A report on our CATT training in The Gambia
Report by Jenny Cuffe for ACT International 2024
“It was the most insightful and helpful training I have ever attended.”
‘Insightful’ and ‘inspirational’ are among the words used by the Gambia’s first cohort of CATT counsellors to describe their training by ACT International . A survey conducted two years after the training reveals that in a small country with a chronically under-developed mental health care system, this method of treating child trauma can make a substantial difference.
In February 2022, ACT International was invited to run a week-long CATT course in the Gambia by a small NGO called WAYAS Counselling and Psychotherapy Service. Eighteen health and social workers were awarded certificates licensing them to use this unique method of treating traumatised children. We commissioned Pippa Barlow, child and adolescent mental health practitioner, to find out whether counsellors had put the training into practice, with what result, and whether it had helped them identify trauma that would previously have gone unnoticed.
Pippa interviewed six counsellors, currently working for humanitarian organisations. Without exception, they were extremely positive about their training and said it had helped them recognise symptoms of trauma. Although a lack of child-centred services in the Gambia meant that few of them had the chance to practise CATT directly with children, they felt they were using their skills to good effect.
“ I use the knowledge I learned to help caregivers understand a child’s behaviour, rather than seeing them as naughty or lazy or difficult.”
“It helped me to recognise abuse and to support children through psychosocial support and counselling, advise survivors that they are not to blame for what happened to them, explain their rights and help them to report the abuse.”
Everyone who took part in the survey agreed that more training of this kind is urgently needed in the Gambia, where there are high levels of domestic violence and sexual abuse but little public awareness of the serious impact of such trauma on the mental health of both adult and child survivors. “ People are struggling and need support”, said one counsellor. Others remarked on the need for greater awareness of mental health issues, especially among teachers and employers. Asked if they would like ACT I to return to the Gambia, there was a resounding ‘yes’. They were eager to learn how to train CATT to others because, as one person put it, “training has a snowball effect. Train one and it affects ten, fifteen, twenty lives”.