“Appropriate psychosocial intervention following an incident can reduce illness and promote resilience in the population.” (EFPA, SC Disaster, Crisis and Trauma Psychology).

The psychological first aid course will be held on February 18 and 26, from 9am to 1pm, at IPMA.

This training aims to provide trainees with a basic understanding of the concepts of crisis (including psychological crisis), trauma and its impact, and the risk and protective factors involved in exposure to a potentially traumatic event.

Using active methodologies, it aims to provide trainees with psychosocial skills associated with good psychological first aid practices, including the principles of safety, calm, self-efficacy, connection, and hope, along with essential skills of empathic, non-violent, and non-judgmental communication. These skills can be useful in traditional work contexts, such as fieldwork, interpersonal work, or others, and the examples used in training aim to illustrate some of the different specificities of the contexts and intervention.

Given the practical component, it will be important to consider the trainees’ attendance throughout the training.

Given the topic of psychological first aid, it is important to ensure a safe, empathetic and welcoming training environment, where sensitive and emotionally difficult topics will be addressed. In addition, the practical nature of the training is particularly important as psychological first aid methodologies require practice and training over time, so the presence of two trainers is also useful and important in order to make the sessions more dynamic.

The sessions are free, but prior registration is required through this link.

Trainers: Filipa Rebelo and Isabel Guimarães, full members of the Order of Portuguese Psychologists and with experience in crisis intervention.