ABSTRACT
Children and adolescents enter SOS facilities due to a wide range of traumatic experiences. In their short lives, most of them have had to live through physical as well as emotional violence or sexual abuse; they have to cope with relationships with mentally ill parents or with their experience of having been neglected. SOS Children’s Villages provides ongoing pedagogic training as well as the necessary organizational resources to support its staff members in their care-giving work. SOS Children’s Village staff should be self-motivated, highly qualified persons interested in a continuous learning process for themselves. SOS Children’s Village staff members must have completed their training in at least one relevant field. For instance, staff members working for the Psychological-Therapeutic Service must have a university degree in psychology as well as completed a training program in psychotherapy. SOS Children’s Villages has offered a special continuing education program for pedagogic staff members.
