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U of MO International Center for Psychosocial Trauma Mission Teachers as Therapists Seminars Summer Institute Children Case One Case Two Case Three Case Four Case Five Palestine Summer Institute 2003 Summer Institute 2004  Photographs by Jeff Hoelscher

Teachers as Therapists

Participants in the month-long training seminar interact during a session on conflict resolution.

MU International Center for Psychosocial Trauma

We decided to form an International Center for Psychosocial Trauma at MU to provide training and conduct research in trauma psychiatry. We started our work by addressing the mental health needs of children in Bosnia. Our goal was to offer Bosnian teachers and mental health professionals extensive education in child and adolescent trauma psychiatry. The first program under the auspices of this center was Training the Trainers.

Training the trainers

Even though we have trained 1,000 teachers and mental health professionals, our efforts were a drop in the bucket when we looked at the enormous number of children requiring help. This led to Dean Lester Bryant suggesting that we enter the second phase of our training program, Training the Trainers.

With funding from the Coordinating Council of Humanitarian Agencies, UNICEF and MU's School of Medicine, we were pleased to offer just such a program in June 1995. For one month, 17 Bosnian teachers and mental health experts attended a course in child and adolescent trauma psychiatry at MU. They were joined by eight teachers from Oklahoma City, which had recently endured a terrorist bomb blast.

The course included four teams of four mental health professionals and teachers representing the cities of Sarajevo, Tuzla, Zenica and Mostar. Each team is expected to train additional teachers in its home city. Henceforth, the MU team's role will be to offer consultation and probiem- focused seminars to the local teams of trainers.

The curriculum for the program, chosen by an interdisciplinary committee of faculty members at MU, featured everything from general PTSD diagnosis to the role of religion in trauma relief. Participants learned, among many subjects, about play therapy, group therapy and relaxation and desensitization techniques.

The feedback from the seminar was tremendous. During the event, enthusiastic participants held many impromptu study groups to review what they learned that day. At the end of the program, attendees agreed they were better prepared-and readier than ever-to share therapy techniques with others. In the end, they noted, one group would benefit most of all: the children. These four teams of trainers on their return to their respective cities have started giving training seminars to local teachers. They meet with them on a weekly basis to provide the follow up consultations. So far, they have trained additional teachers and psychosocial workers (Sarajevo, 60; Zenica, 70; Tuzla, 140)

Visiting psychiatrists program

Mental health professionals from the United States will be recruited to volunteer two to four weeks of their time to work in the counseling center in Sarajevo. It is hoped that the list of volunteers will be long enough to position one American mental health expert in the counseling center in Sarajevo at all times. The first psychiatrist under this program spent the month of December in Sarajevo and met with an enthusiastic response.

Research

We are studying 791 randomly selected Sarajevan children regarding the effect of war trauma on their psyche. Initial results indicate that 40 percent suffer from PTSD. Another 40 percent suffer from depression, One of the more alarming findings indicates that 92 percent have become so overwhelmed with their plight that they sometimes wish to die, We hope to use the findings of this research to develop inter- vention programs. We will follow the children for the next three years to study the long-term effects of the trauma and to identify more effective intervention programs.

Future plans

The International Center for Psychosocial Trauma will continue to provide consul- tation and training to the Bosnian teachers and mental health professionals and to serve as a liaison with the local counseling centers, The center also will continue its research efforts by following 791 Sarajevan children for the next three years. We are also hoping to establish counseling centers in Tuzla, Zenica and other major cities of Bosnia and Herzegovina.