Trauma-Informed Leadership and Service

The Trauma-Informed Leadership and Service major develops a deeper understanding of how trauma affects people, teams, organisations, services, and communities.

Students explore how leadership, workplace culture, policy, supervision, mentoring, organisational systems, and professional practice can foster environments characterised by compassion, safety, trust, support, and responsiveness.

The programme integrates theoretical knowledge, personal reflection, professional experience, cultural responsiveness, and faith-informed perspectives within each student’s vocational context.

The published pathway has required students to begin with the Postgraduate Certificate in Responding to Trauma, progress into the Trauma-Informed Leadership and Service major within the Postgraduate Diploma in Professional Practice, and then progress into the Master of Professional Practice.

Unique Approach

At BTI, we recognise that professional leadership engages with the spiritual dimension as well as the social and physical dimensions of people’s lives and workplaces.

The integration of theoretical, personal, spiritual, and professional learning is a distinctive feature of BTI’s Postgraduate Diploma and Master of Professional Practice study.

Integrating the Professional with the Personal

A key component of the programme is developing awareness of the gifts, talents, strengths, limitations, assumptions, and ways of thinking that influence each leader’s way of being.

Students bring existing literature, personal experience, the biblical narrative, and their own professional context into dialogue, allowing each to inform the others.

These cycles of critical reflection create opportunities to question societal, cultural, organisational, and institutional norms and examine the assumptions and values influencing leadership and service.

Students explore how leaders can help create compassionate, safe, supportive, and accountable environments for staff, service users, and communities affected by trauma.

• Trauma-responsive organisational culture
• Ethical and reflective leadership
• Mentoring and professional supervision
• Staff wellbeing and sustainable practice
• Service development and organisational change
• Culturally responsive leadership
• Critical reflection on systems, power, and institutional norms

Prospective students should confirm the requirements for their intended qualification and entry point with the programme leader. Published requirements include:

• An interview with the programme leader
• An NZQA-approved Level 7 bachelor’s degree or equivalent
• Professional membership within a relevant field
• Completion of the required preceding qualification for entry into the Postgraduate Diploma or Master’s pathway
• An appropriate professional or vocational context in which learning can be applied

International Applicants

• Qualifications completed overseas may require an International Qualification Assessment.
• Published English-language requirements are equivalent to IELTS Academic 6.5, with no band score below 6.0.
• International applicants should confirm current qualification, English-language, delivery, and attendance requirements before applying.

Postgraduate study in Trauma-Informed Leadership and Service can strengthen a professional’s knowledge of trauma-responsive organisations, reflective leadership, mentoring, supervision, cultural responsiveness, and organisational change.

Graduates may use this learning to strengthen their leadership within an existing professional field or support progression into an allied leadership, service-development, supervision, management, or organisational-development role.

Career progression will depend on a graduate’s existing qualification, professional membership, experience, employment context, and the requirements of individual roles and sectors.

The available programme booklet is dated November 2024. It can be used as background information, but applicants should not rely on it for 2027 dates, availability, fees, or application requirements.