Dart Centre Asia Pacific Managing Director Cait McMahon conducts a post-tsunami discussion with staff from a Samoan television station in 2009.
The Dart Center offers a range of educational, training and consultation services worldwide, developed in collaboration with leading trauma experts and news professionals. These include seminars focused on trauma and journalism reporting, newsroom management, specific news events and issues; on-site newsroom briefings and consultations; development of customized ongoing training and peer-support programs; and training trainers.
Our training is guided by the following values and approaches:
Evidence-based trauma awareness practices and professional journalism standards that are rooted in the day-to-day reality of newsrooms; trauma awareness embedded in ethical and craft approaches to trauma affected individuals, families and communities.
Awareness of the impact of trauma on journalists and newsrooms, mitigated by simple approaches to peer support and management tactics for dealing with trauma exposure. Training covers what to expect; how to monitor how staff are holding up; building resilience in the face of undertaking very difficult stories; how to care for staff and mitigate the impact that traumatic events they cover could have on them directly.
Newsroom planning and protocols before, during and after traumatic events.
Language to talk about trauma; training so newsroom managers and staff can be resources to one another.
The Dart Center is offering an intensive four-day crisis zone reporting course at Columbia Journalism School to prepare journalists to work safely and effectively in volatile situations such as war, conflict and disaster zones. The course emphasizes risk assessment and harm prevention. Partial scholarships will be awarded to a select number of freelance journalists courtesy of the Rory Peck Trust. Deadline for scholarship applications is July 14, 2017.
In March 2017, the Dart Center organized a four-day reporting institute on covering early childhood development for 45 journalists from 26 countries at Columbia Journalism School in New York City.
In collaboration with UNESCO and the American Embassy in Vietnam in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Dart Centre Asia-Pacific Managing Director Cait McMahon will lead a two-day training for students and professional journalists on interviewing victims, self-care and peer support.
