in their work with clients who have PTSS: labour office advisers, social benefit workers, housing department officers, lawyers, debt counsellors, just to name a few. All 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 because they are likely to interpret their behaviour as selfish, inappropriate, or arrogant. The 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 one that asks, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ to one that asks, ‘What has happened to you?’” Implementing trauma-informed counselling would help service professionals, who are medical and psychiatric non-professionals, to recognize, understand and appropriately respond to the effects of trauma.
The general objective of this project is to raise awareness about the occurrence of PTSS and to equip professionals working in the public sector with skills that can help them to identify PTSS among their clients, to promote their inclusion, to reduce barriers linked to discrimination and, as a consequence, to improve their respective service or counselling work.
To achieve these objectives, the specific objectives are:
- to compile Guidelines for professionals working in the public sector to raise awareness of PTSS among their clients, and to acquire skills that will help them identify PTSS among their clients and to promote their inclusion
- to create a Catalogue with a case study collection illustrating the most common work situations that will demonstrate how to respond to clients with PTSS
- to develop educational materials related to the respective chapters of the Guidelines and individual case studies
- to enable networking and exchange of experiences through the development of an e-platform for access to all content and training materials
- to provide instant access to content through a mobile application for smartphones
- to achieve sustainability by enabling access to project results at least five years after the end of the project, i.e., until 2028.
Project website: Trauma-Informed Practice for Workers in Public Service Settings (trauma-informed-practice.eu)
Results of the TIPS project include:
1) Guidelines that will provide information and recommendations for everyday practice to enable public service work based on a trauma-informed approach.
2) Catalogue with a Case Studies Collection that will contain comprehensive and simple recommendations as well as key procedures aimed at meeting the needs of clients with post-traumatic symptoms/reactions (PTSS).
3) Resource Pack that will provide interactive training and e-learning activities through modular structure and quizzes related to the particular chapters of the Guidelines and Catalogue.
4) Interactive e-platform access to all contents and training materials of the project. It also supports online interactive tools such as blogs and social networking applications.
5) Mobile application that adapts selected online materials from the e-Training Course, the Catalogue and the Guidelines for delivering these contents via smartphones and mobile devices.
Events
Expert group meeting
On 15 September 2022, an expert group meeting was organised at the Faculty of Medicine in Rijeka.
