SAMHSA sponsored a webinar last week called "Trauma and Peer Engagement, The Power of Language and Portrayals”.
In addition to excellent discussion of trauma with emphasis on resources such as peer counseling, the webinar highlighted Emmy award-winning journalist Mike Walter, the writer-director of “Breaking News, Breaking Down,” a video about secondary (vicarious) trauma in journalists. Walter spoke about his fellowship at the DART Center for Journalism and Trauma, at the Columbia University Journalism School. The DART Center website is a treasure trove of information about trauma – including excellent resources about journalists and trauma.
The DART Center is sponsoring a four-day institute for journalists in March called the "Global Reporting Institute on Early Childhood Experience and the Developing Brain." It features Dr. Jack Shonkoff, director of the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University as the keynote speaker. Sponsors include Ford Foundation, Jacobs Foundation and UNICEF.
Another key DART Center resource is a 2013 article "Trauma journalism education: teaching merits, curricular challenges and instructional approaches" in Journalism Education.
The study surveyed 623 faculty from throughout the United States and found only 25% of journalism schools included training in covering trauma or training about the risks for journalists of secondary trauma. Additionally, the survey found that the trauma training that journalism students received emphasized global conflict and war and de-emphasized local domestic issues. The article includes suggestions of how access to online resources about trauma might improve trauma education within journalism schools.
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