Masterclass: Responding to Trauma - Connection & Accompaniment

While many trauma treatment models are available for therapists, there are few research-grounded approaches for those who work with children in as they are living 'their daily lives'. The Three Pillars Model is designed to provide key knowledge and skills for those who live or work directly with these children, including parents, teachers, foster carers, residential care workers, community youth workers, and mentors who on a daily basis deal with behaviour that is frequently baffling and challenging.

This Master Class will explore the development of healthy 'Connections' (one of the Three Pillars of Transforming Care proposed in the book of the same title) and focus more closely on the need for ‘Accompaniment’, a form of connection which is an especially pressing need for survivors of developmental trauma, who by definition, have not have reliable relational supports or the benefits of ‘family privilege’.

Dr Bath will explore the meaning of ‘accompaniment’ and the associated practical skills associated with it in out of home care settings, and also consider the ongoing needs of young people as they move towards independence.

Supported by insights from the field of interpersonal neuroscience, this Master Class will also explore how developing positive connections with young people in family care, foster care. and residential care, can and should have other enduring impacts.

Adults who know how to provide secure relational support and guidance enable these young people to not only survive but thrive (Perry & Szalavitz, 2010). Research on resilience reaches similar conclusions: caring relationships between children and caregivers, teachers, or mentors are foremost.

This Master Class will give you a chance to engage with Dr Bath (in person) to find out more about the '3 Pillars of TraumaWise Care' and build on the fact that much of the healing from exposure to chronic stress and trauma takes place in non-clinical settings.

This event is open to anyone working or living with kids who have had traumatic experiences, including:

• social workers,
• social care workers,
• parents / foster carers,
• therapists,
• educators & EWO's
• community staff, and
• anyone in a position to help a child heal.

Handouts, Certificate of Attendance and Lunch will be provided.

Dr Howard Bath has had a long career working with children and young people in the child welfare and youth justice systems. He has been a youth worker, house parent, program manager and agency director. Trained as a Clinical Psychologist, Howard has also provided direct clinical services for young people and their families as well as training and program support for agencies and schools. He has authored professional papers and reports on child protection, out of home care, family preservation and developmental trauma and is co-author (with John Seita) of the book: The Three Pillars of Transforming Care: Trauma and resilience in the ‘other 23 hours’, written for care workers, teachers, kinship carers and others who interact daily with children exposed to developmental trauma.

From 2008 to 2015 Howard was the inaugural Children’s Commissioner in Australia’s NT with a mission to promote the wellbeing of vulnerable children in that jurisdiction. Through Allambi Care in NSW he now provides a range of consultancy and training services across Australia and internationally, focusing on the impacts of severe adversity, interventions that promote of healing and growth, and the integration of the trauma framework into current practice.