Training Unit

Professional and educational development of Animus Association team members

The professional training of the Animus team is an on-going process. It is at the heart of the organisation's dynamic development and the creation of new programmes. It includes all of the therapists, consultants, social workers, and volunteers. Appropriate forms of training and professional development have been implemented for the different specialists.

The therapists at the Rehabilitation Centre
In the year 2000 we started a clinical seminar on the subject of working with psychological trauma. Different cases from the therapists' clinical practice are presented and research articles on the respective subject are discussed. These seminars are held once a week and are also used to train therapists from the partner organisations of Animus, who are adopting the Animus model. Representatives of FOGO-Plovdiv, Puls-Pernik, and Medius-Dobrich take part in these seminars.
Weekly clinical discussions of new cases are a permanent practice for the Centre. Participants develop team hypotheses and prognoses on the essence of the problem and the possibilities of helping the client. This gives younger therapists the opportunity to learn from their more experienced colleagues in the safe environment of the team. Work on every separate case is followed and adherence to professional standards is ensured. Working with an individual supervisor is an obligatory part of each therapist's practice.
The supervisions are, on the one hand, a way of training, and, on the other hand, the most reliable way of acquiring professional experience.
Four members of Animus Association are Ph.D. students at the New Bulgarian University and the Bulgarian Academy of Science. Maria Tchomarova was a clinically associated student with the right to practice at the Adolescent Department of the Tavistock Clinic, London during 1999/2000.
Maria Minkova was a Clinical Psychology Fellow at the Victims of Violence Program, Harvard Medical School, USA during 1999/2000.

Clinical Social Workers and Volunteers at the Crisis Unit

The presence of social workers and volunteers at the Crisis Unit is new for the Centre. A new module was developed for the specialists' training. It has gone through three stages - intensive training and introduction to the subject of working with people in crisis; working with a tutor so that the work of the volunteers is observed by, and discussed with, a more experienced colleague; and individual training supervision once a week with therapists in the Centre.

Help-line Volunteers

Since the launching of the Help-line, there have been two training seminars a year, aiming at training new volunteers on how to work at the Help-line. These seminars are also aimed at improving the work on some more difficult subjects. The Help-line team receives group supervision twice a month during which they discuss cases that caused them difficulties.

Areas and topics of training
Academic courses and seminars organised and conducted by Animus Association specialists