Trauma occurs when a person experiences something that is perceived as physically or emotionally threatening, such as war, a natural disaster, divorce, or abuse. These experiences produce feelings of exceeding stress, terror, or helplessness, and these overwhelming circumstances can produce lasting effects upon the individual's mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health. 

The Center’s main goal is to help facilitate long-term healing from trauma. We offer trauma-informed awareness, education, and tools to support healing in organizations, churches, and communities across the world. Working with other partner departments and organizations, faculty and students at Andrews University’s School of Social Work provide people with the knowledge and skills to recognize and begin recovery from traumatic events. Our educational approaches are holistic, spiritually-informed, culturally sensitive and long-lasting. Led by professional educators, trainings also provide social work students the opportunity to gain invaluable experience while partnering with professors to provide education and therapeutic trauma consultation. The Center is dedicated to equipping people to meet trauma with the powerful message of restoration.

A specialized branch of the International Center for Trauma Education & Care, the Post-Disaster Mental Health Committee offers emotional trauma self-care through psychoeducation and normalization of emotional and bodily response to trauma, practical skills, spiritual care, and connection to local resources for communities who have recently suffered large-scale disaster.