Trauma-Informed Mental Health

Training in Malawi

‍This past month in Malawi, one of our Act4You accounts and partner ministries, 360Life with Helen Harrison, facilitated training on the trauma-informed approach to mental health. At our last Links Africa Partners Summit in December 2024, Helen introduced this approach in a taster session, sparking great interest among our partners. Many saw its potential for their programs and communities and were eager to equip their teams with these vital tools and knowledge.

Insights from the Training

Helen shares her perspective on the workshop:

"Participants represented four different organizations—three of them Links Partners—all working in critical areas such as prison rehabilitation, support for gender-based violence survivors, and communities grappling with food insecurity, rural poverty, unemployment, and inadequate infrastructure (power and sanitation). Given these challenges, when the conversations turn to trauma, participants had deep insights and firsthand experiences of what it means within a Malawian context."

"By the end of the week, a team across these organisations came together with a shared vision: to take this training, knowledge, and trauma-informed approach beyond their own groups—reaching NGOs, schools, churches, community groups, and even government departments. It won't happen overnight, but as they expressed so powerfully: 'With God, anything is possible. And there’s no point dreaming small when we serve a God who calls us to dream big'!"
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Real-World Impact

Encouragingly, just weeks after the training, one Links partner—Abundant Life Ministries—implemented their newfound knowledge, training 50 gender-based violence counsellors across their four community centres. They now plan to cross-share insights with another partner’s team and staff, further expanding the reach of this crucial work.

This vital training is equipping leaders, pastors, and volunteers to address deep-rooted trauma in a relational and effective way. We eagerly anticipate the transformation it will bring to communities across Malawi, strengthening this core area of Links, Healthcare, in particular mental health.