Trauma Counselling Support Skills Training

Learning Outcomes

• Demonstrate an understanding of trauma and its impact on individuals and communities.
• Apply active listening and basic counselling skills to support traumatized individuals.
• Assess the immediate needs of a person in crisis and provide appropriate psychological first aid.
• Recognize signs of secondary traumatic stress and implement self-care strategies.
• Evaluate the need for referral and communicate effectively with relevant support services.
• Maintain ethical boundaries and confidentiality when providing trauma counselling support.

Target Audience

This course is designed for social workers, community health workers, caregivers, and anyone in a helping profession who may encounter individuals experiencing trauma.

Prerequisites

None — open enrollment

Course Outline

Practicals

Overview

Practicals are essential for developing hands-on counselling competence. Learners engage in supervised role-plays, case-based simulations, and guided exercises to practise assessment, crisis intervention, grounding techniques, and self-care strategies.

Practical Activities

• Active Listening and Empathy Practice — In pairs, learners practise active listening, paraphrasing, and reflection of feeling using trauma-themed scenarios. (4h)
• Crisis Intervention Simulation — Learners role-play a crisis situation (e.g., recent assault) using Psychological First Aid steps. (4h)
• Grounding and Containment Techniques — Guided practice of grounding exercises and containment strategies, followed by peer coaching. (4h)
• Integrated Counselling Role-Play — Full counselling session role-play integrating assessment, intervention, and closure, with peer observation and feedback. (4h)

Summatives

Each delegate is assessed continuously throughout the course via daily exercises, scored practical assignments, and a final summative test at the end.

Practical Assignments — 30%

Practical assignments are observed and scored against a rubric during the practical sessions. Each delegate's practical mark is averaged into a single 100% score and contributes 30% to the final total.

Daily Exercises — 20%

Every training day ends with a multiple-choice exercise scored out of 100%. The scores from each daily exercise are averaged across the duration of the course to produce a Daily Average mark, which contributes 20% to the final total.

Final Test — 50%

On the last day a final summative test is written. It is a multiple-choice paper with multiple-answer questions: each question may have more than one correct option, and a single wrong selection on a question marks the entire question wrong — no partial credit. The final test is scored out of 100% and contributes 50% to the overall mark.

Final Total

Component	Out of	Weight
Practical Assignments (rubric-scored)	100%	30%
Daily Average (multiple choice)	100%	20%
Final Test (multi-answer multiple choice)	100%	50%
Final Total	—	100%

All marks are recorded on the AATICD LMS and visible to each learner under their account.

Certificate

How it works

• Certificates are auto-generated on the AATICD LMS as soon as the marks pass the 50% threshold.
• Each certificate is a branded PDF with the delegate's name, the course title, the unit standard ID, NQF level, credits, and the date of issue.
• You can download or print your certificate from your LMS dashboard at any time after issue — there's no reissue fee and no expiry date.
• If you scored under 50% you can sit the final test again at the next scheduled session at no extra cost.

Where to find it

Sign in to the LMS, open your dashboard, and your certificates appear under My Certificates. Each entry has a View / Download button and a print option.

Training Discounts

Group discounts apply automatically — the more delegates you enrol, the greater the saving. Discounts are calculated at 3% per 5 delegates, scaling up to 40% off for 100+ delegates.

Delegates	Discount
5	3% off
10	6% off
15	9% off
20	12% off
25	15% off
30	18% off
50	30% off
75	35% off
100	40% off

3% discount per 5 delegates, up to 40% off for 100+ delegates. Contact us for a custom group quote.