Trauma stabilisation: as easy as child’s play?
Stefan Flegelskamp worked in Gaza for years, teaching psychodrama and conducting psychodrama processes among adults, children and families. During this time, Flegelskamp began developing a compact group process that could help several families at a time. This gradually led to the idea of adapting the process to European needs and conditions.
Evidence based trauma stabilization
Evidence based trauma stabilization (EBTS) is a two-year partnership project initiated in September 2017. The goal is to establish a trauma stabilisation method based on children’s play for use with asylum-seeking families. The process has been jointly developed by three partners: the Helsinki Psychodrama Institute from Finland (coordinator), the Szenen Institut für Psychodrama from Cologne, Germany, and the Center for child development and psychological consultation Cognitiva from Bulgaria. The project management team comprises Reijo Kauppila from Finland, Milena Mutafchieva from Bulgaria and Stefan Flegelskamp from Germany, all of whom work in close co-operation.
In Bulgaria, the professionals trained for the process work with refugee and asylum-seeking families at refugee centres managed by the state. The German participants, in turn, work at Caritas centres for asylum seekers. In contrast to the other two project participants, the Finnish Family Therapy Association is active in both public health care and in the third sector. The project’s partner organisations are very different, as are the backgrounds of the professionals trained for the process.
“In Finland, all those receiving training are psychotherapists, but in Germany and Bulgaria, the trainees have included a social worker, daycare teacher, and even a hairdresser,” says Kauppila. “What all of them have in common, however, is that they work with families seeking asylum.”
Functional training
Picture by:Reijo Kauppila
The training took place in three seminars, held at intervals of one month. The original idea was to organise identical training in each of the three countries, but during the process it became evident that some local adaptation was needed due to differences in the culture and operating methods of the participating countries. The training was based on psychodrama, sociometry, neuropsychology and trauma theory. The employment of psychodrama and sociometry led to the training being functional in nature. The individual training groups also had their say during training, and the methods used were modified in accordance with each group’s progress.
Programme based on child’s play
The process, conducted among families, is based on play. By engaging in play, parents can deepen their relationship with their child and help stabilise the child. During the programme, each family participates in nine sessions, the four first of which target the parents alone. These four sessions are psychoeducative by nature, introducing the parents to the concept of trauma and its impact on everyday life. The parents also learn about self-help and play. Children come along for the final five sessions. The process involves one parent and one child from each family. Often it is the mother who takes part in the activities, fathers are rarely seen playing.
“The stories played out always have a beginning and end, and something taking place in between,” says Reijo Kauppila, describing the sessions. “The stories cover one day, from morning to evening. They always begin and end in the same way and contain the same routines and structures, because these give a feeling of security,” he continues.
After each session of play, the parents share their experiences about the play session and how it affected their child. The participants have quickly engaged in very open interaction. Some of the mothers acknowledged that they had never before played with their child and had no idea how much fun it could be.
“Children interact through play, and by participating in it, parents can find a new form of interaction, a whole different connection,” Kauppila emphasises.
The children in the participating families are over four years of age, but not yet teenagers.
“For this age group, play is a very real thing, it reflects the reality that children live in,” Kauppila explains.
“The goal is to inject a greater feeling of security into it, into the present reality,” he summarises. “Past trauma affects our actions and choices in the here and now. We aim to reduce the unconscious influence of trauma in order to help people cope in the present.”
Reporting and research
Reports about the project have been published on the project’s website and Facebook page, as well as at workshops involving various co-operation partners and networks, where the topic has been approached from a functional perspective. Similar workshops will be organised in the future, and the topic will also be examined at a conference held by the Finnish Family Therapy Association. In March–June, the project group and local partners in Finland, Bulgaria and Germany will jointly organise seminars open to all, where the research results will be presented. Two webinars will be held as well. In the course of the project, a handbook on the EBTS method will be written for professionals to help them conduct the process with families.
Moreover, an impact study on the family process will be conducted in each participating country. This will be overseen by New Bulgarian University. During the project, a separate study will be conducted in connection with the training sessions regarding the learning of the professionals trained for the process. The investigative results of the project will be published later.
The project received Erasmus+ funding for adult education. Erasmus+ is the largest and foremost programme for international co-operation in adult education. It funds various mobility and partnership projects around Europe. Different partnership projects are actively looking for new ways to use education and training to meet the challenges arising from social change.
Text: Sabrina Somersaari
