How to become a Healing Spaces Champion

Want to make lasting change across your organisation? Here's how to become a Healing Spaces Champion...

To ensure Healing Spaces can really become embedded in organisations across the UK and help staff work in trauma-informed ways with their refugee clients, IRC UK launched the Healing Spaces Champions initiative.

What is a Healing Spaces Champion?

Healing Spaces Champions are staff members who help create supportive, trauma-informed environments for refugee and asylum-seeking children and young people. The course will provide you with the knowledge and skills needed to facilitate Healing Spaces sessions in your settings. Champions will also join a growing network of professionals committed to trauma-informed practice and peer support working with refugee and asylum-seeking children and youth.

We are looking for past participants to join us on our mission to create Healing Spaces across the UK. HS Champions are active staff members from all career stages that are willing to lead training for their peers. They will also act as a point of contact between staff and the IRC and help instill Healing Spaces techniques and knowledge across each activity and service provided by their organisation.

What will the initiative look like?

No prior training experience is needed. We provide a two-hour 'Training of Trainers' workshop to equip you with the skills to lead Healing Spaces sessions for your colleagues. You will receive a full support package to help you deliver the training, including PowerPoints, printed handbooks, and a digital trainer’s manual.

We also run quarterly meetings with the cohort to discuss key issues, showcase brilliant projects and plan upcoming events.

What will be expected of me?

To become a Healing Spaces Champion, you must:

Have completed one of our trauma-informed courses (preferably the Healing Spaces course)
Attend four online quarterly meetups with IRC Education Officers and other Champions
Complete the trainer’s workshop (2 hours long) and review the trainer’s manual in your own time
Lead Healing Spaces training sessions for your colleagues and gather staff feedback after each one to send to IRC
Optional – work with our communications and digital team to share your story to be turned into newspaper articles, social media posts or online IRC articles and help support our advocacy work
Optional – join us in the IRC office in London for events and meeting to help us evaluate our programming to ensure HC is as useful and sustainable as possible for UK educators
Optional – ongoing 1-1 support from IRC on Teams, Zoom or via email
Optional – collaborate with IRC's international team.

How do I sign up?

If you’re willing to commit to the above expectations and have checked with organisation's leadership about allocating staff meeting time to lead HS sessions, please register your interest on this form. Please note we only allow one staff member per organisation to join this course.