Selected Web resources

Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR)
Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR), a program of the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding of Eastern Mennonite University, is a leader in training for community-based trauma healing. The program integrates knowledge drawn from the latest research in psychology, sociology and neuroscience with wisdom acquired from broad international experience in peace-building and community development. The program serves healing professionals, relief and development workers, government workers and youth leaders from many countries.

Training to Help Traumatized Populations
"Training to Help Traumatized Populations," a 2001 special report of the United States Institute of Peace. The USIP Web site also provides reports and information on topics related to community trauma healing, such as transitional justice.

Beyond Intractability
The "Beyond Intractability" Web site provides a wealth of information on trauma healing, including an annotated bibliography and links to other online resources. The link above takes you to the main article on trauma healing, which leads to related articles. For example, clicking on the highlighted word "humiliation" brings up an informative essay on the connections between humiliation, trauma and violence.

 

Training in community trauma healing techniques

The Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma (HPRT)
The Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma (HPRT) offers a multidisciplinary community-based clinical treatment and training program for dealing with health and mental health issues faced by traumatized refugees from conflict or natural disasters.

Institute for healing of memories
Fr. Michael Lapsley lost both hands to a bomb he received in the mail when he was working to end apartheid in South Africa. His organization, based in South Africa, provides training to help individuals and communities acknowledge their stories of suffering so that they can work with others to build a healthy future.

Beyond intractibility
"Beyond Intractability," based at the University of Colorado, Boulder, offers online courses in managing intractable conflicts, which are the largest cause of trauma worldwide.

Trauma Healing
Peter Levine is a researcher, trainer and practitioner of cutting-edge somatic (body) techniques for transforming trauma. Although Levine’s approach is not community-based per se, his techniques can be used very effectively in community-based programs.

 

Guides on community trauma healing techniques

A facilitators guide on community based psychosocial services
A facilitator’s guide to provide basic training in the principles and techniques of community-based psychosocial services and trauma healing. Developed for emergency relief workers by the Lutherhjälpen Church of Sweden, Norwegian Church Aid and Presbyterian Disasters Assistance, for Action by Churches Together.

Psychosocial Healing: A Guide for Practitioners
Psychosocial Healing: A Guide for Practitioners, edited by Paula Gutlove and Gordon Thompson, is the training manual of the Bridges to Health Project in the former Yugoslavia. Besides introducing community trauma healing techniques, the manual explains the overall philosophy of the program and reflects upon lessons learned.

 

Other resources

Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma (HPRT)
An especially useful resource of the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma (HPRT) is a series of assessment tools, developed and tested in many different parts of the world. A 300-page manual, Measuring Trauma, Measuring Torture, can be purchased via this link.

The most serious and intractable traumas are rooted in conflict and injustice. A few Web sites are especially useful in providing creative but practical techniques for addressing such situations without violence: A force more powerful, A force more powerful game, Pace e Bene nonviolence service, 3D security

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