DNTA Lunch for Nablus 2017

We had a successful soup and pudding lunch at Dundee West Church on 16th April 2017. Thanks to all who helped to make this worthwhile and enjoyable.

The event raised money for our projec to help children in Nablus who are suffering from the effects of trauma and grief. There were stalls with information about the project, sales of Palestinian products and an opportunity to join our association.

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To support our project

Project outline

This is the second phase of DNTA's support of Dr Barron’s, University of Dundee, child trauma recovery projects in occupied Palestine. The projects have been running for ten years and have been in Partnership with the Children and War Foundation, Bergen and the Centre for Applied Research in Education, Ramallah.

The main principle underlying the work has been to bring the best in the World to the worst of contexts. Hundreds of counsellors have been trained and thousands of children have experienced the trauma recovery programmes.

From gold standard research (randomised control trials) we know that children’s post traumatic stress symptoms have reduced from 65% to 25%. In some areas depression rates for children reduced from 80 to 25% of the population. These remarkable results have been repeated in the north, south, east and west of the West Bank and go well beyond expectations of change.

The previous project funded by DNTA and FONSA enabled another tranche of counsellors to be trained in the Children and War’s Foundation’s Children and Grief Manual. Again high levels of healing were achieved in children’s complicated grief symptoms. More counsellors are able to deliver the programme to children as well as train other counsellors. This is a capacity building sustainable approach to trauma recovery in an enduring context.

The current project is the most important to date. While we know we can achieve transformational healing for children in the shot term, we currently do not know how long this healing withstands against relentless occupation and military violence. We need to know how long the effects of healing last, as well as understand how how to sustain healing for children who are not as resilient as others.

The outcomes of the current project are:

• To know the proportion of children who experience long term gains from the programmes and do not need further input.
• To find out the proportion of children where gains are not maintained over the long term, and when the best timescale is for repeating the programmes
• Discover how best to support the 25% with enduring symptoms despite experiencing the original programmes.

The above findings will feed into the adaptation of the programmes and programme delivery for the most vulnerable children, ensuring mental health gains are maintained.