Practical guidance has been published to support employers and organisations in the provision of psychological trauma training.

The Scottish Psychological Trauma Training Plan  has been developed through collaboration between professionals and those with lived experience.

The purpose of this Scottish Psychological Trauma Training Plan (hereafter known as the Trauma Training Plan) is to enable all organisations locally and nationally to effectively develop and sustain a workforce that is able to respond to the needs of everyone affected by psychological trauma.

It is designed to support the local implementation of Transforming Psychological Trauma: Knowledge and Skills framework for the Scottish Workforce (2017) (hereafter referred to as the Trauma Framework) throughout Scotland and the range of professions, workers, organisations and systems that exist locally and nationally

Dr Sandra Ferguson, National Coordinator of the Trauma Training Programme at NHS Education for Scotland said:

“There is a national recognition that traumatic experiences are more common than we realise. It is important to acknowledge that trauma is everybody’s business and that we all have an important part to play.

“Scotland was the first country to develop a Knowledge and Skills Framework for Psychological Trauma, and a lot of remarkable work is underway to improve how we all respond to the needs of people affected by traumatic experiences.

“The  Trauma Training Plan, developed by NES, will support services locally and nationally to develop and sustain a workforce that is able to respond to anyone affected by psychological trauma. It also offers key principles that will help all organisations, no matter how big or small, to support their workforce to put trauma training into practice.”

NHS Education for Scotland will deliver the project.This is part of the Scottish Government’s trauma training programme which received funding of £1.35 million. This ties in with the Lifelines Project which you can read about here: Lifelines Scotland: Support for Emergency Workers

Jeane Freeman, Cabinet Secretary for Health in the Scottish Government, said:

“We want to see all frontline services across Scotland become more informed and responsive to trauma, and our training plan looks to equip workers with the necessary training to support people affected by trauma to recover.

“I want to encourage employers to read our plan and think about how they can use it to support the development of staff knowledge and skills within their organisations.”