Trauma care programmes, run by Open Doors partners at trauma care centres like the Shalom Centre aim to help survivors of persecution develop resilience, and heal emotionally from their experiences.

The trauma counselling training sessions are multi-layered. This approach helps raise awareness of what trauma is, and empowers those attending to share what they’ve learned with other believers and groups of people who have experienced persecution for their faith, or are vulnerable to persecution. This way, the trauma counsellors can help coach survivors of persecution, so that the trauma care goes much further in impacting communities of Christians. Training manuals can be taken home, and further work is planned to translate these into a variety of local languages.

Sessions focus on what trauma is, and how to respond in a resilient and biblical way. This includes trauma debriefing workshops that help trauma survivors, especially church leaders, women and children, to process and work through their trauma and start to heal. There is also contextualised training for those who are supporting children who have been victims of persecution.

As well as emotional and spiritual support, it’s important for resilience that survivors of persecution are supported physically, with crucial aid. The relief element of the programme sees three months’ worth of food and medical aid being provided to persecuted Christians. This short-term relief offers hope and helps enable believers to begin the process of being resilient for the long-term. Follow-up and monitoring sessions take place with those who’ve attended trauma care.

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