Most Tasmanians working with children are ill-equipped to work with trauma victims, according to university lecturer Dr Elspeth Stephenson.
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The University of Tasmania lecturer in early childhood teaching has made it her mission to make Tasmania a “trauma informed state” to ensure parents and professionals understand how to deal with severely traumatised children.
Her upcoming seminar on complex trauma is for anyone who may have to interact with victims of child abuse.
“[Complex trauma] is multiple, ongoing and significant traumatic experiences in a child’s life – neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse and those kinds of ongoing traumas,” she said.
“This leads to changes in the way the brain develops and therefore has a lifelong impact, often manifesting itself in irregular behaviors, because they just can’t regulate [their emotions].”
Dr Stephenson said many teachers don’t understand how their behaviour can recreate traumatic scenarios.
Her longterm vision is to conduct practical training on how to best implement strategies to understand and interact with trauma victims.
“If we put a child who has been neglected on time-out we reinforce that feeling of neglection,” she said.
“The message the child has been getting is that they don’t exist and time-out can reinforce the legitimate feeling they don’t exist.”
The free seminar, hosted by the Northern Tasmanian Early Years Group, is on Thursday at UTAS’ public lecture theatre at the Sir Raymond Ferrall Centre from 6pm.
For crisis support, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14.