Trauma Informed Care and Practice – an Indigenous Approach to Developing Worker Skills | Hedland

This workshop begins to unpack ‘Symptom as History’, by examining constructs of collective, historical, complex, developmental, and generational trauma evident in many Indigenous (and other) populations. The workshop places emphasis on developing skills to create culturally safe healing environments, through building culturally competent professionals. It presents tools for developing safe story work through geno-grams or story maps to help map generational stories that provide insight for both client and worker care into traumatic distress and generational resilience in healing or recovery from trauma. Using the construct of circle work or yarning’ circle, it opens opportunity to establish ‘what’s in the field’ in the client group, as well as what’s in the workplace. Vicarious trauma can be a possible outcome of working with distressed clients so the concept of the intersection between communities of care and communities of practice in responding to vicarious trauma, across the organisation, in the workforce and in communities is considered.

Participant Learning Outcomes

1. Create safe therapeutic environments in providing trauma informed care and practice to diverse groups – implementing practices that acknowledge and demonstrate respect for specific cultural backgrounds.
2. Understand trauma and its impact on individuals, families and social groups.
3. Construct and use geno-grams as trauma audits for self and others, to understand client trauma stories and integrate and coordinate care to meet the needs of clients and deepen workforce skills and responses.
4. Support safe relationship building (with clients and in the workforce) through using geno-grams to name resiliency as a strength and protective factor which promotes recovery and healing for clients and a felt sense of competency in workers.
5. Establish ‘what’s in the field’, through yarning circles – which support victims / survivors of trauma to regain a sense of control over their daily lives, actively involving them in individual, family or communal recovery.
6. Share power and governance, including involving community members in the design and evaluation of programs through yarning circles.
7. Understand and respond to the need to care-for-self while caring-for clients, in response to vicarious trauma, its development, risks and protective factors and barriers, in developing communities of practice and growing communities of care.
8. Utilise a self and other reflective ‘Elders Circle’ as a review – evaluative process.

Email admin@paha.org.au ASAP to secure your place — spots are filling fast!