It is vital for those providing help to be continuously educated and updated with current issues in the academic field. Therefore, Wings of Hope undertakes frequent internal sessions about a variety of topics. It also organises trainings for those not involved with the foundation, encouraging communication and working relationships among other professionals, such as psychologists, psychiatrists, teachers and volunteers.
Thus far, the foundation has educated over 25 experts from Bosnia and Herzegovina in numerous specific fields. These include pyschotramaology and trauma-centred psychotherapy: informing professionals how to carry out Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing therapy (EMDR) and working with children and educating others in “therapeutic fairy-tales and their uses in working with children”. Wings of Hope co-operated closely on these last two training sessions with NGOs Vive Žene, Tuzla and OKC, Banja Luka. Furthermore, Wings of Hope held a seminar for psychologists and cognitive behavioural therapists based on the theme “LGBT project participants in psychotherapy”. This focused on the issues facing LGBT+ persons in psychotherapy.
Wings of Hope has also worked with teachers, educating them on four main topics. These were: anger, aggression and violence, different forms of peer violence, ways for schools and teachers to measure violent occurrences and developing pro-social behaviour in schools. They also ran a training about mental health and the consequences of violence.
This helped schools to analyse violent behaviour from many different viewpoints, and thus improve school culture and make individual assessments for the needs of students. Education about mental health enabled members of pedagogical support teams to recognise the beginnings of problems. From this, they could intervene early and effectively.
Through these educational programmes, Wings of Hope has developed partnerships with renowned international centres focusing on practical and theoretical psychological issues. Some of these partners and links to their websites are listed below.
• Centar 45′ / Nizozemska
http://www.centrum45.nl
• ZPTN – Institut za Psihotraumatologiju i Trauma-centriranu Psihoterapiju / Hanover, Njemačka
http://www.zptn.de
• Evropski EMDR Institut / Njemačka
http://www.emdr-institut.de