New Scholarship Program Opens Statewide Access to RESTORES Training Course

Dr. Deborah Beidel

Mental health clinicians across Florida will benefit from free PTSD training thanks to a new educational scholarship program offered by UCF RESTORES.

The scholarships open access to UCF RESTORES’ six-hour, fully online Trauma Management Therapy training course, designed to give Florida-based mental health counselors the opportunity to apply the successful methods used within the UCF RESTORES treatment clinic within their own, local communities. In times where the collective whole is experiencing a long-term pandemic trauma, founder and executive director of UCF RESTORES, Deborah Beidel, Ph.D,, points to the importance of this program.

“We wanted to roll this program out because right now we’re all experiencing a shared, prolonged trauma in the form of a pandemic, and there are more people than ever looking for help,” said Beidel.

The team at UCF RESTORES has had groundbreaking successes in their clinical treatment of trauma and PTSD. By making this training and its approach widely available, UCF RESTORES’ scholarship program will aid in the education of clinicians on Trauma Management Therapy, including a technique known as exposure therapy. The course will also cover concerns often associated with PTSD, ranging from anger management to sleep hygiene.

“PTSD is a very complex illness,” said Beidel. “However, we’ve witnessed successful treatment within the walls of our clinic. So we want to disseminate it to therapists, who can then use it within their own walls. We want others to participate in the success we’ve seen.”

Course material is broken up into modules, and includes video demonstrations, exercises and interactive components. Currently about 70 clinicians have completed the training.

“Those that have taken this course noted its effectiveness,” said Beidel. “People are appreciating the opportunity to learn a mode of therapy with a strong scientific basis to it.”

Beidel points to her many patients as the inspiration behind putting together this scholarship program.

“I had a patient say to me ‘thank you for giving me my life back’,” said Beidel. “That is why we do what we do at UCF RESTORES. We are proud to provide this education and treatment, components that have really worked, to others in the field of mental health.”