The Child Resiliency Programme (CRP) continued to expand its objectives to include the provision of training in building Peace, Resiliency and Wellness (PRW) to university students at the International University of the Caribbean (IUC) and to those persons involved in providing care for children ‘at risk’ or emerging from trauma.
The Building Peace, Resiliency and Wellness Curriculum developed by the Child Resiliency Programme leadership has been integrated into the master’s in educational administration, the Bachelor of Education, guidance and counselling and psychology courses and form part of the offerings of the Peace Institute at IUC with 30 undergraduate students completing the course this term.
Thirty teachers and guidance counselors also completed a one-day certificate training workshop in PRW at Alhambra Inn on February 12 and plans are currently in place for the training of 40 guidance counsellors in PRW in the context of trauma via the Jamaica Guidance Counseling Education in May 2024.
Child Resiliency programme director, VPA, Dr. Kim Scott, said that through the training experience, people are empowered to undertake a journey of personal growth and that the course teaches the students and front-line workers - such as teachers, guidance counsellors, church and community leaders - how to build peace, resilience, and wellness in themselves, to enable them to “show up” for those children who are at risk.
She said that through the training experience, people are empowered to undertake a journey of personal growth.
“The mantra that we’re chanting is really that peace begins with me and as we continue on this peace-building process, we recognise the importance of persons who are on the front line to be able to manifest peace in their own lives. This is to be able to impact those around them, particularly the children with whom they work, who have been traumatised in some way,” she said.