Introduction to Shame Competence Training is a 2-hour online training workshop that will introduce the idea of ‘shame competence’, relevant for those interested in trauma-informed approaches to policing and related care and social services.

The training will cover the following topics:

I) Why is Understanding Shame Important?

II) What is Shame?

III) The Shame Compass

IV) Recognising Shaming

The training will be delivered by Professor Luna Dolezal from the University of Exeter, who has developed this evidence-based training in collaboration with the Devon and Cornwall Police and the OPCC.

Luna is an expert on shame, and has worked extensively researching shame's role in professional practice. She is the PI on the Shame and Medicine project and the UKRI-AHRC Covid Rapid Response project Scenes of Shame and Stigma in COVID-19 and a co-I on the Imagining Technologies for Disability Futures project. She has worked closely with the Trauma Informed Plymouth Network and her book COVID-19 and Shame: Political Emotions and Public Health in the UK , London, Bloomsbury Academic was published in February 2023.

More information about Shame Competence Training:

Within policing, along with other care and human services, understanding shame, and its impacts and effects, has, to date, not be an explicit focus of training or practice. There exists evidence and research that demonstrates links between shame and a number of policing relevant issues and behaviours, such as: trauma, violence and violent crime, domestic abuse, sexual violence, exploitation, terrorism and radicalization, offender decision making, mass shootings, anti-police attitudes, gang violence, honour killings, looting and spontaneous street violence, among others. Shame is also directly related to disengagement, withdrawal, non-attendance and is a profound force that can impact outcomes in care and social services. As a result, practitioners will benefit from a deeper awareness and understanding about shame, along with competence about how to recognize and manage shame dynamics.

The aim of the shame competence training is to enable individuals and organizations to begin to create and systematise nuanced and collaborative understandings of how shame is produced and experienced as a result of particular interactions, experiences, policies and practice, enhancing organizational and individual emotional intelligence, in order to understand the impacts and effects of shame within professional practice.

Registration

Please register using the ‘register’ link on this page. If you wish to register without using Eventbrite, or if you have any questions regarding the event please contact: James Woodhams (j.c.b.woodhams@exeter.ac.uk) or Claire Parris (claire.parris@devonandcornwall.pnn.police.uk)

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Introduction to Shame Competence Training (12.02.25)