Educating Social Work Students in Multifaceted Interventions for Trauma

Internationally and locally, human service workers face unprecedented challenges in effectively responding to clients' trauma-related experiences. The use of combined or ‘multifaceted’ responses which emphasize the importance of community in responding to trauma is progressively finding support within the trauma literature. Accordingly educators must necessarily prepare students to provide informed, multifaceted interventions to trauma in their future practice. This article discusses the development of a course entitled ‘From Individual to Community Intervention: Therapeutic Responses to Trauma’, which aims to educate social work students in multifaceted responses to a range of traumatic experiences and effects.