Online course "Early childhood stress: Prevent, Recognise & Treat"

E-learning, training, DZPG, early childhood stress, Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE)

05/2023-05/2025

If you are interested in taking part in the online course, you can register on the list of interested parties via the project website without obligation. You will then be informed as soon as the course is available.

Background:

Early childhood stress, such as emotional or physical neglect or violence, migration or flight, can interfere with the stress, immune and learning mechanisms of those affected. These changes can affect the entire lifespan of those affected, including a reduced life expectancy. The signs of the effects are often heterogeneous in the different phases of life of those affected, so that the presence of early childhood stress is often insufficiently taken into account when making a diagnosis and planning treatment. In order to counteract this and positively influence the individual consequences of early childhood stress, well-founded knowledge and competence on the part of professionals, combined with an open attitude, is essential.

The German Centre for Mental Health (DZPG) is an association of six site groups from all over Germany, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), which are jointly pursuing an ambitious research programme. The objectives of the translational research programme include the promotion of mental health and resilience, raising social awareness of mental illness and, in the long term, positively influencing the complex burden of mental illness across all age groups. As part of the Mannheim/Heidelberg/Ulm site group of the German Centre for Mental Health (DZPG), we want to use, bundle and disseminate the comprehensive expertise of the entire DZPG in the online course. This will take place within the framework of an editorial team consisting of experts from various specialisms of the DZPG, who will deal with the structure and creation of the learning content of the online course.

Objective:

The aim of the project is to develop and evaluate an e-learning programme to sensitise medical and therapeutic professionals to the effects of early childhood stress over the lifespan and to inform them about therapy and treatment approaches. The programme aims to impart basic knowledge on epidemiology, consequences, prevention and intervention. In a modular structure, texts, animations and interviews with experts from the entire field of DZPG are used as learning materials. This is supplemented by an application area with case studies and reflections.

Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) as part of the German Centre for Mental Health (DZPG)