One Year of Transforming Care: An annual report about Save the Children’s trauma-informed care programme in Sweden 2016

2016 was the year when there was such a strong interest in Transforming Care (trauma-informed care) from professionals in Sweden that Save the Children’s course leaders were overwhelmed by the demand.

Transforming Care is a research-based approach that Save the Children uses to help and guide adults to understand and meet the basic needs of children and young people who have suffered serious and traumatic events. The specific name for this approach is Transforming Care, previously known as TraumaWise and developed by the Australian psychologists Howard Bath and Diana Boswell who have 40 years’ experience of working with children and young people who have been exposed to trauma. Children and young people who have had to deal with severe distress or have been exposed to traumatic situations need a healing and social setting in order to recover.

With Transforming Care, Save the Children wants professionals to adopt a trauma-informed approach taking into account the difficult situations that children and young people have suffered. With this in mind, Save the Children has given both talks and training courses during 2016 depending on what resources and time the various workplaces we visit are willing to allocate. Whole groups of staff have been trained on site during the two-day training courses. Save the Children has also given seminars ranging from 45 minutes to 3 hours in order to raise awareness of Transforming Care in Sweden. This annual report presents a full debriefing of the programmes outcomes, key learnings, and looking ahead.