Resilience and Trauma-Informed Perspectives

Undergraduate certificate: resilience and trauma-informed perspectives

Website: https://socialwork.uiowa.edu/

Many students are majoring in areas where they will encounter individuals who have experienced trauma. Untreated adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are connected to mental illness, substance abuse, and suicide. ACEs include physical and emotional neglect; physical, sexual, and emotional abuse; parental separation or divorce; mental illness; domestic violence; substance abuse; and incarceration of a parent.

Expanded ACE surveys include poverty, discrimination, homelessness, and community violence. The presence of four or more ACEs is associated with increased risk of poor behavioral, social, mental, and medical health. According to the Center for Disease Control (2020) about 61% of adults in 25 states reported they had experienced at least one type of ACE, and nearly 1 in 6 adults reported they had experienced four or more types of ACEs. Women and several racial/ethnic minority groups are at greater risk for experiencing more ACEs. The economic and social costs to families, communities, and society totals hundreds of billions of dollars each year. Preventing ACEs could reduce a large number of health conditions. Acknowledging the importance of identifying and treating ACEs, certificate students could positively impact these numbers, and will be better prepared to provide interventions to others.

The primary audience for the certificate program includes undergraduate students planning to go into helping professions such as social work, education, psychology, nursing, and public health. Students from health sciences programs, including the Carver College of Medicine, the physician assistant studies and services program, and the College of Law, could benefit as well. All undergraduate students are eligible to participate.

The colleges of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Education, Nursing, and Law, and the Carver College of Medicine graduate teachers, social workers, nurses, physicians, police officers, attorneys, judges, prosecutors, nonprofit organization workers and administrators, and public health workers who are employed across the nation. These professionals encounter the most traumatized individuals in society. Preparing undergraduate students in their professional fields with a good understanding of trauma, trauma-sensitive responses, and trauma-informed prevention and care provides skills that supplement their chosen professions.

The interdisciplinary Certificate in Resilience and Trauma-Informed Perspectives is sponsored by the School of Social Work and the College of Education, with support from the Colleges of Nursing and Public Health. The certificate is administered by the School of Social Work.