Trauma Informed Practice
Trauma Informed Practice Modules
NHS Education for Scotland have developed a number of e-learning modules exploring trauma informed practice, which are available to all workers. The individual modules each focus on different subject areas, as described below, and take approximately 1.5 hours to complete.
- Developing Your Trauma Skilled Practice:
- Module 1 – Understanding the Impact of Trauma: This module is recommended for any worker who is in contact with and/or supports service users who may have been affected by trauma. It provides an understanding of the impact of trauma, and how to respond in a trauma-informed way.
- Module 2 – Trauma in Children and Young People: This aim of this module is to learn to work with children and young people who have experienced psychological trauma, including understanding the impact of trauma on children and young people, how they can recover from trauma, and what you can do to help meet their needs.
- Module 3 – Understanding the impact of trauma on mental health: In module 3, you learn to recognise mental health difficulties following trauma and signpost people towards evidence-based interventions. This will include identifying the range of natural reactions to traumatic events and the symptoms of PTSD and Complex PTSD, and recognise when a person may benefit from a trauma specialist intervention and how to facilitate access to intervention(s).
- Module 4 – Understanding the use of substances to cope with the impact of trauma: On completion of this module, you will understand the prevalence and impact of trauma for people who experience a substance use problem; recognise how substances and trauma symptoms can impact each other; respect the resilience in people surviving by finding and using coping strategies available to them; develop your own collaborative trauma-informed approach to supporting people affected by trauma and substance use; and recognise the need for recovery pathways that accommodate multiple complex needs.
- Trauma Informed Justice: These modules are reserved for workers who have a specific role and/or contact with victims and/or witnesses in the criminal prosecution process, and whose work focuses solely on evidence, rather than support and recovery.
- Module 1 – Understanding the impact of trauma on victims and witnesses, and responding in a trauma informed way: This module provides an understanding of what psychological trauma is, and how you can respond to it in your role including minimising the impact of trauma for witnesses, avoid hindering recovery, and support engagement in the justice process. It also explores why this is so important and how you can make a positive impact.
- Module 2 – Reduce re-traumatisation and support best evidence in work with victims: This work builds on learning from Trauma Informed Justice Module 1, and it is therefore expected you will have completed Module 1 before starting Module 2. On completion of Module 2, you will be able to define different types of trauma and ACEs; recognise the factors that can amplify or reduce the impact of traumatic events; understand the different ways in which trauma can affect the brain, a witness and their evidence; identify specific elements of the justice process that particularly increase the risk of re-traumatisation and what you can do to avoid this; and identify how you can support a witness to stay within their ‘window of tolerance’ to give their best evidence and effectively engage in the justice process.
- Trauma Informed Practice:
- Wellbeing of Teams for Managers: This module is reserved for managers and leaders, and explores their role in protecting the emotional and physical wellbeing of teams through periods of crisis.
- Staff Wellbeing – Taking Care of Yourself: This module is available for all staff, and provides an understanding of self-care and how to protect yourself from both physical and psychological stressors at work. It provides a Wellbeing Planning Tool to allow the creation of a unique plan for protecting your own personal wellbeing.