Certificate in Trauma Healing & Theory
This certification takes 12 months to complete and is comprised of eight modules (PSV Training & Mod 1-7).
This certificate is available for those invited to train as Peer Support Volunteers on our programs. To ensure guests receive a consistent, professional and high quality experience, our Peer Support Volunteers are extensively trained in our Certificate of Trauma Practice & Theory.
Certificate in Trauma Healing
This certification takes 12 months to complete and is comprised of seven modules (Mod 1-7).
This certificate is open to the public. It’s for anyone seeking to better understand how to provide support to a person who has experienced trauma. All ex guests of the Adult Healing Program are invited to complete this certificate to further their healing journey and help them recognise their innate and unique abilities.
"Trauma is perhaps the most avoided, ignored, belittled, denied, misunderstood, and untreated cause of human suffering."- Peter Levine, Phd in Medical Biophysics, Phd in Psychology
Author of "Waking The Tiger"
Certificate in Trauma Healing & Theory
The curriculum is experiential and focused on empowerment of the individual, both as a student and for guests.
Introduction to Peer Support Volunteer Practice at Heal For Life Foundation
This is a pre-practice training course. Students practice working within Heal For Life philosophies, policies and clinical protocols. The priority for this course is learning how to be a ‘therapeutic friend’ to effectively help people heal from childhood trauma using the Heal For Life Healing Process as the therapeutic base. Teamwork, ethics and keeping guests and volunteers safe are all covered.
Supporting Youth
The teenage brain is different to the adult brain. Teenage behaviour, therefore, is different to adult behaviour. Teenagers do not have fully developed brains, therefore there are behaviours, reasoning, and motivators that will be vastly different to those of an adult. An understanding of these differences will assist Peer Support Volunteers in their work on Teen and Kids programs.
History and Theory of Trauma Healing
The history of psychotherapy is reviewed with emphasis on those theories that are most relevant to the Heal For Life Foundation healing process. Peer Support Volunteers are taught the skills of creating holistically safe environments. Strategies for helping guest to contact their ‘inner child’ are presented. Peer Support Volunteers are taught beginning skills for working safely and effectively with guests who are processing past trauma.
The Brain, Trauma and Healing
This module teaches about the aspects of the brain which are affected by trauma so they are better able to understand the changes in their own brain as a result of trauma as well as explain it to people in a one to one situation. Students will become familiar with the structure and function of the parts of the brain concerned with fear.
Childhood Abuse and Altered Development
The effect of a traumatic experience, and to what extent it affects a person, is largely determined by parenting factors. Trauma cannot be dealt with in isolation. In order to fully understand ourselves and others, students need to understand child development. In this course students will discuss the psychological paradigms of childhood development.
Professional Practice Issues
This course will help students learn about boundaries as a key element of the Heal For Life model. The different types of boundaries will be discussed. Students will learn how to recognise, set and maintain healthy boundaries in their own lives. They will also learn how to help guests recognise, set and maintain healthy boundaries in their lives. Students will learn to recognise the signs of broken boundaries.
Applied Transactional Analysis
This course will help students develop reflective communication skills including noticing and responding to subtle cues of the healing impulse. The skills of facilitating inner focus will be taught. Students will learn how to respond to emotional expression of past trauma, by guests. An introduction to transactional analysis will be given: the parent/adult/child model for analysing interactions.
How to Utilise Faith to Assist in Healing
This module is to help students explore where their own culture, religion, gender or world view may impact on their empathy understanding and compassion. It is intended to broaden each persons perception and respect of the different faiths and recognise their own biases towards religions and beliefs and how this may impact on their ability to help others.
Advanced Skills for Peer Support Volunteers
Students will learn about some of the more severe effects of trauma on development and about psychiatric diagnoses that childhood trauma survivors commonly receive. Students will learn how to assist people with complex needs.
Apply for Trauma Training Certification
If you’re interested in applying for a place in our Trauma Theory courses we would love to hear from you.
Each education module is run annually in the Hunter Valley NSW, and can be delivered online.
