Prepare for Trauma Work – Foundational Considerations

• The importance of engagement for self and clients
  • What you do before, during, and after
• Psychoeducation-creative ways to educate youth and families
• Collaborative assessment of client’s needs

Attachment Considerations (Theory)

• Timeline progression – From Bowlby to today
• Attachment styles
• Trauma’s impact on attachment and ability to heal

Regulation and Co-Regulation - Modeling/Teaching/Experiencing

• Power differential – being in the space together
• Window of tolerance
• Arrow of comfort
• Stations of modulation- Creating a modulation tool kit

History of Trauma Timeline

• Evolution of the language and understanding (of trauma)

Interactive Teach Back

• Current definitions of trauma
• Traumatic events

Symptoms & Outcomes

• Physiological
• Relational
• Spiritual
• Emotional

Best Practices for Assessment – Consideration for Referral and Diagnosis

• Evidenced-based assessment tools - can or cannot use
• Intake considerations – ask right questions
• ACE and developmental trauma
• Diagnosing with DSM™

Creating and Assessing Safety – Interactive with Scope of Practice

• What is safety
• Create your own safe space activity
• Building routines in session - families, school, and milieu systems
• Identify safe people and relationships

Comparing Evidence-Based/ Informed Treatments for High Level Trauma

• EMDR
• Neurosequential
• Brainspotting
• DBT
• ARC
• TF-CBT
• Expressive Arts Therapy
• Somatic therapy
• Play therapy

Expressive Arts and Treatment (Need for non-verbal components within scope of practice)

• Relaxation
• Writing and journaling
• Poetry
• Visual art
• Rhythmic movement
• Use of metaphor

Moving from Surviving to Thriving

• Activity
• Case conceptualization - integration of trauma narrative – story, timeline, poem
• Closure group activity

Sources

• Sample questionnaires
• Activities

Risks and Limitations

1. Create a plan to center yourself before, during, and after trauma related sessions 100% of the time.  
2. Identify 3 creative ways to assess treatment needs and offer psychoeducation to your clients, parents, and colleagues.  
3. Understand the 4 attachment styles and name at least 4 ways they are impacted by trauma experiences in childhood and adolescents.  
4. Identify one way to support safe caregiving systems for trauma-impacted youth. 
5. Identify at least 2 activities that can be used to support regulation. 
6. Define acute, chronic, complex, and vicarious trauma and identify at least 3 consequences of early complex trauma exposure. 
7. Complete a safe space activity and identify 3 ways you could modify it to use with your clients.  
8. Use trauma informed problem solving to create a gains and loss list to problem solve at least one evidence based/informed practice is right for your practice.  
9. Utilize bibliotherapy and expressive arts to teach children, adolescents, and families the concepts of attunement, healthy connection, and regulation.  
10. Chose at least 3 ways to integrate art and games into individual and family therapy to increase the strength of attachment and healthy regulation in children, adolescents, and families. 
11. Learn how to navigate the dance of building resources, putting on the brakes, and doing deeper trauma work.  
12. Describe at least one way to support a youth in moving from surviving to thriving and integrating their trauma experience into their sense of self.

• Counselors
• Social Workers
• Psychotherapists
• Marriage and Family Therapists
• Psychologists
• Psychiatrists
• Addiction Counselors
• Occupational Therapists
• Other Mental Health Professionals