Advocating for Trauma Care: We know we need it but how do we get it?
Viewing DSM-5 Through a Trauma Lens
Yoga and the Treatment of Trauma
Advocating For Trauma-Informed Circles of Care in Working with Youth Survivors of Torture and War
Stepping Outside the Treatment Box: Using Autoethnography as Therapy for Trauma
My Body, My Choice: Speaking the Unspoken by Writing in the Flesh
Addressing Domestic Sex Trafficking Through a Trauma Informed Lens
Looking Back - Looking forward: An Intergenerational Trauma-informed Maternal-Infant Therapy Group
Mothering While Homelessness: Intersecting Sites of Exclusion, Trauma, and Resistance
Capacity Building and Therapeutic Consultation for Children and Families with Histories of Complex Trauma in Rural, Remote, and Underserviced Canadian Communities through Tele Mental Health Services
Becoming Trauma-Informed Social Work Educators
Title: Advocating for Trauma Care: We know we need it but how do we get it?
Presenter: Jennifer Chambers
Presentation Format: Networking Session
Skill Level: All
Abstract: The importance of trauma care is in competition with other models and types of mental health care. This workshop will be about how to advocate effectively for trauma services. Community development - coming together and finding a voice - is an essential first step. Next are the strategies for influencing decision makers. It will also be an opportunity for trauma champions (or those who aspire to be) to network for mutual support. Participants are invited to bring the particulars of the arena they seek to influence for discussion and brainstorming.
Learning Objectives:
Viewing DSM-5 Through a Trauma Lens
Presenters: Cassandra L Bransford, PhD, LCSW and Ruth A. Blizard, PhD
Presentation Format: Workshop
Skill Level: All
Abstract: Decades of research have documented the salient role of trauma in the etiology of many forms of psychopathology. Despite this, little is said about the role of trauma in most of the diagnostic categories in the DSM-5 (APA, 2013), beyond the updated and expanded section on Trauma and Stress Related Disorders. Graduate programs have been slow to make content on trauma a centerpiece of professional education (Courtois & Gold, 2009), and many practitioners have not received post-graduate training in trauma assessment and interventions (Cook & Newman, 2014). Given the shortage of mental health professionals trained in trauma-informed care, it is imperative that both students and practitioners become competent in trauma-based assessments and interventions with clients from a wide range of psychiatric diagnoses. This presentation will illustrate how trauma can impact functioning and produce symptoms similar to a range of DSM-5 diagnoses that do not currently specify trauma as a risk factor, including borderline personality, substance abuse, and panic disorder. Research and clinical vignettes will be used to illustrate how to conduct a trauma-informed assessment and arrive at a differential diagnosis between post-traumatic syndromes and disorders that are assumed to have a biological basis, such as ADHD, major depression and schizophrenia.
Learning Objectives:
Yoga and the Treatment of Trauma
Presenters: April Stirling RSW 200RYT 100hr Warrior and Bob Chuckman MSW (Candidate)
Presentation Format: Workshop
Skill Level: All
Abstract: This interactive workshop provides an opportunity to understand the neurobiological impact of early and repeated trauma. It is a hands on experience of trauma informed yoga, which will be demonstrated within the experience provided. The format of the co-led workshop itself, includes the five principles of Trauma Informed Care. Thus, participants will gain strategies, along with an actual experience of a short yoga practice that is designed to benefit trauma survivors. In her psychotherapy practice, April Stirling specializes in the treatment of trauma. Trauma informed yoga has proved of great benefit to her many clients. If we are going to heal trauma, as opposed to mask symptoms, we must expand our understanding of what the symptoms mean. Robert Chuckman is a social worker in clinical practice in addictions and mental health in the Toronto area with extensive trainings and practice in gender responsive trauma treatment for men. We understand the symptoms of trauma as, in part, the body’s way of telling the story. From this standpoint, options for treatment and healing expand beyond traditional approaches. Our workshop is based on the works of Peter Levine, Bessel van der Kolk, Stephen Porges, and David Emerson. *Participants are encouraged to dress in easy to move clothing and bring a towel if possible.
Learning Objectives:
Advocating For Trauma-Informed Circles of Care in Working with Youth Survivors of Torture and War
Presenter: Amy Soberano, MSW, RSW, Child and Youth Counselor and Nadia Umadat, MSW, RSW, Child and Youth Settlement/Trauma Counselor
Presentation Format: Workshop
Skill Level: All
Abstract: Youth survivors of torture and war who seek asylum in Canada have not only endured extreme pre-migration trauma, but also often experience interpersonal and systemic violence in their processes of fleeing abuse and seeking safety in a new country (Drachman, 1992; Bartolomei, Eckert & Pittaway, 2014; Birman et al., 2005). The impacts of such pervasive marginalization are complex, and intersect in a myriad of ways with other markers of identity once in Canada such as race, immigration status, age, language, socioeconomic status, and sexuality to produce multilayered barriers to navigating the settlement process. Adopting a trauma-informed lens is not only critical to ensuring access to meaningful service provision, but integral to resisting structures of violence which further disempower marginalized communities who are already dispoprtionately more likely to experience trauma (Blanch, 2008). As Counselors at the CCVT we are routinely forced to advocate alongside the youth we work with for a trauma-informed approach to social service delivery across a range of institutional structures.
