Trauma Informed Practice in Early Learning (3- half-day training sessions)

Intended For: All Professionals

Registration Closed

Date: Oct 11, 2023

Time: 06:00 PM - 08:30 PM

Fee: FREE

Current Availability: 15

Description

DATE: OCTOBER 11, 18, 25

TIME:6:00-8:30

This Training Series is comprised of three sessions, each containing content that builds upon the next, each structured as interactive workshops with case vignettes throughout to help participants apply theory to a variety of typical working situations.

Through the three sessions attendees can expect the following:

 

Session One  

·        This session begins by outlining what trauma is and trauma informed practice, including understanding the different kinds of trauma (e.g., Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Intergenerational, Historical, and Racial trauma) and how each of these impacts the children and parents/caregivers they support.

·        This session will explore the impact of trauma on brain development, including how brains that have adapted to toxic environments are hypervigilant; quickly move into fight, flight, freeze states; neural circuitry development that prioritize dangers responses vs. learning capacities. 

·        This session will examine how trauma impacts children’s ability to emotionally regulate and manage stress and what traumatic responses look like in children. For example, traumatized children do not recognize signs of safety and controlling behaviours reflect underlying fear. 

·        This session will discuss attachment, temperament, and the impact trauma has on relationships. As well as how to build resilience in children and families that have experienced trauma.

·        This interactive workshop will provide case vignettes to help participants apply the theory to a variety of typical situations working with children.

 

Session Two   

·        This session will continue to explore how trauma impacts children, diving deeper into how we understand racism as trauma and how to talk about race-related stress with families. It will explore how experiences of discrimination, racism, and historical trauma are important social determinants of health for certain groups, such as Indigenous Peoples, 2SLGBTQ+, and Black Canadians, and that it is essential to recognize how systemic discrimination impacts youth, as well as how to address it in practice.

·        This session will explore what it means to use cultural humility and culturally sensitive trauma-informed care, discuss practicing anti-Black racism and includes perspectives from diverse cultures and 2SLGBTQ+. 

·        It will explore how to start developing safety for children who have experienced trauma, when traumatized children do not recognize signs of safety and need many experiences of safety to begin to let their guards down.

·        This session will introduce steps attendees can implement right away to start establishing safety with children and families: Playfulness Acceptance, Curiosity and Empathy (PACE) which is the recipe to bring children out of defensive states into more open and engaged states.

·        This session will address how to have difficult conversation with families, including the possibility of child protection disclosures which may happen and how to help the child feel safe and supported. 

 

Session Three  

·        This session will begin by revisiting safety and specifically how to create safety in the childcare environment.

·        This session will explore what makes discipline effective for children who have

experienced trauma, including boundaries, consequences, attunement, and relationship repair, as well as how to begin to restructure our expectations of children and parents/caregivers with trauma experiences. As parents and caregivers are your partners in looking after a child, it is essential to engage them and feeling confident doing so in a trauma-informed manner.

·        This session will explore what to do when difficulty arises in relationships with children and parents you are working with. 

·        Finally, managing trauma responses in children and parents/caregivers will be an integral part of this training, incorporating trauma-sensitive strategies into practice (including PACE, introduced in Session Two).

·        We will review 8 Steps to managing trauma responses in children, to ensure attendees have predictable stages to support angry and explosive behaviours and to regulate a dysregulated and traumatized child. 

·        We will end the Series by examining self-care, burnout, and vicarious trauma, so attendees understand how to care for themselves and support their colleagues. 

 

Session Objective

 

The objective of this series is to introduce participants to the theoretical foundations of trauma-informed practice as it relates to early learning setting and how to incorporate trauma-informed strategies into the early learning setting.

Location: Online

Presented By: Kristin Gionfriddo (MSW, RSW),