World Awareness for Children in Trauma

World Awareness for Children in Trauma (WACIT) was designed to maximise impact through collaborations with academic centres and NGOs in disaster zones, training programmes, and partnerships with leading international bodies. WACIT comprises an active and expanding network of interlinked research, training and capability building. For example:

Child mental health trailblazer (2015): Visits, training events and organisational meetings in Turkey, India, Kenya and Rwanda led to the establishment of partnerships.
Training and networking events (2015–2016): Centres were identified according to defined criteria. Training and network-building events were held in Turkey, Brazil, Pakistan, and Kenya.
Six continents in six weeks (2016): The aim was to link participating centres and to apply the WACIT model in different sociocultural contexts. Seminars were complemented by arts and sports events with children in the targeted areas.

This is a programme of inter-linked research studies, PhD projects, training and networking events. Projects have included the following:
- Detection of protective factors in Syrian refugee children in Turkey (PhD by Seyda Eruyar) and internally displaced children in Libya (PhD by Ahmad Faraq).
- Feasibility trial for victims of ethnic violence in Kenya (PhD by Elijah Getanda).
- Stakeholders’ constructs of resilience and perceived impact of WACIT events in six countries (Kenya, Rwanda, Pakistan, Turkey, Indonesia and Brazil).
- Development of methodology to evaluate child trauma training workshops.
- Development of NGO-academic network on resilience-building models.
- Development of user-led training materials in Turkey, Pakistan and Kenya.
- Panos Vostanis
- Evelyn Sharples
- Jessica Deighton
- Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh
- Miranda Wolpert

World Awareness for Children in Trauma

Aims

Methodology

Results

Research project team