Embrace Trauma-Informed Care with Children and Youth

This workshop will explore ideas about challenging behaviour among children and young persons in care. Direct care staff, such as child and youth care practitioners, group home staff and foster carers may observe conduct which is resistant to traditional behaviour management techniques. A young person with complex trauma may present with a variety of issues (anxiety, aggression, self-harm, & suicidality, etc.) and with multiple diagnoses (i.e., conduct disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, depression, anxiety). Participants will explore the connection between various behaviour presentations and early negative experiences.

Participants will examine how children and youth who have experienced trauma and abuse view the world around them, how they interact with others, and reframe behaviour issues through the lens of trauma-informed practice. The shift from “What’s wrong with you?” to “What happened to you?” will promote the young person’s well-being and resist re-traumatization. The workshop includes strategies and skill-building activities which can be put into practice to ensure quality care for our most vulnerable young people.

Learning Outcomes

Recognize signs and symptoms of trauma in children and youth.
Understand how trauma impacts young people who have experienced trauma, abuse and maltreatment and apply trauma-informed approaches to reframe so-called negative behaviour.
Use knowledge of trauma to build safe and caring relationships with children and youth.
Use knowledge of trauma and its impact on brain development to foster resilience and support children and youth to learn skills for healing and recovery from trauma.