This certificate prepares students for their professional fields by providing an understanding of trauma, trauma-sensitive responses, and trauma-informed prevention and care. These skills will be indispensable to graduates throughout their careers and will help the individuals they serve.
Although this certificate program is open to any undergraduate student, its primary focus is students in "helping professions" such as psychology, social work, education, nursing, public health, the health sciences, and law because workers in these professions encounter the most traumatized individuals in society. Untreated adverse childhood experiences are connected to mental illness, substance abuse, and suicide.
The 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.
Students earning this certificate will be able to:
- Explain adverse childhood experiences and the influence they have on physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual outcomes in childhood and adulthood.
- Describe resiliency, its dynamics, and ways to strengthen resiliency.
- Analyze strategies to decrease or eliminate trauma in society, including how to create trauma-informed organizations.
- Understand the impact of adverse childhood experiences on communities and formulate strategies to prevent them in communities and in their field of practice.