Learning Objectives:
Stepping Outside the Treatment Box: Using Autoethnography as Therapy for Trauma
Presenters: Dr. Colleen McMillan, Renison University College, University of Waterloo and Dr. Helen Ramirez, Women and Gender Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University
Presentation Format: Single Paper
Skill Level: All
Abstract: Our paper challenges the Western clinical treatment modality to address trauma resulting from an automobile accident as the preferred method of healing. Framed by feminist theory that research can also be a therapeutic process (Park-Fuller, 2000) the authors used a feminist informed auto-ethnographic approach to identify and deconstruct oppressive practices embedded in the evidence-based medical approach to trauma.
Methods: A feminist framed auto-ethnographic (Ellis &Bochner, 2000) approach was used during the 24 month period in which the combined therapy/ research took place.
Findings: Writing from the standpoint of the therapist and the patient, the authors come to the finding that the act of healing cannot be private, for risk of perpetuating current discourses of shame associated with trauma. Only through intentional transparency can oppressive genderized and structural systems that are ignored by medical approaches be made visible(Reed-Danahay, 1997). As such, the authors advocate for actual names, locations and events to be used.
Conclusions: Approaching trauma from a traditional clinical modality represents a false boundary by severing off the social/cultural/political contexts that inform how an individual interprets their experience. Framing treatment with auto-ethnographic methodology can allow for a deeper, more meaningful and holistic exploration of a traumatic event.
Learning Objectives:
My Body, My Choice: Speaking the Unspoken by Writing in the Flesh
Presenters: Deborah Davidson, Associate Professor and Mandi Gray, PhD, Candidate, York University, Department of Sociology
Presentation Format: Single Paper
Skill Level: All
Abstract: Fraught by silence and misrepresentation, for the traumatized, “the greatest confrontation with reality may also occur as an absolute numbing to it (Caruth, 1995, p. 6)”. Tattoos serve as a way to embody experiences and emotions which may be so intense as to defy spoken language. Like trauma, tattoos are wounds, albeit wounds controlled by choice, rendering the wound into something restorative and, unlike self-harm, socially acceptable. Tattoos, in their use of the body as of a surface for text (MacCormack, 2006), as a form of public storytelling (Crossley, 2006), as graffiti for the soul (Sullivan, 2009), are used to articulate trauma, reclaim and reframe experience. Our purpose is to inform trauma care, to describe, illustrate, and reflect on trauma as an embodied experience, and on the commemorative tattoo as an empowering artifact of trauma. We do so by presenting an overview of the literature along with illustrations through visuals and accompanying narratives. Further, we reflect on the capacity to remake meaning, and on tattoos as one means to integrate trauma into one’s life in a way that demonstrates “the choice of what happens to [one’s] body (Inckle, 2016, citing Jeffreys 2000, p. 423).”
Learning objectives:
Addressing Domestic Sex Trafficking Through a Trauma Informed Lens
Presenter: Carly Kalish, MSW, RSW – East Metro Youth Services
Presentation Format: Single Paper
Abstract: Domestic Sex Trafficking occurs when individuals are recruited, or, coerced into working in the sex-trade by means of exploitation through threat of their physical, psychological, and emotional being. It is an issue that has become a growing concern within Canada affecting young women and girls entering adolescence who are both emotionally and financially marginalized. This presentation will explore the issue of domestic sex trafficking. It will detail the comprehensive system of psychological manipulation used by traffickers to lure their victims into the sex trade and to keep them in it. It will explore the various individual and systemic risk factors that contribute to making the population of young women most vulnerable to becoming trafficked. It will describe the ways in which traumatic experiences effect psychological, emotional, and neurological development and how this affects an individual’s vulnerability to becoming trafficked into the sex trade. Lastly, the presentation will explore trauma based interventions specific to the population.
Learning Objectives:
Looking Back - Looking forward: An Intergenerational Trauma-informed Maternal-Infant Therapy Group
Presenters: Diane de Camps Meschino MD
Presentation Format: Single Paper
Skill Level: All
Abstract: Purpose: Mothers with experience of childhood interpersonal trauma often their struggle with interactions with their infants, mood, anxiety, and affect regulation. Interactions may perpetuate intergenerational trauma, impairing infant attachment, maternal mood and parenting.
