Online resilience hub in pipeline thanks to National Lottery funding

A new online resilience hub for organisations working with traumatised communities will be launched by Trauma Treatment International following funding from The National Lottery.

The £10,000 grant from the Awards for All fund will help 30 grassroots organisations working with victims of trafficking, slavery, torture and war. As a result of the intense nature of their work and the pressures of Covid-19, their staff are showing signs of burnout, anxiety and depression.

TTI CEO Quen Geuter explained: “The resilience hub, to be hosted on the TTI website, will include a trauma exposure survey, developed by our specialist clinical psychologists. Through this, organisations will be able to identify their staff’s risk of trauma exposure along with mental health stressors in the workplace. They will also be able to ascertain the key gaps in their knowledge and practice.

“Once completed, the organisation will be signposted to a range of free tools, training and resources to help them address the results. These will include webinars, one-to-one therapy provision, guidance documents and other open source content both for staff and leadership teams.”

She added: “It’s hugely important for organisations to consider their workforce’s exposure to trauma. Left unchecked and without timely interventions, staff can find themselves unable to cope with their own stress and be forced to take often lengthy periods of absence. Employers have a duty of care to ensure that problems don’t escalate to this degree.”

As a result, participating organisations will be better equipped to identify, respond to and manage trauma at all levels of their workforce, and report improved wellbeing through staff surveys, sick leave and attrition rates.  

Quen said: “Covid-19 and the national lockdowns have been particularly difficult for victims of trauma and those who support them. All of the community organisations we work with have reported increased symptoms of burnout, anxiety and depression. This is due to the psychological needs of their beneficiaries, along with the increased demand on services and the pressures of remote working. 

“As a result of working with us, they have the tools they need to embed trauma-informed best practice into their processes, systems and culture. They are then in a stronger position to mitigate against risks to staff mental health, and ensure wellbeing at the earliest possible stage.”

TTI hopes that 30 frontline organisations will be signed up for the resilience hub by the end of 2022. 

Quen expressed her gratitude to the National Lottery for its vital contribution to the project. “As a small charity, we are reliant on funding and could not carry out our work without support from our donors,” she said. “We are absolutely delighted that our vision for the resilience hub will now come to fruition thanks to the Lottery.”