Trauma-informed Care: A paradigm shift to understanding children’s behaviours

Overview

This customized workshop will assist professionals to identify trauma and attachment as a driver of externalizing behaviours. This workshop supports reflective practice and encourages front line workers to respond rather than react to children’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviours driven by trauma.

A trauma-informed approach shifts the perspective from, “what’s wrong with you?” to “what’s happened to you?” Children who witness abuse or who, themselves are abused often develop internalizing and/or externalizing behaviours. Children are often labeled as “uncooperative”, “oppositional” or simply “bad”. This workshop reframes “uncooperative” and “oppositional” behaviour as inaccurate labeling and offers a more helpful trauma informed lens. This workshop will support professionals to better understand the impact of ‘Adverse Childhood Experiences’. Children who experience either maltreatment or exposure to violence in their families of origin are twice as likely to report emotional, cognitive and behavioural dysregulation – a common response to developmental trauma.

After reviewing current research related to the developmental impact of trauma on children, participants will also have an opportunity to apply their knowledge and skills through case examples.

This workshop will help participants to understand:

• the developmental impact of trauma;
• and identify specific trauma responses/adaptions among children;
• fight, flight and freeze responses;
• attachment as a driver of emotional regulation and distress tolerance;
• the role and value of caregiver affect, attunement, consistency, routines and rituals, and therapeutic alliance;
• self-regulation: affect identification, modulation and expression;
• how developmental trauma intersects with ODD and ADD.