Methods: Two hour groups with 6 mothers-infant pairs for 12 weeks include:1. Individual interviews determine the impact of childhood interpersonal trauma and a formulation is given to each participant. 2. Trauma informed therapy techniques to improve affect regulation, depression, and anxiety are taught and practiced. 3.Emotional and cognitive insights are gained via group reflections on parenting style and attachment style (simultaneously looking at family of origin and infant interactions). Watch Wait and Wonder(infant play therapy) further reveals projections onto infant. Group therapy processes insights and emotional reactions. 4. Mentalizing-based parenting knowledge and skills are taught and practiced as alternatives to repetition of unwanted parenting experiences. Outcomes were assessed via questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and pre- and post-treatment measures, Results: The feasibility and acceptability were excellent. Depression symptoms scores decreased (sig);Anxiety scores decreased; and total Parenting Stress Index decreased. Surveys and interviews revealed enhanced insight, parenting capacity, affect regulation, and positive maternal-infant interactions. It is possible to reduce intergenerational trauma during an infant’s first year.
Learning Objectives:
Mothering While Homelessness: Intersecting Sites of Exclusion, Trauma, and Resistance
Presenter: Sarah Benbow RN PhD, Professor, School of Nursing, Faculty of Health Sciences, Human Services and Nursing, Fanshawe College, London ON
Presentation Format: Single Paper
Skill Level: All
Abstract: Mothers experiencing homelessness experience multiple and compounding trauma(s). The purpose of this study was to critically examine the socio-political context, health needs, exclusionary and inclusionary forces, and strategies of resistance demonstrated by mothers experiencing homelessness. This critical narrative study was informed by the theoretical perspective of intersectionality. Data were collected at various homeless shelters and programs that provide services for women and mothers who are homeless in Southern Ontario. Based on research findings, participants troubled the notion of receiving adequate “care” within a system that inherently excludes them. That is, participants noted the systemic discrimination and stigma they experienced across and within multiple health and social sectors. Further, participants made note of the never-ending and compounding trauma(s) they experienced throughout their lives and while homeless, even once acute crises were overcome. Findings suggest that services, including trauma-informed services ,are limited in comprehensively addressing the needs of mothers experiencing homelessness. Rather, a paradigmatic shift to support systemic trauma-informed policies, practice, and overall philosophy of care is needed. Within such a shift, attention must be paid to the incredible acts of resistance enacted in response to trauma(s), as well as the exclusionary practices preventing necessary access to services.
Learning Objectives:
Capacity Building and Therapeutic Consultation for Children and Families with Histories of Complex Trauma in Rural, Remote, and Underserviced Canadian Communities through Tele Mental Health Services
Presenters: Susan Dundas, MD, FRCPC, Psychiatrist with the TeleLink Mental Health Program at The Hospital for Sick Children, Janine Lawford, MSW, RSW, Social Worker with the TeleLink Mental Health Program at The Hospital for Sick Children, David Willis, PBMD, MBA, Program Manager with the TeleLink Mental Health Program at The Hospital for Sick Children, and Jaclyn Kerr, HBSc, Research Coordinator with the TeleLink Mental Health Program at The Hospital for Sick Children
Presentation Format: Single Paper
Skill Level: Intermediate
Abstract: Purpose: The TLMHP has provided psychiatric assessment to underserviced communities in Ontario for 15 years and recently in Nunavut. Initially, a consultative model of service was created to meet clinical needs. However, it became apparent that this model was not adequate to service children presenting with complex trauma histories and a new multidisciplinary therapeutic consultation model and team were developed to address these emerging needs. Method: Children with presenting histories of acute traumatic incidences or ambient developmental trauma are triaged to this team. Subsequent consultations involve an expert psychiatrist and social worker who provide therapeutic trauma-focused consultation and recommendations for intervention. Clinical capacity building needs are also identified and relevant members of the child’s systems may participate in a variety of capacity building experiences. After each consultation, diagnostic/epidemiological information is collected.
Findings:347 consultations (initial and follow up) have occurred between 2010 and 2014 and have been examined and analyzed for epidemiological patterns. Conclusions: In enhancing the knowledge base of service providers and families with histories of trauma, as well as developing culturally sensitive practices and knowledge for working with remote communities and ongoing comprehensive qualitative research, this team works towards a bilateral knowledge transfer that is viable and self-sustaining.
Learning Objectives:
Becoming Trauma-Informed Social Work Educators
Presenters: Janice Carello, LMSW, PhD Candidate, University at Buffalo, Molly R. Wolf, LMSW, PhD, Assistant Professor, Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, and Elaine S. Rinfrette, RN, MSW, PhD, LCSW-R, LSW, Assistant Professor/MSW Program Director, Edinboro University of Pennsylvania
Presentation Format: Panel Discussion
Skill Level: All
Abstract: Despite movement toward a trauma-informed approach to healthcare, human services, and K-12 education, this shift has been slow to occur in higher education, including programs that train professionals for clinical practice. As social work professionals, we understand the need to work from a trauma-informed perspective. As educators, we experienced this need and use it as an educational model as well. By utilizing a ‘what happened to you’ perspective over a ‘what’s wrong with you’ perspective, we have been able to work with our students and fellow educators in a different way than before. During this panel, we will a) present our rationales for becoming trauma-informed educators, b) describe the processes by which we are becoming more trauma-informed in our approaches to teaching, and c) explore the methods we have been using to advocate for trauma-informed educational practices.
Learning Objectives:
