Supporting and assisting children and youths who have experienced trauma can be challenging. To assist those who work with traumatized youth, Borderless360 organised our first online event providing Emergency Pedagogy training on Waldorf Education in Crisis Intervention. This series of online workshops was held on November 27 and 28, 2021 in collaboration with the Friends of Waldorf Education whose co-Founder/Manging Director, Bernd Ruf, pioneered the concept of Emergency Pedagogy. Attendees ranged from social workers, teachers, and others who learned how to effectively apply Emergency Pedagogy concepts and skills to improve the well-being of children and youths they work with.

What is Emergency Pedagogy?

Traumatic experiences can range from larger incidents such as war, mass forced displacement, and natural disasters, to more ‘silent’ smaller-scale events such as mental, sexual and physical abuse, neglect, and pandemics like the current Covid-19. Psycho-traumatised individuals, especially children and adolescents need support and care from stable and compassionate adults who can communicate with them and apply ‘first aid for the soul’ to help reduce the risk of long-term implications from trauma. 

Emergency Pedagogy helps to stabilize such individuals affected psychologically and socially by war and other forms of violence. It is a non-confrontational crisis intervention method that assists such individuals (especially children and youth) in their efforts to process and cope with their traumatic experiences and events, to heal, and integrate successfully into their daily lives within the communities they find themselves in. 

Who conducted the training?

Our lecturer for this Emergency Pedagogy training was Bernd Ruf who co-founded the Waldorf School in Karlsruhe where he has been teaching for over 20 years. He also established the Parzival Kompetenzzentrum für Bildung, Förderung und Beratung, a special needs education centre that is based on the principles of Waldorf Education. 

Bernd Ruf has been Managing Director of the aid organisation Friends of Waldorf Education since 1987 where he is in charge of International Volunteer Services. He has been heading emergency education crisis interventions in war and disaster zones since 2006. These interventions have led him to Lebanon, China, the Gaza Strip, Indonesia, Haiti, Kyrgyzstan, Japan, and Kenya. Bernd lectures and offers seminars in many countries. He has also written a book, 'Educating Traumatized Children', offering insight into education and healing for traumatized children and young people.

Who attended the workshops?

The four-hour training aimed to equip attendees who are teachers/educators, parents, social workers, and therapists with practical emergency pedagogy skills to apply in their work with traumatized children and youths. 

The classes covered key topics such as Psycho-traumatology and Trauma Pedagogy in Special Education. A certificate of attendance was awarded to all attendees upon the completion of all the modules.

“I cannot recommend this training enough. I was left with a clear, tangible understanding of trauma and how it affects human beings on physical, social and emotional levels. This was backed up with practical, easy to adopt strategies for working with children, to help heal every kind of trauma; from everyday misunderstandings, to the sudden and catastrophic. Many thanks to everyone involved.”

- Tara Johnson, a Play Therapist and Waldorf Teacher

A big thank you to Bernd Ruf and Friends of Waldorf, our Borderless360 Inclusive Education Initiative (IEI) team as well as the participants who collaborated and worked tirelessly to make this course a success. We will conduct more such relevant and useful courses and events in the near future. Stay updated on our website and social media pages!