Trauma-informed practice and supervision for volunteer counsellors of online psychological support groups during the impact of COVID-19

Abstract

ABSTRACT After the COVID-19 outbreak, Social Workers across Borders (SWAB) was invited to organise crisis intervention training and supervisions for volunteer counselling teams. By reviewing the supervision records this paper found that the steps of ‘Sensitisation, Education, Scanning, Choice of Opting Out, and Recovery Facilitation’ (S-E-S-C-R) are useful to structure Trauma-Informed Supervision. Analysis indicated that volunteer counsellors have gone through three different stages, namely confusion, coordination and adaptation to changing crisis situations.