Graduate Certificate of Education (Trauma-Responsive Education)
2025 Deakin University Handbook
| Year | 2025 course information |
|---|---|
| Award granted | Graduate Certificate of Education (Trauma-Responsive Education) |
| Deakin course code | E512 |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts and Education |
| Online | Yes |
| Duration | 1 year part-time |
| Course Map - enrolment planning tool | This course map is for new students commencing from Trimester 1 2025 Course maps for commencement in previous years are available on the Course Maps webpage or please contact a Student Adviser in Student Central. |
| Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) recognition | The award conferred upon completion is recognised in the Australian Qualifications Framework at Level 8 |
Course sub-headings
- Course overview
- Indicative student workload
- Career opportunities
- Participation requirements
- Mandatory student checks
- Course Learning Outcomes
- Course rules
- Course structure
- Fees and charges
Course overview
Childhood trauma is a prevalent problem. In Australia, four out of ten students have been exposed to traumatic events. Young people who face traumatic events when they are still developing emotionally and mentally may suffer lasting damage. Children and adolescents with adverse experiences such as abuse, violence, displacement, and neglect can find it difficult to make friends, concentrate in classrooms, and respond to fast-paced changes. Left unaddressed, trauma may push children to social disengagement and school failure.
Guided by social justice and practice architecture theory, the Graduate Certificate of Education (Trauma-Responsive Education) (TRE) provides participants with the skills and understandings necessary to create safe and trusting learning environments for all students, including those impacted by trauma. Educators are often the first responders to children with traumatic experiences and, with the relevant knowledge and skills, they can play critical roles in creating a safe and supportive learning environment. With deep understandings of events, experiences, and effects of trauma, educators will respond effectively to the specific needs and conditions of trauma-impacted children and adolescents. This course offers theoretical insights and practical strategies that enable participants to design and enact trauma-responsive care and learning experiences.
The course consists of four units:
- Trauma and Trauma-Responsive Practices. This unit Offers multidisciplinary accounts events, experiences, and effects of trauma; and presents strategies for recognising and responding to needs and conditions of traumatised children as well as individuals exposed to secondary trauma.
- Trauma and Learning. This unit focuses on how traumatic experiences of violence, displacement, neglect, and abuse affect the learning experiences and attainment of children.
- Refugee Trauma and Education. This unit closely examines the effects of forced displacement and its implications for educational provisions and engagement.
- Trauma Responsive Educational Practice Inquiry. This unit prepares participants to investigate what trauma-responsive practices look like, what assumptions and values underpin the practices, and what needs to change and why.
In each of these units, the assessment tasks are designed for participants to demonstrate their learning through critical appraisal of policies, practices, and scholarly sources, with a focus on application to real-world contexts.
Indicative student workload
Students will on average spend 150-hours over the teaching period for each credit point undertaking required teaching, learning and assessment activities.
Career opportunities
This Graduate Certificate of Education (Trauma-Responsive Education) is intended for educators, carers, humanitarian professionals who work in educational settings. The course equips participants with the knowledge, skills, and professional dispositions required for meaningfully supporting trauma-impacted children and adolescents. Graduates will be able to put their expertise into practice in a range of contexts, including schools, early childhood education and care centres, refugee resettlement settings, and other social services.
For more information go to DeakinTALENT.
Participation requirements
Reasonable adjustments to participation and other course requirements will be made for students with a disability. More information available at Disability support services.
Mandatory student checks
Any unit which contains work integrated learning, a community placement or interaction with the community may require a police check, Working with Children Check or other check.
Course Learning Outcomes
| Deakin Graduate Learning Outcomes | Course Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|
| Discipline-specific knowledge and capabilities | Explain events, experiences, and effects of trauma in educational settings. |
| Communication | Use a range of strategies to explore causes and consequences of traumatic experiences of children and adolescents and share findings with peers, educators, and work colleagues. |
| Digital literacy | Locate, evaluate, and use digitally available resources on trauma-responsive pedagogical practices within Australia and internationally, and utilize digital technologies to communicate results. |
| Critical thinking | Apply social justice perspectives to evaluate humanitarian policies and trauma-responsive services to produce knowledge that can inform practice. |
| Problem solving | Develop trauma-responsive teaching strategies that enhance educational engagement and outcomes for students impacted by trauma, including those from refugee backgrounds, and demonstrate capacity to design and enact humanitarian pedagogy that supports refugee students with trauma history. |
| Global citizenship | Enact trauma-responsive and humanitarian educational practices to support culturally diverse students impacted by forced displacement and violence. |
Approved at Faculty Board October 2021
Course rules
To complete the Graduate Certificate of Education (Trauma-Responsive Education) students must pass 4 credit points and meet the following course rules to be eligible to graduate:
- DAI001 Academic Integrity and Respect at Deakin (0-credit-point compulsory unit) in their first study period
- 4 credit points of core units
Students are required to meet the University's academic progress and conduct requirements. See the enrolment codes and terminology to help make sense of the University’s vocabulary.
Note:
- This course is part-time only.
Course structure
Core Units
| DAI001 | Academic Integrity and Respect at Deakin (0-credit-point compulsory unit) |
| ETR701 | Refugee Trauma and Education |
| ETR702 | Trauma-Responsive and Humanitarian Practice Inquiry |
| ETR703 | Trauma and Learning |
| ETR704 | Trauma and Trauma-Responsive Practices |
Course duration
Course duration may be affected by delays in completing course requirements, such as failing of units or accessing or completing placements.
Further information
Student Central can help you with course planning, choosing the right units and explaining course rules and requirements.
- Contact Student Central
Fees and charges
Fees and charges vary depending on the type of fee place you hold, your course, your commencement year, the units you choose to study, and their study discipline or your study load.
Tuition fees increase at the beginning of each calendar year and all fees quoted are in Australian dollars ($AUD). Tuition fees do not include textbooks, computer equipment or software, other equipment or costs such as mandatory checks, travel and stationery.
For further information regarding tuition fees, other fees and charges, invoice due dates, withdrawal dates, payment methods visit our Current students website.