Preparations for our EMDR Trainings

Hope for Children has allowed us to use their office space for every EMDR-HAP training we have taught in Ethiopia.  So far, seven EMDR-HAP volunteers have taught over 19 classes for the psychologists, social workers, counselors and other professionals of Ethiopia. Each therapist has brought their own special gifts into the courses that they taught:

• Reyhana Seedat has joined us from South Africa and headed up our team for every EMDR training we have given here, (5 times, so far) as well as offered a specialty workshop on how to use EMDR with children.
• Catherine McLaughlin facilitated in 2009 for both EMDR Part 1 and 2, and created wonderful trainings on psychodrama and grief for therapists, teachers and other professionals in the community.
• Frankie Klaff joined us the following year, facilitating EMDR Part 1 and presenting a full-day specialty program on using EMDR with children. 
• Dr. Gisela Roth, psychiatrist, joined us from Kenya in 2010 to help facilitate Part 1 and Part 2.
• In both 2011 and 2013, Joset Munro joined Reyhana and myself to facilitate and offer advanced classes. Joset presented a full-day program on dissociation in 2011, and for 2013, Joset has created a class about using the butterfly hug with groups of children. In addition to facilitating, I am teaching a specialty class on using EMDR with adults this year, as well. 
• And final thanks needs to be given to John Messer, who, from the beginning, has helped us identify interested EMDR students, taught countless classes on trauma and stabilization, and has organized study groups for our EMDR graduates.

On of the first jobs that has to be done upon arrival is to print the manuals, which are way too heavy to carry over. Our experience with local "copy shops" in the past has been uneven, so this year we decided to print them at HFC. Most of the staff took turns helping to copy, collate, punch and bind the various manuals for Part 1, Part 2, and both Specialty Trainings. It took us almost three full days, but all were ready by the time our first class arrived.

                               

As the week came to an end, a lunch-time celebration to honor the recent wedding of one of the HFC staff members provided a welcomed respite from the endless hours of preparation for our first group of students.