Collaborations with external stakeholders

One of the key aims of the CDCT is to develop partnerships between stakeholder groups and to facilitate inter agency and inter disciplinary working. We are currently involved in a number of collaborations with leading Universities and Academics, support groups, charities and publishing groups. Past and current collaborations include:

British Psychological Society
Revolving Doors Agency
Edinburgh Napier University
Gendered Intelligence
University of Buckingham
British Society for Mental Health and Deafness
Moral Injury of Healthcare
University of Birmingham
Kings College London

If you would like to collaborate with us, please get in contact with us at CDCT@standrew.co.uk

Placement Opportunities

The CDCT hosts undergraduate and post graduate placements for clinical and research needs, including placements that combine clinical and research opportunities. Placements are offered for different professions as well as vocational placements for individuals supported by St Andrew’s clinical services who want to undertake work placements during their admission to St Andrews.

Clinical Placements

The CDCT is able to facilitate undergraduate and post graduate clinical placements in its inpatient, community and staff trauma support services. To ensure that placements offer a positive experience they are offered for a minimum of 12 weeks, and up to 1 year.

Placements offer a range of opportunities dependent on the experience of the individual and duration of the placement.

Placements can be arranged in our adult and adolescent inpatient services and our adult community veteran’s service. We are also able to facilitate placements with our staff trauma support service. The CDCT can facilitate placements for undergraduate and graduate psychologists, including those on professional training programmes. Specialist postgraduate nurse placements can also be facilitated. Specialist psychiatry placements are also available.

The CDCT is also able to host vocational placements for individuals currently supported by St Andrew’s services, who are wanting to progress into paid peer roles. These roles are focused on service development and evaluation projects rather than offering direct clinical opportunities.

Research and service evaluation placements

The CDCT is able to host post graduate research placements and to support the completion of undergraduate and post graduate research projects for different healthcare professions. Where appropriate, the Centre is also able to support survivor led research. Research placements can also be combined with clinical placements to allow for a rounded experience. As well as supporting students to complete their own trauma related research, the CDCT has an established research and service development programme that post graduate students can join in order to complete their research requirements.

The CDCT has an active research and service development programme in the following areas:

The impact of ACEs on physical health, mental health, restrictive practices & risk
Developmental Trauma Disorder & Complex PTSD in intellectual disability and mental health populations.
The efficacy of treatment approaches for complex PTSD
PTSD as a result of own actions
Moral injury in marginalized and staff populations
Gendered experience of trauma
Ethnicity, trauma and mental health law

I began my placement with the Centre for Developmental and Complex Trauma in November 2020. During this period, I have worked with the team on several
research projects focusing on childhood trauma and complex PTSD in marginalised populations. Alongside my research placement, I will also be joining the women's
DBT service for my clinical placement in the coming months. The team are always supportive and encouraging towards any difficulties you may have encountered, and
I am incredibly grateful for this. Working here has given me the opportunity to apply and broaden my research and interpersonal skills, which I am confident will be extremely
useful for my future career in clinical psychology.

Petch, MRes Clinical Psychology student (University of Birmingham)

Combined expertise: The importance and role of co-production approaches

One of the core aims of the CDCT is to reduce barriers between health care professional and ‘survivor’ led research. CDCT research and service development programmes are developed through a process of consultation with healthcare professionals and those with lived experience. As such our programmes aim to improve current approaches to trauma informed care (TIC) and to improve outcomes.

Governance of Research and Service evaluation initiatives

All research and service evaluations projects are subject to the governance processes of St Andrew’s healthcare, which is led by the Research Centre, St Andrew’s Healthcare. Where projects involve NHS partners, NHS ethical permissions will also be sought. The CDCT is able to support its students through St Andrew’s, University and NHS ethical application processes.

Links and support for research

The CDCT work closely with clinical services in St Andrew’s and have research links with Universities in the UK and internationally.

Volunteering

We also offer the opportunity to volunteer with us, on an honorary contract basis, and currently have a number of volunteers who support the work of the CDCT. There are a wide range of opportunities for volunteers to get involved, across a number of different projects. Past volunteers have been involved in data collection and entry, writing up research papers, and designing and developing impact reports. We are flexible in the opportunities that we can offer, and look to match volunteers to roles based on their specific research interests and the skills they are looking to develop.

Outcomes

During their time with the CDCT, our past students have presented at conferences and co-authored papers which have since been published in academic journals. A research poster produced by one of our postgraduate students was awarded the 'Best Poster' prize at the BPS sponsored 2020 Trauma-Informed Care in Practice conference.

Following their involvement with the CDCT, both our students and volunteers have gone on to gain assistant psychologist positions, both internally within St. Andrew's and externally, in various NHS trusts. Our students and volunteers have also progressed onto funded PhD and doctoral training positions.

If you are interested in undertaking a placement with us, or are looking to get involved as a volunteer, please get in contact with the centre at CDCT@stah.org.

Placement Opportunities

Download our brochure for more information about the range of placements we can offer.

CDCT Placement Brochure