This paper documents and shares one experience ofa therapeutic group facilitated for young children within the context of continuous trauma. It explores creative ways to work with children for whom, at an early age, experiences may have been overwhelming and their trust in the world around them has been threatened by external events.

Keywords:    children, group work,

partnership, trauma, community-based intervention

Training counsellors, or psychosocial workers, in areas of armed conflict requires an explicit vision of the relationship between the educational methods used by the trainer, and the main messages of the training. This article describes the educational methods, subject matter and main messages of contact-oriented training of trainers for counsellors or psychosocial workers. The approach described herein is an interactive process in which the participants and the trainer become engaged in through personal contact.

In this article practical methods are describedfor the training of trainers who have the task to train teams implementing psychosocial and mental health interventions after wars, violence and natural disasters.

Keywords: TOT, training of trainers, training, supervision, psychosocial, mental health, interventions, global, violence, natural disasters

The training of trainers (TOT¹) in context

Three days after theTsunami hit the war-torn Jaffna district in northern Sri Lanka, a mental health task force was formed. The approach of this task force, comprising a cooperative initiative between 18 humanitarian agencies, is described in this field report.

Keywords: tsunami, psychological first aid

Before the Tsunami