© 2002 Oxford University Press
Post-Trauma Intervention: Basic Tasks
From the School of Social Welfare, University at Albany, State University of New York
Contact author: William J. Reid, DSW, Distinguished Professor, School of Social Welfare, The University at Albany, State University of New York, 135 Western Avenue, Albany, NY 12222. E-mail: wreid{at}albany.edu
This article presents a task-based group treatment approach to post-trauma intervention. When persons are traumatized, much of what they assume about themselves, others, and the purposes of their lives are disrupted and lose connectedness. The model is designed to help individuals and the community of which they are a part recreate these connections in meaningful, creative, and responsible ways, which may result in change on informative, reformative, or transformative levels. The model makes use of nine basic tasks in which the practitioner, individuals, and community are active participants. The tasks comprise welcoming, reflecting, reframing, educating, grieving, amplifying, integrating, empowering, and terminating/revisiting. Use of the model is illustrated in the first author's work with employees of the New York City Adult Protection Services, who were witness to the World Trade Center disaster.
KEY WORDS: post-traumatic, intervention, task-centered, community disaster, debriefing