Child trauma – exposure, symptoms and neurobiology

The psycho-education of making the connection between the traumatic event(s) and resultant symptoms is often a revelation for children, adolescents, and caring adults. Typically, children feel they are going “crazy” because (i) they have little understanding of where their symptoms are coming from and (ii) they feel they have no control over the symptoms.

Following trauma exposure, children often believe there is something wrong with them and blame themselves for their symptoms. By helping children connect the traumatic event(s) to their symptoms they discover the cause and, therefore, the meaning for their embodied disturbance, distressed feelings, frightening thoughts, and troubled behavior.

Children and adults discover their symptoms (learning, relationship, and behavior problems) are a normal and natural consequence of the horror(s) they experienced. Once children and adults know the reason for their symptoms, they understand they are no longer “going mad” and that they are not to “blame.” Consequently, the innate healing process often begins.

The lesson explores the nature and extent of trauma exposure for different education-based populations in the public, independent/private sector, and international sectors. Helpful theories, conceptualizations, definitions, and prevalence statistics are provided to emphasize that the presenting difficulties are a normal reaction to adversity.

Who is the course designed for

The course has been designed for educators, support staff, and paraprofessionals who deliver services directly or indirectly to children, adolescents, and teachers in the public, independent/private, and international sectors. Relevant professionals include teachers/educators, school counselors, adjustment counselors, child-care staff, college counselors, education-related health professionals, educational psychologists, juvenile detention and youth prison educators, and social workers.

Organizations include private, public, and international preschool, middle schools, elementary schools, high-schools, colleges, residential settings, juvenile detention centers, youth prisons, and children’s homes.

Course duration & pace of learning

✓ 12 hours / 3 lessons @ 4 hours per lesson.

✓ Lessons are chunked for micro-learning lessons.

✓ Self-paced learning

✓ Recommended over 12 weeks.

Course availability

✓ 12 months

Course certification

✓ Following course completion, click on the link to download your Certificate of Course Completion with the stated number of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) hours.

Course credits

✓ Completion of this course course provides 12 points towards the purchase of future courses.

Course objectives

By the end of course students will learn the following:

1. The nature and extent of trauma exposure

Participants will learn to:

1. Adopt the trauma re-frame, i.e., the shift in focus from ‘what is the presenting problem,’ e.g., behavior problems and anxiety to discovering ‘what has happened to a child./adolescent.
2. Understanding what has happened, e.g. natural or human-made disaster, domestic violence etc. enables an educator/support worker to help a child make a meaningful connection between their traumatic exposure and their resultant symptoms.
3. Communicating the connection between traumatic event(s) and resultant symptoms also fosters an empathic and supportive relationship between a traumatized child and adult, a common factor in the healing process.
4. Knowing what has ‘happened’ can lead to a recommendation for an evidenced based trauma-specific intervention.

2. Resultant signs and symptoms

Participants will learn to:

1. Recognize how traditional definitions of trauma have undermined the identification of trauma in children and adolescents.
2. Explore the signs of PTSD, anxiety, and depression, as well as the more pervasive signs of developmental trauma disorder.
3. Understand how different types of trauma exposure are connected to different developmental trauma responses in children.
4. Identify the risk and protective factors for child traumatization and recovery.

3. Neurobiology of trauma

Participants will learn to:

1. Adopt a pragmatic approach to sharing the neurobiology of trauma to empower educational professionals, children, adolescents, caregivers, school support services and other child support organizations.
2. Utilize the scientific evidence on the neurobiology of trauma to create psycho-education materials to share with professionals, paraprofessionals, caregivers, children, and adolescents, .

Psycho-education is both a component in a child’s healing process and in helping professionals, paraprofessionals, and caregivers understand the nature of a child’s trauma, so they know what to do, and what to avoid. For children and adults, learning the neurobiology of trauma can be transformational.

Activities and assignments

Activities, based on different learning styles, involve written lectures, TED Talks, videos, webpages, books, and journal publications to enable a diversity of learning experiences

A pragmatic approach is taken to activities and assignments. Assignments are based on deep learning through application to real-life contexts and often result in the development of open education materials on different aspects of trauma to be shared with colleagues, caregivers, children, and others. Students are advised to develop a reflective journal of ‘lessons learned.”

OpenAI ChatGPT

Students are advised to use ChatGPT to ask questions throughout lessons. To ask your questions, open the ChatGPT search page (click on the link below).

https://chatgpt.com/?q=%s

NB: There is no evidence to support ChatGPT strategies for individual client mental health concerns.

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